April, part 1

I keep thinking life will slow down a bit, but so far, I just can't seem to catch my breath with all the activities and busyness! Mostly it has been good stuff, including family visits, lots of playing outdoors in the beautiful spring weather, Easter, and MOPS crafts and garage sale. Here are a few highlights of the past month.

Charlton and Rylan made a rack to display his belts from karate. It now hangs prominently in his room with the old white and yellow belts on the bottom rungs.  Rylan was so proud to hammer right alongside his Daddy.

I spent hours making our old chore chart and almost as soon as I was finished, I didn't like it.  This attempt #2 was inspired by Pinterest and used some leftover supplies from one of our MOPS crafts.    And who doesn't love magnets? I learned the hard way that it is very hard to decorate a non-stick cookie sheet (nothing sticks to it, duh!) and had to go buy the cheapest cookie sheet I could find.  The kids are excited about it and I think it will be especially helpful when we have to stick to more of a schedule when Rylan starts school.  In case you can't tell, I printed clip art pictures of different chores, modpodged them onto flat backed glass marbles, and then hot glued a magnet to each marble.   When the kids finish a task, they move it to the "done" side.  We also have magnetic "tickets" for ipad and TV time that attach to each side and the kids can redeem those tickets for screen time.  I would like to incorporate some kind of monetary reward system on a weekly basis, but haven't figured out exactly how to do that yet.

We have had an unusually warm spring, but of course, our Easter egg dyeing day was cold and wet, so we spread out an old tablecloth and set up indoors.  Caroline loved dyeing the eggs, but was especially concerned about wiping up the drips on the tablecloth.  I kept telling her it was okay, but she really wanted to clean the colorful spills.

Rylan is an old pro at this egg dyeing thing!

Last year our eggs were cracked to bits, but this year the kids did amazingly well.  When Rylan was finished, Caroline re-dyed all the eggs and made some interesting color combos.

Our gym held an Easter egg hunt for the kids.  The hunt itself was rather lame for the kids, especially after we have had so many outdoors at home.

I love this picture Charlton took of me with my best little man!

T

The kids were thrilled to see the Easter bunny! I was so surprised, because the Easter bunny is not a big deal at our house.  I don't have anything against him, he just wasn't a part of my growing up traditions, so I haven't really incorporated him into our new family traditions.  Rylan ran right up to him and smiled so big. Caroline snuggled and posed so cute, and then as we turned to leave, she ran back and gave him a huge hug!  She was definitely a lot braver than with Santa.

I love all the egg hunts and cute spring clothes and goody baskets that come with Easter, but I also want my kids to know the true meaning of this special day.  As we were leaving the hunt,  Rylan commented, "The Easter bunny is really cool, but he isn't the best part of Easter. Jesus is the best part!"

Spring 2012 Zoo field trip

Today, Rylan's preschool class had a spring field trip at our wonderful Cheyenne Mtn. Zoo. We actually hadn't been to the zoo in about a year, so I was hoping it would be extra special for the kids. We were not disappointed. The weather warmed up beautifully, there were no crowds, and Rylan and Caroline were so excited. Rylan had a special class that siblings were unable to attend. So Charlton went to the class with Rylan where they fed watermelons to the hippos, and Caroline and I fed giraffes and looked at the gorillas and orangutans.

While we waited outside the zoo entrance, the restless and excited kids climbed all over this tree. I guess it was appropriate for a zoo, but it sure was funny to see about 10 preschoolers all trying to find a spot in the tree at once!

Ahh, the carousel.

Caroline was very excited at first, but towards the end she had a weird grimace on her face while she held on for dear life. She would lift the fingers of one hand to wave to me being careful not to let go of that pole! Maybe she was getting a bit of motion sickness?

There was a peacock or "peapock" as Caroline sometimes calls them in the gorilla enclosure. Caroline was fascinated by the handsome guy.

Good giraffe feeding pictures are hard to get. I wanted to get at least one of both my kids by the fence so we could compare to years past and see how they have grown. Caroline squealed and laughed with excitement the whole time she was feeding the giraffes.

We packed a picnic lunch and enjoyed the sunshine at the playground. Three of Rylan's buddies were in the playground also and having the best time. I didn't even ask Rylan to eat lunch because he was enjoying running, hiding, exploring and fighting bad guys so much. I know he is really going to miss his friends when preschool is over, so we just let him play to his heart's content.

What a great day! We definitely need to make it back to the zoo before another year goes by.

Rylan's orange belt

Almost a year after he started, Rylan earned his orange belt in karate on Friday night. He used to struggle with jumping jacks and now he is a jumping jack leader sometimes. He also speaks loudly and confidently when he is chosen to be seargent-at-arms for the prayer at the beginning of class. I am so proud of Rylan's hard work and the character traits he is developing. Big thumbs up, buddy. Way to go!
The students gave us a demonstration of their skills first.
Charlton gets to tie Rylan's brand new belt.
Applause for Rylan.

This month's new belt graduates.

Skating girl

In February, a MOPS friend had a skating party for her daughter's 3rd birthday. We had never tried skating before, so it was an adventure for us. Charlton buddied up with Rylan and managed about 2 laps (I think) around the rink. Caroline and I made one loop and she was quite DONE. I let go of her for about 2 seconds to catch this picture of her before she started to wobble. I didn't have my hands free long enough to take a picture of the guys. Oh well, there's a first time for everything.... Maybe when the kids are older, they will enjoy skating more.

Charlton asked Rylan why he was walking funny on the way to breakfast the other morning. Rylan replied, "I guess my leg overslept."

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!