Today was a fun day! The kiddos’ great-grandma sent them a bunch of money for Christmas. We typically keep a bunch of this money set aside for the year for things like socks (where do children’s socks disappear to?) and pants without holes in the knees (seriously though, I can’t wait for summer simply because of the lack of a need of socks or pants).
We usually pull out a portion of that money and let the kids decide how they want to spend it. Which is always on toys. But this time we decided to give them some guidance and promote experiences instead. Especially looking towards the future – we don’t want to purchase a bunch of toys that will just need to be sold or stored in a few months.
So! We found a day that no one was terribly sick, and all of the other kids were back in school, and marched ourselves down to a matinee showing of Frozen II. When I told the kids they were over the moon with excitement. Like legit screaming and jumping up and down. 🙂 We worked quickly in the morning to get chores and schoolwork done so that we could make it to the 11:00am showing.
We’re in the middle of revamping our chore list, so we just focused on the necessary ones. School work was read out loud time for Javi (a lesson from Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons) and also 13 verses from John 1. Javi’s Sunday school class is having the kids participate in the Bible readings, so we are doing extra practice at home so he can feel confident. Keilana played Memory with her siblings and also worked on a book she was writing called “The Earth Goes to Sleep.” Both older kids did a math worksheet and Declan read several lessons to me from his reading book. He is super motivated to get to the story lessons! Bigs also worked on their AWANA verses.
On the way to Frozen, Keilana asked why movies go to the theater first. This led to a long discourse on my part of the history of theater, silent pictures, talkies, VHS, DVDs and now streaming channels. It was a fun topic to go through with the kids and such an interesting question to think about. Not typically something that would have been included in a child’s history lesson!
While we were waiting in line to purchase our tickets we stood behind a group of disabled girls who were going to see Dr Dolittle. Declan commented (loudly) that one of the girls with some physical deformities was “creepy.” I smiled at both of them and commented calmly that she looked different, and that’s okay. And then suggested that maybe Declan looked creepy to her! He was very surprised by this and I could see that idea turning over in his mind.
To my great delight, we were the only ones in the theater, so we were able to relax and not worry about disturbing others. We enjoyed the movie (and the snacks, which of course cost as much as the movie tickets! Thanks again, Grandma!) and then headed home for quiet time. At dinner, the kids gave Lover a verbal recap of the movie with a bit of prompting from me. I thought this was great practice – a simple and laid back oral report.
The older three went to AWANA, and Cassandra enjoyed some one on one time with Mom and Dad and watched Daniel Tiger. She’s at the age where Daniel Tiger is both extremely comforting and also super educational, so I’m trying to make sure she watches that somewhat regularly.
And that’s our day!