January

One of my New Year's Resolutions for my family was to make a PLAN (as in get it on my calendar, let nothing stand in the way...) once a month to do a family activity that's out of the house, fun, and special. Our mission was accomplished last weekend at Bradley Lake Park in Puyallup. It was called "Snowed In" and they actually had huge truck-fulls of snow brought in to this park from the mountains! There were spots for sledding, snowman building, playing in the snow and even a fire pit for making s'mores! (Parent Map magazine, which you can pick up free at any local library, always a calendar and list of free activities like this around your area. ) It was FREEZING but FUN. It was so nice to let the boys play in the snow without having to plan a whole day trip to the mountain!

My other family resolution was to implement a once a day 20-minute reading time for the big boys. We do it at 5:00 every night, which calms things down right when they would normally wind up! Zachary has started a chapter book series which he reads independently on his bed while Kaden and I will do an "author study" (Mommy's a teacher, remember?) from books we've picked up at the library. Kaden and I have been focusing on Eric Carle books this week, which are excellent pre-school texts. (Particularly the Brown Bear, Brown Bear/Panda Bear, Panda Bear/Baby Bear,Baby Bear series...these good repetitious and predictable texts are so good for pre and early readers!)

This time of night had always been the time of my day that was so stressful with the kids, but now that we have this plan in place it has added such a positive element to our day!