(Cole in Wednesday’s storm)

Today, home at last.  I’d planned to have a peaceful day of recovery at home yesterday, but after we played downstairs in the morning for a few hours, I said to Ella, “Let’s go wake up Daddy.  It’s time for him to go to the bakery.”

“Yeah, let’s go to the bakery!”

“Well, I thought we’d stay home today sweetie, and Daddy will go to the bakery.”

“No, we need to go to, or Daddy will be lonely.”

Well, who can argue with that?  We should’ve just it called a snow day and all stayed home, but oh well!  Today, Ella and I did stay home at last.  Sometimes I wake up and think to myself, “Today, instead of my goal being, Try to get as much done as possible, my goal will be simply, Create peace.”  So that’s what we tried for (that and restoring our mess of a house, which falls under the peace category, in my opinion.)  Creating peace with a toddler usually means, for me, not trying to do to much, and being willing to follow Ella’s lead (just say “yes”).

We watered our growing solstice bulbs.

We had some tea at snacktime, partly inspired by Heather.

Ella wore only her longjohns all day – except a brief snowsuit excursion for a single sled ride.

(By the way, I finally broke down this year and bought us all a pair of really good wool/silk longjohns.  Why oh why didn’t I do this sooner?  Seriously – if you live in New England, and you’re not moving anytime soon, do yourself a favor, and get some rockin longjohns.)

And possibly my favorite activity of the day, a window mosaic.  Our teacher at the local Waldorf school (we go to a playtime on Friday mornings there, which is wonderful) gave me the idea, using tissue paper and egg white (for the “glue”).  They were using blue tissue paper and adding a yellow star each day, which is lovely sounding, but I chose to reuse some tissue paper I’d saved from gifts.  Ella was really excited about this, and very capable of doing it, also, which was fun.  She stopped participating after about 10 minutes, but while I finished it she very happily played a hilarious game of being Mommy Bethaby (a close friend of ours) going to work and bringing sushi home for dinner for baby and Daddy. So, I definitely recommend this one for toddlers – I think even ones younger than Ella (who is 2 1/2) could do it.

If you’re looking for Christmas card inspirations, I also highly recommend checking out the week of ideas over at A Handmade Childhood – they’re awesome!

And now – off to Santa’s workshop (and the weatherizing workshop – I desperately need to make draft snakes and insulated curtains for pretty much every single window in our house, yikes).  See you tomorrow for Gratitude Friday!