The snow is thick and heavy this morning. It deadens every sound and makes the world so pretty.

Our day yesterday:
6:12 am--I wake up and head into the living room with my Bible, another book called Making Peace, and a coffee.
6:46 am--I hear the kids' alarm go off. No further sound from up there.
about 7:30 am--Simon gets up.
8 am--I stop reading and get a shower, breakfast, etc.
8:47 am--I decide if the kids are going to make it to church with us they better get up. Go upstairs and find that they did get up at 6:46 and even got dressed; are playing super quietly in their cardboard, tape and blankets fort. Surprise!
9:30 am--we're all ready for church 15 minutes early. Big shock!
12:28 pm--We return home following church, annual meeting, pizza lunch to get ready for toboganning.
1:31 pm--Walk over to the hill where we meet friends and have a fun hour and a half. Lots of spills! Lots of fun.
3:12 pm--hot chocolate.
4:18 pm--"Let's find out where so-and-so is meeting for church and join them tonight. We haven't seen them in ages."
5:49 pm--Grab the crockpot of chili and head out into the wind and painful ice-snow to join the potluck and service just a block away (actually two blocks--the church we thought was the right one wasn't).
6:02 pm--"Surprise!" An enjoyable evening of catching up with friends and hearing a refresher of God's story to the world.
9:22 pm--Back in the house, kids run up to get 'jammas on while we get them a quick snack before tucking them in, then check email and review the evening.
10:01 pm--The thermostat drops down to its nighttime setting and we take the cue and go to bed.

Today the late to beds have been late to rise and I'm enjoying an extra hour of quiet. Doesn't do much for the "start school on time" agenda of late, but it'll make for happier kids who are more willing to tackle the schoolwork. Six of one....

An early morning phone call with an interesting idea for future work....hmmm....will have to wait and see if anything develops.

Sunny day today and mild. Nice. After a busy day outside yesterday and a late night at a church meeting, the kids slept in and have just finished breakfast. I'm planning pancakes for lunch since I promised them yesterday for Shrove Tuesday but forgot to make them so I skipped breakfast toay to wait for the pancakes choosing instead coffee and a vitamin c chewable. Nice example. I'm considering a school day outside instead of at the dining room table but we did that yesterday already. However today it's sunny. We'll see how their morning chore list gets tackled this morning. I may just send them into the backyard.

Mild weather today. The kids are building a snow fort with the perfectly packable snow. I'm about to corral them to go visit "our" trees by the lake. Good way to combine nature notebooking with time outdoors. And this time I'm even going outside!

Today's search and discovery: http://birdnature.com/sep1901/parula.html

Meeting tonight following ballet and a quick supper--should be interesting. We've been writing down notes to prepare for the meeting. Not a good sign of a smooth evening from our perspective. Perhaps we'll be pleasantly surprised....

A new day. Only 45 minutes until we need to leave the house and needless to say I'm the only one awake. But last week we made it out with only 15 minutes to go.

But I'm not sure the company will get invited if Husband the Inviter (in this case) is still asleep.

Mambu ve. There's always next time.

Day 3 of playing Antarctica in the backyard. It's been snowing for days now--light, fluffy stuff that hardly accumulates due to the wind that's also blowing. I think there have been more snow days this week than not in the public school world. The children have been quick to discover the joys of snow tunnels, hiking through the "Antarctic" with their snowshoe poles. Not the snowshoes. They haven't mastered those yet. They've dug holes, built forts and "tonka boards" (who knows?) and have generally enjoyed themselves silly. Me too, in my quiet little house with a cup of coffee in one hand and a book or computer in the other.

This morning while the chilluns have been working on math and Spanish I've spent time finding some cool math sites. This one has to do with Valentine's Day. http://www.googolpower.com/content/free-learning-resources/valentines-math

It all started out by looking for some good bread baking websites. Got a little sidetracked. In the meantime I just pulled out my own recipe and "whipped-up" some cinnamon buns. Very tasty. Eat with cheese and I can call it lunch.

Varios fotos de nuestra vida

the view from our street in mid-january

a cheery daffodil contrasts with the fresh snow above
an electrifying experience at the ontario science museum