Family Time

Mark has been home all week. He took some vacation time that had accumulated and he was going to lose if he didn't take it. So we've had a nice relaxing week all together. We took the kids to ITz, a fun family place with games and rides. We went in the middle of the week when we basically had the whole place to ourselves in the middle of the day! It was great!

We also took a family trip to the library. We haven't been in a long time because it's just hard with toddlers to go to a place that expects people to be quiet. They have a great children's section though and everyone had a good time. Seth has really started getting into more and more books. He found some good ones on Egypt and even World War II. It was fun watching him explore and look at different books. Joel was drawn more toward the picture books, but he really got excited when I showed him some books on knights and castles (go figure!).

Nathan found some "Spot" books which he just loves! He grabbed one and plopped down on a big squishy seat to sit and "read" it.

For two nights now we've had family quiet reading time. We read aloud every day, but we've decided to add a silent reading time for all of us. We've started out with 10 minutes. Hopefully we can work our way up to 30. Everyone had their own book to read and we sat quietly reading. I was amazed at how even Nathan and Benjamin understood this was a quiet time as they looked at their books. Mark and I used to be voracious readers. We have gotten away from that even though we both have a big stack of books we want to read! So it was nice to carve out this time that we can be reading, too. I started the book "Little Women" which I have never read.

We're ending our family time this week with a big slumber party in the game room tonight. The boys have been looking forward to it all week!