A Nice Day at Home

Today marks the last week of my wonderful summer vacation. I have so enjoyed this special time with my family and feel so blessed that I am able to do this every year. A week from today, I will start 8 days of professional development in preparation for a new classroom full of precious kindergartners. I have already been working on my classroom and plan to post before and after pictures when I get finished.
So, to help us fully enjoy our last week together, we purposefully did not schedule any activities and even turned off T.V. and computers for the whole day. We started off by pulling out our painting gear and made some nice pictures. My kids really love to paint and did it so neatly, with no mess for the first time!

Next, we realized that we had some ripe bananas and decided to make some dairy-free banana bread. This is the first time I have really included Will on a baking project and he loved it! Madeline has been my helper many times before and amazed me with the complicated things she can help with. I was so busy that I only caught this one picture of my little chefs while the batter was being finished by the Kitchen Aid mixer.
The bread took 50 minutes to bake, so I wanted to come up with a fun activity to make the wait go by quickly for them. So, out came the old king-sized sheets to make 2 tents! They loved this so much! Madeline was upset when we finally took them down right before bedtime. They had so much fun that I even managed to clean our master bathroom before the bread was done:)
After a nice lunch together, the kids couldn't wait to try dessert: our finished banana bread! They both loved it and were so proud of themselves!
There was nothing fancy, expensive, or even that creative about our day (which finished up with rest time, board games, and some free play time) but we all ended the day feeling so content and happy with everything! I'm so thankful God blessed me with my favorite job, being a mother!!!