The last of the firsts?

After doing some housework this morning, I thought it would be a nice day to start our weekly visits to the skating rink in town. They have free parent and tot skating twice a week and the arena is just around the corner from our house. Of course, none of the winter outdoor clothes had been taken out of the boxes yet, so it took us awhile to get all the snowpants, mitts and hats out. Then we had to go and try the skates on from last year to see if they still fit. Anna's were a bit small so we decided to go to the thrift store and check for a bigger size. In the meantime, Anna had gotten her hand stuck in her glove and decided to pull it off by biting and pulling it off. This resulted in her first loose tooth! After we got over that ordeal, we loaded up the van and went to the thrift store. There we found a pair of skates for Anna for $3.00 - you can't go wrong with that price! After dropping the skates off to get sharpened we headed to MacDonalds for lunch (I should call that a first too, since I so rarely do that). Once we arrived at the arena it took me about 20 mins. to get all three pairs of skates on (my own plus the two girls'), the winter gear in place and Bethany bundled up before we actually headed on to the rink. For the first time on the ice this year the girls were great. Naomi uses a bar to push around and just laughs when she falls down. She started skating last year so she is pretty comfortable on the ice. Anna has been skating without the bar for a year and so was doing great until she got a little too confident and fell really hard. When I pulled her up she was crying and had a pretty bad bloody nose. She had knocked her nose straight on the ice. Although she was really good about it she wanted her skates off and that was it for her for the day. Naomi was a trooper and kept on skating until the time was up for our session. We then headed home for hot chocolate and popcorn, a nice way to warm our fingers and toes. Now I know why I love winter so much. It's so refreshing to come in from the cold and enjoy hot chocolate in a warm house. Winter activites are just so invigorating. Okay, I'm sure I don't have many followers but I just don't get the people who enjoy laying out in the sun and sweat at the same time. Well, we'll save that argument for another day!
I'm already looking forward to next week to taking the kids skating again.