Monday Morning with Coop

When Bing Crosby sang "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" he was probably in the Central Valley, because a dream is as close as we get to having anything white on the ground during the Winter Season. So it being December I wanted to do something fun for my son and niece, Juniper, who Sarah watches on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Now if I had my way we would be behind massive snow forts making snowballs and hitting each other in the face with those snowballs until someone started to cry. But there is still no snow, however, I think if I wait long enough there will be enough to build a little snowman, like the size snowman a plastic GI Joe would build if they were alive, and they made snowmen rather than fighting team Cobra.

So instead of whizzing snowballs at my 20 month old son and 2 and a half year old niece I raked leaves so they could play, and once they got used to the other stuff that was in the sidewalk gutter they loved it. (Not really, they played on the grass but still, it would have saved me some time if it were socially acceptable to let your kids play with leaves soaked in dirty gutter water.) Long story short, here are some pictures I snapped.

I left out the pictures of me jumping in the leaves with them because they were having so much fun I wanted to get in on the action.  I want to be able to create special moments like this one on a regular basis.  As a Dad it isn't my job to sit idly by and let mom plan all the activities as Monday Night Football is on TV.  Creating adventures for our kids is huge in them developing into self-assured, confident, independent people.

The adventures don't have to be rake the leaves and have a sitcom afternoon throwing leaves and galavanting in the midst of all the fall colors.  It could be simple like when I was little we used to decorate sugar cookies with my parents, their friends, and all of their kids, it was a blast decorating cookies shaped like stockings with neon blue and yellow frosting.  Did most of the cookies end up getting thrown away because they were too sweet?  Yup, but it was an adventure in itself that my parents wanted us to do because it was fun and special and out of the ordinary, it was an adventure.

What things have you done this season to make it special for your kids?  What things do you plan on doing?  Don't have kids? What adventures are you going to partake in?