January Earned Family Fun

Personal preface: Someone asked me recently what my strengths as a mother are.  I was stumped.  I couldn't think of a single thing I feel that I do extremely well.  Instead, I think I'd grade myself at a C or B in most categories, worse in some.  When I talked to a different friend about this conversation afterward, she asked if I do a lot of things with my kids outside of the house.  I quickly replied that I do, because I personally enjoy having fun experiences and seeing new places, and I find that I do a better job of focusing on the kids and just enjoying time together when we're out somewhere and I'm not trying to clean and do laundry and catch up on this-or-that.  My friend said that she's much more comfortable at home, and doesn't get out with her kids very much.  So.  Maybe going out with my kids is a strength?  Or perhaps it's simply a way to get all of us away from our busy everyday?  Either way, I do enjoy getting out with everyone.  And we've been more deliberate about making it happen recently.

We've been working at establishing a Saturday pattern that includes both cleaning or working at the house AND a fun family outing.  At the beginning of January as our family outing we saw an impressive production of "The Wizard of Oz" at a fancy new local theater and had a great time.

The following Saturday we wanted to go sledding.  Unfortunately, no matter what we tried we could NOT get Jack to pull his weight during cleaning time that morning so he wasn't able to join in the fun.  Which meant I had to stay home with him and try to keep him from having fun at the house.  But Ben and the other kids, and our friends Tony and Katja, had a blast on their little trip.  Since there wasn't enough snow for sledding in the valley that day, they drove up to the parking lot above Aspen Grove on Timpanogos and found a good hill with TONS of snow and just a couple of other families sledding.  Eliza ended up with snow in her boots right away and we realized later that she actually got frostnip (the beginnings of frostbite!) but the soreness and reddish rash went away after a few days and she was fine.  Here are the videos Ben made:

Then the weekend after we were in San Diego we took the kids to the BYU Museum of Art (free art museum on campus) for an exhibit I was really excited to show them.  I'd seen Patrick Dougherty's work in the fall when I was on the campus of USU performing with the choir and I knew the kids would really like it.  This one took a lot of convincing for Jack to help with the cleaning because he was sure he wouldn't like the art museum, but I kept reminding him that he can trust me when it comes to things that are fun - we couldn't think of anything I'd predicted the kids would enjoy that they hadn't enjoyed.  Thank goodness he ended up doing his work - barely in time - and we were able to enjoy this cool sculpture as a family.  Patrick Dougherty has work on exhibit at prominent and not-so-prominent locations around the world so we'll have to be on the lookout to see if we can find more of his work as we travel.

There is a story about the exhibit HERE and I included the MOA's timelapse video below just for fun.