Daddy Time & Snowman Buddy Craft

After a long week, we've been enjoying a little more family time (and I'm loving having Doug around for backup!).  Yesterday he took Koen and Tavin out all morning to the Carnegie Science Center.  They had a great time together.  Here are the boys enjoying lunch overlooking the city (they look a little tired...could it be the early wake-up?).

On the way home Doug took the boys to see the big tree at PPG Square.  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Doug made a slight mistake and got the boys hot cocoa.  In their overtiredness, the sugar was a disastrous combo and they were silly and disobedient upon coming home.  Oh well, I was ramped up for it after a nice morning to myself while Penn slept and I had a blast getting through a bunch of small tasks and just enjoyed the quiet during that time.  Doug did a great job with them in the AM and then he had to work all afternoon as he found out yesterday morning that he will be preaching this weekend, the pastor scheduled to preach got sick.  Doug's had a great attitude about it and I'm happy that he's available to do it.  It changes our plans this weekend a little, but for the most part we were free, so it's not a big deal.  Anyways, I tried to give Doug space to get some work done most of the afternoon, but he did manage to squeeze in a bike ride with Koen from 5 to 5:45pm.  Koen loved it and did very well as they did a hilly trek.  

Today Doug took the boys out this morning (again impressive since he has to leave midday to go up and prepare for preaching tonight).  They went and ran some grocery errands and made a stop at the library.  Before leaving, Doug had a special time hanging with Penn while the big boys were playing.  

We had a nice lunch together (turkey soup!) and then Doug took off.  Tavin was pretty much ready for a nap after that.  And I'm trying to lay him down earlier anyways to help with the nighttime go-to-sleep process, so he went down pretty quick.  Then Penn was ready to go down too.  That left Koen and I some special time together since I had gotten a lot of stuff done in the AM while the big boys were out and Penn was napping.  Anyways, I'd been looking forward to doing some adaptation of the craft at this link (by the way, love this site - so encouraging!).  
http://www.themobsociety.com/2012/11/kids-christmas-crafts-for-the-non-crafty-mom/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheMobSociety+%28The+MOB+Society%29
The mom at that link did the crafty part herself (which is why her finished product looks a lot better than ours!), but I knew Koen would enjoy the cutting, gluing and coloring.  It's more important that we enjoy the project together than that it looks perfect.  (As a perfectionist, I have to remind myself of this over and over).  Koen loved the craft.

We are going to use the snowmen a little bit differently.  We talked about the Bible verses that encourage brotherly love and good behavior towards one another and then whenever I see one of the brothers displaying the truths in the verses, they get to keep the snowman as their buddy for the day.  It can sleep by their bed, come to the meal with them, etc.  The verses are mentioned in the link I posted, but they all talk about love, kindness, forgiveness, compassion, building each other up, etc.  Koen seems pretty excited about getting a snowman buddy!