indoor play - sticker tracing

Here in Michigan, our winters can stretch for months, sometimes from November to March, sometimes even into April. We've had a fairly mild winter so far, including a glorious 60 degree day last weekend but it's very possible that that day was the last time we'll get out of the 30's for the next month.

Our weather doesn't allow for regular or predictable outdoor play and, let's admit it, I'm not super enthusiastic about playing in the snow. Or being cold. This means I've been spending time on Pinterest lately looking for indoor play ideas and trying them out with the kids.

We've been having so much fun trying these new activities out and I'll be sharing them all here on the blog over the next week or so. I hope they inspire you and your family to play in new ways this winter.

First up... Sticker Tracing!

sick day, er...week

Well, our 2017 is off to a bit of a second rate start. Not awful, just not first rate.

First, Wells got sick. My happy little guy was just not quite himself and when daycare called to tell me he was "just so sad" I knew something was up. Turns out he had a double ear infection. Ick! Thankfully his course of antibiotics have worked wonders on him and he's back to normal again.

A few days after that call from daycare, Elia started coughing like crazy one night. The next night, it was worse and barky so I suspected croup. I took her to the doctor the next morning and they thought it was just a bad cold. We hunkered down for a sick day from school with lots of snuggles and rest time. Three full days of fever later, we were back at the doctor and it turns out she has pneumonia. Oof.

christmas recap

Happy New Year! I hope your 2017 is off to a bright start.

I thought I'd do a quick holiday recap before we get too far into January. Plus, I need to share all of the adorable photos I took over Christmas, right?

Are you ready for photo overload? Here we go.

The kids met the big guy at a Breakfast with Santa this year. One of them was more interested than the other.

holiday cheer: christmas brunch

This holiday season we are blessed to have almost all of our family coming to town. My brother, sister-in-law, and sweet nephew arrived this week from Cairo (yes, THAT Cairo), and my brother and sister who both live in Seattle got in yesterday. Todd's brother, our sister-in-law, and niece and nephew will be in from Denver next week and we cannot wait. The only ones missing will be my brother-in-law and sister-in-law-to-be and we will miss them dearly but can't blame them for wanting to enjoy a sunny vacation this year.

Needless to say, all of the family in town means that we get to spend a ton of time with them and these two weeks are going to be family packed and the best kind of busy.

focus 2016: update

At the beginning of the year, I wrote about my focuses for the year:

Family,
Faith,
Wellness, and
Enough.

As the year draws to a close, I wanted to revisit those ideas and give a little update on how it's gone.

Honestly, I wasn't as intentional about any of this as I hope to be. Still, since these areas are ones I'd been wanting to devote more attention too, they fairly easily remained my focus throughout the year. You can read all of my intentions in the links above.

I'm going to share below what came easiest to me in each category.