Making cookies on a snowy afternoon

Yes, you read that right - it was snowing today for just a little bit. Just enough big wet white rain to make the kids really excited about winter time. Since I spent 6 hours on Sunday reviewing for and taking final exams, I've declared a holiday from school for Monday and Tuesday this week. Just from my own school, not Joshua's; he begs to do reading lessons the minute he gets up in the morning. For the past two days we've been cleaning the kids' rooms, tossing out broken toys, giving away outgrown clothes, and re-organizing. Megan now has a nice little area to hang up all of her dress-up clothes. And I stayed up until midnight last night organizing the homeschooling supplies into some cubbies so that Joshua can get started on some stuff on his own while I clean up after breakfast. He's very self-motivated.

I went to the Scholastic Book Fair at North Star Elementary School yesterday and bought a bunch of great books for the kids. Some are sticker books and some are activity books and one or two board books for Daniel to keep in the car. It was so fun visiting in the elementary school.

Today the kids and I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. They are soooo yummy. I had to get some pictures. Here's one of Daniel sitting at the table. Any time he hears me in the kitchen, he comes running and gets into his seat. I just told him not to touch the cookies because they are still hot. He's saying, 'tookies? hot? no tookies hot? tookies for Daniel?'



And then I turned my back to get the other cookie sheet out of the oven only to look back and he's handing out cookies to the rest of the kids! If he wasn't so cute, he'd be in big trouble. He would pick up a cookie off the cooling rack, take a bite and pass it to one of the other kids.

Here's the gang enjoying their 'tookies'. The 4th child is Sage, Clarissa's little girl. Sage was over for a playdate and had a wonderful time! Most of Joshua's homeschool supplies are in the cubbies by the table. The top drawer has items like a cardboard shoe with a lace to practice learning to tie a shoe, some math counter things that are like legos, alphabet cards for making words and some other manipulatives that he can get out and play with on his own while I help the little kids get dressed in the morning.
Of course, today is one of those days that the house is clean, the kids are playing nicely together, I'm actually showered and dressed, and dinner is ready....only to find out Keith is stuck out somewhere and not coming home tonight. :) Maybe that means he'll be off tomorrow? I doubt it. But the good news is that he took the entire week off next week, since Megan and I are going to Anchorage next Wednesday to follow up with her eye doctor.