Snow Day in...Camas?

I have to laugh. Everyone started talking about a snow storm yesterday. School was cancelled last night at 6 p.m. Lots of thing were closed or called off. Not to offend my Washington friends, but the light dusting at the noon hour does not worry me. I heard there were cars sliding and tonight might be freezing rain, so I am open to correction.

Regardless, it was good to have a snow day. Things happened slowly in the morning and it was a nice change of pace. Chris made breakfast - ham and egg croissants. Then the kids started school with Betsy being the teacher. The boys got into this adding thing where they started with 1+1=2, 2+2=4, 4+4=8, and so on. They got up to 16 million and 33 million. It was really surprising how much they stuck with it, and did it all mental math. No writing, carrying the tens over, anything like that. They asked me to check their work sometimes, which took me a little bit. Betsy and Ruby (and Abby) worked on Betsy's Star of the Week Poster. It's cute to see Betsy want to have things a certain way. She told me exactly what she wanted written for the captions.

Then we did a Christmas devotional about giving gifts and I had an early Christmas gift to give them. It was a hat and gloves for all of them, and scarves for the girls. They put them on and went outside because they saw Keane and Lily outside. The Gillespies came out, too. It was super windy and cold so the girls didn't last long. The boys were outside a little longer and did some sledding down the cul-de-sac with the Cooper's sleds. But even they came in freezing.

Betsy did her reading lesson. Gavin read a choose-your-own adventure. Then they got to watch some PBS kids and Frosty the Snowman. While I was turning on PBS kids I noticed that Ruby had cut her hair. :( Such beautiful hair and I would have loved to have taken her to get a cute haircut, which we have talked about many times. She cried when I noticed and said sorry. I think she knew I was sad, too. Abby was already waking up, so Chris offered to play with her for a minute so I could take a break. I really don't know why making it through an entire day is so difficult for me, but I do a lot better when I get a break, which is much more possible on non-snow days.

We recently were visiting with some new friends in our ward about chores. They used to have each kid do one chore of kitchen clean-up after dinner. But there was always fighting, so they changed it to assigning the entire kitchen clean-up to one kid each night and they rotate nights. We have discussed recently that our kids need some more responsibilities. And with a larger house, I can't do all the clean-up after they go to bed or while the girls are napping anymore. It's way too much for one person anymore.

Anyway, new chores approach - everyone has one chore in the morning and evening assigned to them for the entire week and then we rotate. And when I say everyone, I mean the older three children.

The boys are learning a duet on the piano for Jolly Old Saint Nicholas and Jingle Bells. Gavin is also learning We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Gabriel is learning Away in a Manger and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Betsy practices on her glockenspiel and plays Jingle Bells and Star Light, Star Bright. She gets really into it.