Motivation?

Good Morning!!

With all of the "newness" of the New Year and everyone making great resolutions about getting up earlier, raring to go, starting afresh...blah, blah blah, this morning when my feet hit the floor at 4:50 am (ugh..even typing it is ugly!  lol)  I SO did not want to get out of bed!!!  I mean, really...it's FREEZING out and I just wanted to stay all snuggled in my bed - with my heated mattress pad on and my snuggly dog under the covers with us!  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr....so hard to motivate...

But, alas, when the thermostat says what...10 degrees outside?  I know that running outside today was NOT an option.  I see people do it and I think - nope...that's not me.  I know my limits and running in 10 degree weather seems just...well...stupid.  HA!  (no offense to you hard core runners out there!)  But I also know that I MUST get a workout in somehow and if running isn't happening then yoga must.  I have a few great yoga DVDs that are challenging and powerful.  Today I did this DVD by Elise Gulan.  It's many years old and is also available on YouTube.  Since Ari wakes usually around 5:45 am I had no choice but to get the heck out of bed and hit the mat!  Once I was moving I was feeling good.  It's a great 45 minute flow and really wakes up your core.  Literally the second I finished Ari woke up and the rest of the day started rolling!

The kids wanted to start a little later this morning as they were enjoying playing with Ari and really, I can't stay no when they are so thoroughly enjoying themselves.  We've just introduced Ari to play-doh which he loves rolling and cutting.  We also have been having ragingly loud dance parties in the playroom complete with instruments and jamming music.  We move and groove and wake up our souls!!!  Kendall and Tyler have been running a stuffed animal hospital out of Kendall's room for days now.  They make their rounds in the morning before school starts and then again when school ends.  At night they tuck each creature into their respective sleeping place for the night.  It's the sweetest form of play, so nurturing and kind.  This kind of play has always brought K and T together - there are never disagreements, arguing or bickering when they play this particular type of game.  I know they won't always do this so I love and nurture it while they enjoy it.

he ADORES her to no end!!!

Simon - the sloth...

His best "teddy" friend Timmy

Moving forward we have a fun day filled with journaling, writing, and science.  Today we started with our journaling and spelling - complete with sentence building.

Kendall's journaling prompt was to write about a trip or a place she loves to go.  Ty's was to write about someone special.

hers

hers

his (just so sweet that it makes me cry ;)

using his new Christmas gift from us!!  The 150 Prismacolor pencil set!

After this the children did their spelling and made sentences from each of their words and then they went off for DEAR time.

working on *gradually ;)

From here we did a invisible ink science experiment with lemon juice and different kinds of paper. The children each had 5 different kinds of paper and 2 containers.  One container had lemon juice and the other had lime juice.  They doodled on their papers - 10 papers in all, using a cotton swab.  Once the papers were completely dry they used a hot iron (with supervision, of course) and heated the paper up which in turn made the juice turn yellow and/or brown.  They had a great time showing each other what they made and they loved watching it appear when using the iron!

hers (there are more pages - not shown here)

his (there were more pages but not shown here)

We then had to hit the grocery store!

This afternoon, Kendall had a playdate while Tyler had his first pottery class.  He was BEYOND excited.  It's a 90 minute class so I took advantage of the time and zipped to my local Paper Source to start sourcing out samples for my future sister-in-law's shower invitations!  I am making them by hand along with their wedding invitations so now that the holiday's are over I need to get moving on all of them.  So Ari and I had a little alone time, which is rare.

scrub, scrub

cleaning up!

The coolest thing about his penguin is that it is hollow inside!!  He told me exactly how he made it and was so thrilled to have learned new techniques today!

It was a busy day but a good one!

See you tomorrow!