Friday, February 3, 2012

Cookie time

Rylan and Caroline loved helping make Valentines cookies. I didn't get any pictures of the delicious cookies, but did get some of my adorable cookie maker. She was really hamming it up for me and I love the flour on her nose!











Where did January go?

I love January, the feeling of starting fresh in a new year, finishing organizing projects, and the feeling of getting life back to normal after all the holiday busyness. Well, Christmas may have been over, but 2012 stayed very busy for us last month.

Rylan started back to preschool, we began a new semester of MOPS with four new crafts to plan and purchase, Caroline continued to have issues with the burn on her arm, and both Charlton and I fought colds.

Currently, we have been snowed in all day with very cold temperatures and blizzard type winds. It is nice to have a break from rushing around to different activities and enjoy the beauty of the snow, however the days get long trying to entertain two very active preschoolers.

Rylan was overjoyed to return to preschool. He had been asking me almost every day for his 3 week vacation when school would begin again. His class has been learning about space and the moon this month and Rylan has really loved that. They are going to be learning a lot about science and social studies this semester, which I think will be very interesting for hm. We had his parent-teacher conference in early January and Rylan got a wonderful report. His teacher felt he would definitely be ready for kindergarten in the fall and was progressing right on target academically. She also said he was a joy to have in class and she appreciated his excitement for learning. What nice things to hear! We are so proud of him and eagerly looking forward to hearing if he will make it into our first choice school for kindergarten. We should find out early this month.

Caroline burned her forearm on our fireplace in the middle of December. We applied neosporin and kept it bandaged and for a few weeks it looked to be healing well. Then she started trying to scratch the area and I had a terrible time preventing her from doing that. Each time she managed to remove her bandage in secret and scratch like crazy, the red rash that was forming got a little worse. Even duct taping the bandage and her pajamas wasn't enough to contain her. I finally resorted to cutting the feet off one pair of footy pajamas and putting them on backwards. That actually worked, but by then the rash was so terrible, I took her to the pediatrician. Turned out she was having a reaction to one of the ingredients in the neosporin and that was causing the rash and intense itching. When we stopped the neosporin, the change was like a miracle. The rash healed almost instantly and we were finally able to stop the bandaging and crazy tricks to keep her dressed. What a huge relief! I am so thankful there was no infection and I think the slight change in skin color and texture will fade with time.

We celebrated by taking the kids swimming to our indoor pool and it felt like a mini vacation for all of us. The kids had a blast and wore themselves out playing.



We went to the library last week and the kids picked out some books about things they were especially interested in. Rylan picked books about sharks and the moon. Caroline's were about ladybugs and butterflies. Please pardon Caroline's attire. Even in the winter, I have trouble keeping her fully clothed.


I took pitifully few pictures this month and some more good ones are on my phone for later.


I also have had a terrible time changing the background on the blog. This was not my first choice, but the only one that would work, and hey, at least it isn't still Christmas in February!