kibosh

a few days ago i decided enough was enough.
for whatever reason, i feel a lot of guilt when my kids watch too much tv. i think mostly it's because i know i put it on for them a lot of the time because i'm lazy or selfishly want to do my own thing instead of interacting with them.
so i put a kibosh on tv during the weekdays. except for a movie night a week there is no tv allowed. on the weekends they'll be allowed to watch saturday morning cartoons and that's probably going to be it.
i expected so much resistance from them, but for the most part...nothing.
they've asked a few times and when i've said no, we've thought of another alternative and they've been happy enough with that.
because today was rainy for most of the day, they did get to watch a veggietales movie while i biked on the stationary bike. but because of this, i've been engaging so much more with them and we've been so much more creative and things like this have happened:

lots and lots of reading. we've always been big readers, but lots of reading happens around here.

we play with cars. a lot.

we do a lot of crafts. this is the boys "car garage" that they built this morning and played with for so long this afternoon.

our very own cooking show, here in uganda! {here you can see jude stirring the popcorn and noah is cutting his stove with a plastic knife while thomas the tank engine is being fried up in a wok.}

music + crafts = dance party.

i read a quote a couple days ago that said, "the grass is always greener where you water it." and so that's exactly what i'm doing. here and now. i'm watering this grass that i've been given. and it's so good.