Steve's midweek day off.

Steve and Brendan went sledding yesterday while Tadhg and I watched from the top of the hill. It was just before sunset and the deep snow on the farm and the snow laden pine trees were just beautiful.
To make up for his three days away last week, which included Saturday, Steve blagged a day off yesterday. We had a lovely day which was somehow different and seemed more special than a normal weekend day. Wednesday playgroup was followed by soup and sandwiches at home, then a 2 hour family nap, then we made and ate some cookies before getting suited up and out into the snow. After sledding we went straight to our favourite restaurant for an unplanned dinner out. It's a fairly posh restaurant (as posh as they come in Fredericton)- you know, the kind of restaurant that doesn't have salt and pepper on the tables. Anyway, despite being only 5.30 on a Wednesday it was full of smartly dressed adults and we may have seemed slightly out of place as we traipsed in in our snow gear with a baby each.
Note to self: I must stop referring to Brendan as a baby.

Nappyless play time today. I don't want time to go any faster but I'm looking forward to these two being able to play together.

A little more about our playgroup. We have a new venue consisting of a gym and a smaller room that has child sized tables and chairs. The idea is to have some running around time as well as some quiet time, snack time together and then maybe the odd craft or music thing. The only downside to the place is that the smaller room is used by other groups and has quite a lot of toys stored on open shelves around the room. The problem with that is that they become a serious distraction- not such a good thing for a Waldorf inspired group where the aim is to encourage creativity and imaginative play with fewer but better quality toys. And ideally those would be handmade from natural materials. The change in the way the children play and behave when surrounded by far too many toys is striking and fairly disturbing in many ways :(
We'll see how it goes.