This morning started out with a light cover of snow and sleet on the ground causing some schools in the area to call a two hour delay. By this afternoon it had all melted and was so nice outside that we took the kids outside to play for over an hour. Getting out of the house for awhile and getting some fresh air and sunshine and exercise did us all good.

Our day went really well. We had a total of ten children today ranging in age from two years old to ten years old. We got out the art/craft supplies and they had were busy for a long time creating all kinds of things with these. Some of the supplies we used were wooden craft sticks both large and small, stickers, construction paper, glue sticks, pompoms, plain white paper, safey scissors,  crayons and markers. I just let them use their imaginations and make whatever they wanted.

We read a lot of stories, had circle time (twice, once in the morning and once in the evening), colored pictures, played Winter Bingo, sang songs and just had a good time.

Austin was in charge of lunch today and made strawberry pie, baked some frozen pizzas and served fruit cocktail with it. The pie ended up not being quite firm enough (it had to be frozen) for lunch, so we had it for dinner instead with the broccoli chicken casserole I had made. It was delicious and there were no leftovers.

While we were outside this afternoon Doug and Austin loaded up the trailor with a bunch of junk that was left in the shed behind the house when we bought it. Doug will haul it away sometime in the next few days and it will be nice to see it go. We're planning to do some work on the shed and turn it into a playhouse for the kids.

After they finished loading the trailor Doug gave Austin some driving time around the yard. He's been trying to spend time whenever he gets the chance giving Austin driving lessons. With some of the challenges Austin has we want to make sure he gets plenty of practice before he gets on the road for real. Austin is doing well and I'm proud of him for the progress he's made and proud of Doug for all the patience he has teaching him.

Besides her schoolwork and daily chores Amanda was kept busy, as usual, taking care of all her animals. She cleaned the rat and guinea pig cages, played with the cats, Toby and Scout (they demand a lot of attention), and fed them all including her chicken Ryan. I just know that someday she is going to have some kind of career working with animals.

In a little, after Michael falls asleep I will go read with Austin and Amanda. Three or four evenings a week we spend an hour reading together. First we read a portion from the Bible, then a couple chapters from The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child (we're reading the first volume). Then we read another book of our choice. Recently we've read several Agatha Christie books and now we're enjoying The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter.