Due to the severe cold and lots more accumulated snow, the kiddos had THREE snow days this week ~ which makes a total of SIX snow days this school year. They are now officially out of these "free" days off from school and have to begin making those days up at the end of the school year. By Thursday, they had returned to school and Friday I was able to pick them up from Diana and bring them over to my little place.
They didn't waste any time, once they got here, and started in on projects … my art cupboard is easily accessible to them and everything they need is right at their fingertips.
Chris has a buddy from his class at school who has an upcoming birthday, so Chris decided he needed to share a little bit of his love of football with him. This is Chris sketching an action football picture for his friend, Gage.
Matthew got out our supply of pipe cleaners, was able to find our only book on constructing pipe cleaner animals, and quite literally spent his weekend making every single animal in the book.
Emma made a whole forest of "truffula trees" (from "The Lorax") and enjoyed herself hugely.
Matthew was a little bit frustrated with using a nail clipper to snip various sizes of pipe cleaners, but he finally got the hang of it and did a great job all by himself. He is a very independent little person and doesn't like to ask for help; however, I encouraged him that asking for help can be a good thing!
Christopher is a seriously good artist. He drew many action football pictures, all freehand.
Chris decided he NEEDED to draw all of the NFL team logos, so we went on-line and looked them up, printed off a copy for him, and then he copied them onto his own paper and colored them in beautifully.
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| Nice job, Chris! |
This project kept Christopher very engaged and focused all Friday evening. I was impressed at his tenacity!
Matthew's pipe cleaner menagerie … aren't they delightful? There are little bumble bees, a tiger, lion, penguin, leopard, fancy bird, lizards and more that I didn't quite get in the photo.
Emma's truffle trees were quite wonderful as well. She even figured out how to get them to stand up.
Every Friday night after dinner, following our kitchen clean-up, we have our Bible story time. This week we studied the story of Gideon. I went on-line this week and was able to print off a nice mini-storybook for the kiddos to color while I was telling the story.
I've found that the children do much better during story time if they have something to busy their hands with … so making this book was very helpful. I wondered how closely they could listen to the details of the story while involved with an art project, but our question and answer time proved that they listened very well!
Afterwards, we had a good talk about what it means to trust God for really BIG problems in our lives as well as the little things that bother us.
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One of the pictures Chris drew for his friend
Pictured are two of his favorite football players |
After our Bible time, the children went back to their art projects while I was getting the main room ready for sleeping bags, blankets, extra pillows, and our movie time.
I had checked out of our church library the DVD "You Are Special" by Max Lucado. It was as good as the book! We watched it and thanked the Lord that He loves us and that each of us is special because we are made by His hand.
We also watched "The Story of Jesus, for Children" which is an updated version of "The Jesus Film" and His story of told through the eyes of three children who lived at the time of Christ, who actually met Him and listened to His teaching. It was well done and these kiddos appreciated it very much, even though it had really sad parts in it.
We set a NEW RECORD for all three children being asleep by 11:00. WOW. I was pleasantly surprised. After our movie is finished, I put on a quiet music CD ~ our favorite one is Michael Card's Lullabies for Children ~ and then each one of them gets a six minute back rub (timed with a timer so that everything is "fair and square" !) And then I usually edit photos on my computer over on the couch and watch over them until they are sleeping. They seem to like this set-up very much. And I do too. Once I am sure everyone is sleeping, I go to sleep too.
Everyone slept in until 8:15 Saturday morning. Emma was still sleepy, so she transferred herself to my room and rested in my bed for a little while until she was ready to join us. We continued with our "usual" routine, nothing special … just the typical games we play, pictures we draw, art projects, etc.
Since the severe cold had left our area, we ventured outside for a little while after lunch. The kids had so much fun outside in all of this snow!
Emma was intent on unburying my little "Welcome" flag. She was successful too. I decided to bring it inside my house for the duration of the winter.
Christopher constructed this ice snow-guy and named him "Kyle" … he was SO proud of him. We had fun trying to get Kyle's face to work out. We finally got some sour grapes from inside the house to use for his eyes and his smile. Thankfully, I had a few nice long carrots for noses ...
Matthew had a blast working on his very OWN, separate, snow-guy named "Mike." The snow wasn't always cooperative as it has become SO solid and icy … but the boys kept at it … good job kiddos!
So thankful for these ordinary times together, nothing super special, but memories that I will cherish always.
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