staying active

Every single day is busy, busy, busy.  Whether we have anywhere to go or not, the day is filled up with  the activities needed to care for so many precious little ones - feeding, cleaning, laundering, teaching, disciplining, training, retraining, refereeing, changing, dressing, hair doing, nail clipping, cooking, transporting, homework helping, bathing, song singing, teeth brushing, story reading and mind stimulating.

If there is anything I've learned with a 1, 2, 3 and 4 year old in the home it's that I need to keep them stimulated, active and entertained with constant supervision.  Three of the four little ones have pretty high maintenance energy levels, so we plan ways to expend it multiple times a day.

During the first 2 weeks our newcomers were with us we'd bundle up and spend much time riding bikes, scooters and skateboards up and down the driveway, playing "tennis", bouncing balls, tromping through our woods, taking walks or playing on the swing set.   Before naps, after naps and even into the evening hours you could see (and hear!) our crazy bunch running around outdoors, attempting to exhaust ourselves and guarantee a good night's sleep.  It was working pretty well.

some bug smashing too

But at the start of the 3rd and 4th week, constant rain storms covered our state day in and day out, all day long.  If there was the slightest break, you can be sure we had our rain boots on and were stomping through puddles outdoors, but the 30-35 degree days made that activity pretty short lived.  So, we got creative, made plans and structured a little "preschool".  With one movie allowed per day, we have many hours left to fill our days and the majority is filled with "dance parties" and activity songs to keep us moving.  Between coloring, play dough, snacking, stories, letters/colors/shapes for the bigger kids and flashcards for the baby (who is speech delayed), we play leap frog, have gymnastics classes, we "row, row, row our boats", crawl around like little lambs as we sing to "Mary had a little lamb", build & hammer with blocks, saw with sticks and "paint" the walls while we sing "When I build my house", and other many fun and crazy songs and activities.  It's been fun... and did I mention busy?

One rainy day we ventured out to an open gym

On the first glorious day, it was off to the zoo!  It was the new kids' first time visiting the zoo and they were both excited and overwhelmed.

We've made our way to many parks now that the rain is slowing... we may still have to bundle, but the sun is shining!!

The trampoline is up!!

We certainly have very full days from sun up to sun down and beyond... how we welcome the wonderful, warmer weather that is rumored to be coming next week!!  Outdoors, here we come!