Every morning I awake not knowing how the day ahead of me will pan out. Last night, I was struggling with what Elfie would do. I looked around on Pinterest and even Googled a bit and was left uninspired.

Molly has been asking every night what I think Elfie will do the next day, and yesterday? I honestly answered “I haven’t a clue.” Around 10:30pm I folded {both figuratively and literally}, got out some construction paper and cut some paper doll chains with the kids scissors because I couldn’t find my “good ones” in the dark and I was too tired to look for them, sighed, and went to bed.

I dreaded that Molly made me promise to come down with her first thing in the morning to see what Elfie did…

The second she saw her face lit up and she actually said the word “Whoa!” There was girl gingerbread cookies and even little hearts!

Marcus soon joined us downstairs and, upon sight of what Elfie had done, yelled “COOKIES” and picked the chain up and proceeded to pretend to eat them.

Molly wanted to draw on them, and of course I agreed, she even added the hearts as bows in the gingerbread girls’ hair. Thomas was as equally excited as the other two and proclaimed that he must make spiders to go along with the rest of the paper chains. I must say his spiders totally put my cookies and trees to shame.

As the day progressed, I learned that it is “Dozen Day” 12/12/12. I quickly searched some printables on my iPhone and wifi printed them to our printer while the kids ate breakfast, laminated some fun math game about the number 12 and gathered some things to accompany them off our Montessori shelves.

The kids were totally into it. As I explained to them that another day like today will happen once a century, I thought to myself that it really only happens once a lifetime.
At that moment, I promised myself that I would cherish every second.