Amazing Opportunity

Today I had an epiphany! Ok, that might be a little strong. It wasn't actually an epiphany since it is something that I have already realized but never fully appreciated. I have an amazing opportunity that a lot of moms don't have and I have not been taking full advantage of it. My family is blessed in the fact that I do not have to work and am able to stay home to raise my girls (and soon-to-be-boy). I always wanted to be a mom and actually be the one to raise my children, (I am in no way saying there is anything wrong with working moms, I just always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.) but I feel as though I have not been using this opportunity to its fullest. And I could give you a long list of excuses, the highest of which might sound something like "Winter in Minot is so long and there is only so much you can do inside" but as I just said: these are excuses.

Well I am going to make me new "hobby" geared towards what I already should be doing. Daily activities with the kids. There are too many days when we really don't do much of anything, and it is just plain laziness on my part. I have a lot of ideas of how I am going to implement my new plan and I think that the easiest way for me to accomplish this is through weekly lesson plans. Yes yes, this is the teacher part of me coming out, but I did get my elementary ed degree for a reason, people! I am going to *tentatively* plan out our week with at least one activity. We usually are out of the house in the morning, so many of these home-activities will be after nap time, but those days we happen to be home all day we might just have to up our activities to two a day. I definitely plan to take the majority of my teaching cues from the girls. If they don't seem interested in what the activity is, or start to take it a different direction, I will gladly follow their lead. I want this to be a pleasant and fun experience, while also being educational.

We don't actually have a lot of fun craft materials, so I think I am going to have to start collecting things like construction paper, paints, pipe cleaners, pom-poms, etc. I also need to start saving things from around the house that we can use, like toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, tissue boxes. I might have to ask Brian to add a "craft allowance" to our budget...

So if there are any must-do crafts that your kids love, (or you love), please pass along any ideas! I will do my best to document our activities and see how dedicated I can be to this new project! Wish me luck!