Another day done

I am exhausted! Today did end up being a snow day and Matt had church meetings this evening and he's not home yet, so it has been a loooong day. I am ready for Zoe and Emily to go back to school tomorrow. Zoe is hoping for another snow day, but since there is no snow in the forecast for tonight/tomorrow, I told her to get in school-mode because she is going tomorrow! It is going to be very cold though, so I bet they'll be inside all day. I hope the teachers are rested up for that. I don't feel bad, it's their turn. Now having said all that, Emily may end up staying home tomorrow because she is getting the cold Zoe had. She has been doing pretty good today, which means tomorrow could be the day she feels the worst, we'll see. Zach is doing better today, but I am still wiping his nose constantly. Kate has the cold now too. She took a half hour nap this morning (she never takes a long nap) and almost fell asleep a couple of times this afternoon, but got woken up both times and refused to fall asleep again. So by 7:00 she was exhausted! Matt didn't feel good when he woke up this morning. It's only a matter of time I'm sure before I am sick and everyone will be taking care of me...HA HA! I just put the board up to the kids' room because they keep coming into the living room for one reason or another. They tend to do that when Matt is not here in the evening.

I am almost done taking our Christmas decorations down. We took the tree down yesterday, which bummed the kids out. I think they would be content to have it up all year long. All of the new toys are now put away and our living room is getting back to its pre-Christmas state.

I had the kids each write a thank-you card to their Grandma & Grandpa this morning for the gifts they received for Christmas. I also got a birthday card out, so I felt super productive by 9:30am. I actually got done the one thing I was determined to do today. :-) I had to do it before any of us got ready for the day, so we wouldn't get distracted with other things. It worked.

I've been thinking about the fun activities that we do together as a family or things that I do with the children at Christmastime and I'd like to make an effort this year to do more activities together during each holiday. I'm toying with the idea of wrapping Valentine books for them to unwrap each night leading up to Valentine's Day, but I'm wondering if that would make it less special at Christmastime with the Christmas books. What do you think? I'd like to come up with an easy Valentine craft and/or card for the kids to make for their classmates and friends. I usually have lots of ideas at this time of year for Valentine's Day, but they don't usually happen. When Zoe was about 4 and Emily 2, I gave them each small gifts each day for about a week leading up to Valentine's Day, which Zoe remembers, but I haven't done anything like that since.

I had the kids watch a few movies on Netflix today because most of us are tired of their new movies they have been watching over and over again. First they watched C.H.O.M.P. which is about a robotic dog. Zoe and Emily got into it, but Eleanor and Zach lost interest pretty quick. I had originally told them they could watch one movie, but since Eleanor didn't watch most of the dog movie and wanted to watch "Peter Pan" I figured I would let her watch it. I didn't pay close attention to what the Peter Pan movie was. Zoe mentioned it was a musical, so there would be a lot of singing. I knew it was under the family section and it was rated NR. They started watching it and I put Christmas decorations away. I paid little attention to the movie until the girls started saying "gross" and they were freaked out a bit. I watched it for awhile with them and wondered if I had misread the rating because this movie was definitely not rated NR and I was skeptical that it was rated G. I still wonder if I should have turned it off, but they had already watched a lot of the movie and even though it had some gross pirate scenes and a lot of action, the movie was pretty clean and they were enjoying it. I guess I wasn't up for the whining and complaining that would happen if I did turn it off. I just kept hoping that I wasn't letting my kids watch a PG-13 movie. When the movie was over, I looked at the movie rating and description again and it was supposed to be a musical with a NR rating and I noticed the reviews for the movie commented on the fact that the movie that played was not the movie they advertised. So anyway, the kids ended up watching the 2003 make of the movie Peter Pan which is rated PG, which made me feel better that during my weak moment I let them watch something that normally I wouldn't let them watch, but it wasn't something that really wasn't appropriate for them. Can you tell I'm feeling guilty about this? I'm very strict about what my kids watch and I have yet to feel comfortable with even Zoe watching PG movies. I don't like showing my kids a movie when I have read that some of the material in the movie may not be appropriate for children. My children will be the only children allowed for the first time to see PG movies at the age of 13 instead of PG-13 movies...because can you really picture yourself watching a PG-13 movie with your 13 year old? I can't.