We’re home.
It is so good to be home after being away for two and a half of the past three weeks.
We had a lazy, yet somewhat productive at-home day yesterday.
My girls got busy playing. They played “book store.”
Need I say how much I love that they were having so much fun playing book store? That’s almost as good as playing “Library.”
It was the kind of day when lots of things just worked out nicely. The older girls played well together (all sorts of things besides book store). Their imaginations expanded as they became reacquainted with their own toys. My husband got lots of work done in the yard and in our garage. Sis sat on the floor and played with these scarves the whole time I cooked dinner.
Harmonious.
As you can see, the girls were excited to see their things again.
They did have a wonderful time at the Farm too. Imaginary play is at its best when my kids have lots of different, old, and totally unrelated toys to play with.
Different dress up clothes? No problem. Just make up some new characters. Lass became “Princess Petunia” and Miss invented a little boy named “Parch.”
Yes, Princess Petunia wears a red cowboy hat and a Santa apron.
She wanted me to put her hair up in this cap so she would be “disguised” as a boy.
They played with HeMan characters, an old Mr. T doll, two Fisher Price planes, an Etch-A-Sketch, and many more random toys that all came together beautifully in the richness of their play. Strawberry Shortcake was Sis’s fave.
They got some good crafting time in with their Baba too. Miss displayed her task-master side when directing my mother-in-law in the creation of some new dresses for two of my sister-in-law’s old baby dolls. One doll became Rapunzel, draped in purple tulle with golden ribbons extending from her hair, while another just got a “beautiful, colorful, princess dress” made from pink tulle and lots of ribbon tied just so. The girl definitely knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to say so.
My mother-in-law also had two of these Cinderella carriages made from dried gourds for the girls to paint.
It was serious work.
It really was a wonderful trip.
And it is so good to be home. As much as I love going to visit family, and I know we will always continue to do it because it is just important, my life is made so much easier when I can mother my girls in our own space. It’s amazing how much of my day flows more easily because of our routines and the way we have adapted our home to work for us.
But a little inconvenience is a small price to pay for family time. That’s what it’s all about of course. My children blossom amongst the sunshine of those who love them. The more the merrier.
We have some exciting things coming up.
We’re planning some renovations in our house (goodbye 1990s oak and brass, hello new range and pantry and kitchen floor and basement bathroom!).
We’re starting (slowly) our home preschool. This week is “T for Turkey” week. I ordered a laminating machine and some binders to start getting organized. By the way, what is with all the “Binder for Women” comments in the Amazon reviews of binders? I missed the joke, I guess, but I’ve seen links on FB and there are hundreds of these comments it seems. I don’t get it. … Anyway, I’ll let you know how our first week goes.
My hubby and I will be bringing back our “At-Home Chopped Challenge” (in which I randomly choose three ingredients from an Excel spreadsheet my husband has made up and use them to make dinner). If you want a little background, you can check out some of my previous successes (spaghetti squash, merguez sausage, and spinach or raisins and cherry tomatoes) and failures (tofu, plantains, and bacon bits or maybe sweet pickles, bran cereal, and pickled herring) in this endeavor. Even when the dishes have turned out horrendous (just look at some of those ingredients, for pete’s sake!), it has always been a fun cooking game for us, so I’m really looking forward to drawing my next three ingredients. Anyone want to suggest some fun ingredients for our spreadsheet?
