Cold Days, Cancelled Days and More Cancelled Days

Oh my goodness, this winter is very frustrating!!  I need a routine, I need predictability, especially right now as I try to wrap my head around how having four kids is all going to shake out in the day to day, but no oh no, that's not happening.  This frigid weather and snow are keeping me on my toes with getting Koen and Tavin's school delayed or cancelled what feels like practically every other day or more!  Anyways, here's a review of the end of our week trying to make the most of the unexpected time with the boys home from school.

First of all, on Tuesday I got a few cute pics I haven't shared yet.  Here's a tired Mommy with her tired cutie.

Later that morning Jansen had a big blowout and ruined his outfit, so Gramma wrapped him in a blanket while I grabbed an outfit.  He was so calm and awake all snuggled up.  So precious!

On Wednesday, we actually did have a pretty normal day since Koen had school and Tav went to preschool and Penn had his in-home speech therapy session (first time since Jansen was born).  Penn enjoys lots of playtime with Gramma these days when I'm busy with Jansen and he wouldn't have it any other way.  Here he is posing for Gramma..."so big!"

Later in the morning, I gave Penn a haircut.  Note how long it is above...then check out this "after" shot below.  Handsome little fella!

On Thursday, Koen was home from school.  Thankfully, Doug was able to change his schedule around and be home most of the morning.  Koen had a great idea to have a big Lincoln Log building session.  Doug loved the idea (he's a little bit serious about the Lincoln Logs).  

Here's the monstrous finished product.  Koen and Tav had fun using their Lego City Police vehicles and pretending it was a big police station (complete with a jail of course).

Gramma had some reading time with Penn Rye later that morning while Koen and Tavin went outside briefly to shovel (single digit temps, so had to really limit the outdoor time even though they would've benefited more from hours of fresh air rather than just minutes!).  Look how snuggly Penn is with his Gramma!

Here's Penn watching the big bros get the shoveling done (it's awesome to see how handy all these sons come in when there's some hard work to be done!).

In the afternoon on Thursday, I had a few things up my sleeve to keep the boys busy.  Do you remember that lovely Mother's Blessing my girlfriends threw for me earlier in January?  Well, they had the foresight to know that I would need some special things on hand to keep the big boys busy during the winter months after baby was born.  And boy did I need some inspiration this frigid afternoon with the boys running a combination of either driving each other (and me) crazy or being partners in crime getting each other so wound up and silly.  It was time to dive into some of these creative gifts!!  So, we had a lot of fun doing our first ever KiwiCrate!  Deborah got us a 3 month subscription and I gotta say, after just doing our first box of fun, I'm definitely loving it.  The box of crafts were winter themed.  There were two main crafts, but lots of other little things with tons of ideas for other crafts/experiments/activities with simple around-the-house stuff too.  We stuck to the two main crafts, but believe me, we will be pulling out the other ideas someday soon!  First we made a snowball toss.  Here are the boys working on the snowman assembly.

Then for the toss...  They loved this activity.  It kept them busy for awhile too (until you know, it got crazy silly again!).  I was happy they had something so hands-on to get a little indoor physical activity.

Next we worked on the luminary activity.  We had to leave the first part to dry and returned to the craft after Penn was up from his nap.  Penn found the "Steve the Kiwi" stuffed animal that comes in the first box delivered by KiwiCrate.  Penn and Steve are buds.

The luminary project was a big hit as well.  The boys were able to do much of it on their own and both chose different types of scenes to make on their lanterns with the stickers provided by KiwiCrate.

Here's Koen's finished product...a wintry night scene.

And Tav's...a night in the Arctic.

That about got us through til dinnertime on Thursday and then it's a whirlwind through to bedtime (that thankfully Doug was home for it all to help).

On Friday, the boys again had school cancelled.  Thankfully we had some out-of-the-house errands and appointments that helped to break up the day and get the boys out of our house for awhile.  Even Penn got to venture out to Miss Christal's for speech therapy (again, the first time since Jansen was born).  We made it through yet another unexpected day of the boys being around and all of us out of our planned routine.  The hardest part really is that Tav and Koen have just had waaaaaay too much indoor time together.  Thankfully the weekend promises to have some opportunities for each of them to get out to some activities apart from each other so hopefully that will help give them the space and breathing room they need to settle down here at home (I sure hope so!!).

Here's hoping that next week we get a normal week of school (of course Koen has Friday off for parent-teacher conferences...unbelievable!) and we can find our family rhythm!