Snow Day

Welcome to our blog!
Our family started this blog as a way to stay in better contact with friends and family scattered across the country.  I am planning (hoping?) to post something every day...even if it is just a picture. Indigo and the Chicken may be the biggest focus in our lives (and our blog) but I am also planning to talk about my adventures in art, crafts and vegan, allergy-free cooking.  And, of course, I'll post lots of photos of our travels around New England.

We got another 9+ inches of snow today, on top of the 15-20 that we already had.  Jay had to go in to work, so I was "Shovelor"  (our name for the robotic shoveling machine that we become in such situations) today.  Normally I don't mind shoveling, but the snow pile on the side of the driveway was already so high before I began that with every load I had to huck it way up high over my head to ensure that the snow stayed up and off the driveway.  The girls did their part by climbing up my delicately balanced snow cliff and sliding down the resulting avalanche.   Between that and the (seemingly) gallons of snow they ate, Indigo and Willow were happy girls.

Next up, we headed inside for craft time.  I filled two art trays with shaving cream and paints and let them go to town.  Willow immediately set to spreading the cream across the tray.  Once she had a flat surface, she used her finger to practice writing her letters  across the gooey tray.

Indigo was more hesitant to get messy.  She would stick a tentative finger into the paint and then eye it suspiciously.  Finally, she realized that she could create green by mixing yellow and blue, so she began stirring the two together and squishing the resulting color between her fingers.

The kids had a great time, as they always do when our projects include a strong sensory component.  A bonus was the extra time Willow happily put in practicing her letters.  This seemed to help her to enjoy the process in a  new way.  I plan to try this again, but with trays full of flour, an idea I got from here.

Dinner tonight: Curried Rice, from one of my favorite cook books, Allergy Proof Recipes for Kids, by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger.  I add dried apricots instead of the currants called for in the book and it always turns out so delicious!  Despite the title of the book, though, the kids always refuse to eat this dish.  The idea of having chewing more than one kind of food (in this case, rice, carrots and apricots) at a time offends them, even though they like all of those foods separately.  All the more for Jay and I!

Looking forward to the weekend!  Hope the frigid temps (sub-zero!) don't put a damper on our fun...