Sickness, Play Dough, and Game Day

Kate's croupy cough ended up getting worse, warranting a trip  to the pediatrician last Tuesday.  She was diagnosed with an ear infection and upper respiratory inflammation; she is still taking Amoxicillin and Prednisone.  She is almost eighteen months old, and this is the first time she has needed an antibiotic or any prescription.  Until yesterday, giving her the medicine was a battle royale!  I would hold Kate, and Tom would give her the medicine, but she screamed and fought the whole time.  For some reason (maybe because she is feeling better?), Kate stopped battling us at medicine time yesterday.  She took her medicine like a big girl, and we cheered for her!

I introduced Kate to play dough last week, and she had fun squishing it, sticking things in it, and just playing with the dough.

 That white spot on her forehead is Amoxicillin; I wiped it away over and over again, but it didn't go away until she had a bath later in the day!

Speaking of baths, all of a sudden Kate HATES bath time!  I'm hoping this will pass after her sickness is completely gone and she is back to herself.  She has always loved bath time, but now she refuses to sit and just cries and screams to get out.  Maybe the water hurts her ear???  I'm not sure, but I hope her love of bath time returns!

Last week was school vacation, but I didn't do anything with the kids because Kate was sick.  Collin and Reagan slept over Grandma's house two nights in a row and also went to Toys R Us to use gift cards.

Reagan also spent one day at her friend Courtney's house; they went ice skating in her yard.

On Friday night, Jess babysat while Tom and I went to Not Your Average Joe's for dinner.  When we came home, we found this cool fort.

 Reagan slept under there for part of the night!

Collin slept on the couch.  For some reason, they love to sleep in the living room, and they were looking forward to this "camp out" all week.

On Saturday night, Grandma played Monopoly with Collin and Reagan; this ignited a game spark and all day yesterday was spent playing games.

I played Monopoly with Tom, Collin, and Reagan during Kate's nap.  The game went on and on and on, a real battle between Tom and Collin, but Tom won.

After that game, Tom, Tyler, Collin and Reagan played Monopoly, and it was another LONG game with a final battle between Tom and Tyler.  I think Tom won, or maybe they called the game.

Tom, Collin, Reagan, and I played Uno after Kate went to bed.  Tom won again.  Right before bed, Reagan (the Memory champion) challenged Tom to a game of Memory, and he won again!!!  He is just a little competitive.

I can't believe it's the end of February already!  We have some fun things to look forward to in March, Reagan's party and seventh birthday, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter to name a few!

Hand Prints

Kate's hand print on the dishwasher.

As much as I grumble about constantly cleaning the stainless steel appliances because they are covered in hand prints, I know that one day they will be shiny and clean all the time and my heart will be a tiny bit sad that those little hands are no longer little, and no longer leaving behind little prints for me to wipe clean.  

Week In Review

On Fat Tuesday (pancake day!), I made pancakes for the kids for dinner.  Reagan and Katelyn had strawberries in their pancakes, and Collin had chocolate in his.  Tyler had Subway!

Tom and Tyler went to the Celtics game on Wednesday.  It was a gift, and part of the gift was traveling by limo!

Kate watching them leave in the limo.  She's just so darn cute.

 For Valentine's Day, I cut pineapple and cantaloupe into heart shapes.  I also made Reagan a special lunch that day with a heart shaped sandwich, the fruit, red peppers I cut into hearts, and a pink heart with a few little pieces of chocolate.  Collin does not like lunches like this anymore, but I gave him a red heart with chocolate in it -- he didn't complain about that!

My girls on Valentine's Day!

I also made Strawberry Cows (strawberry puree, sparkling water, and vanilla ice cream), but Reagan was the only one who liked the drink, and even she didn't love it.  They looked so pretty though.

One of the highlights of Valentine's Day was this card that came in the mail from Cherry, our elf on the shelf.  He's so thoughtful.

The 100th day of school was yesterday, and I went in to help Reagan's class celebrate.  Reagan had to bring in 100 pieces of cereal for snack, 100 toothpicks to build marshmallow structures, and 100 pieces of something (she chose popcorn kernels) to glue onto paper.  Mrs. Machado also hid 100 Hershey kisses around the room for the kids to find and then divide evenly among the class, set up a few crafts, and had the kids make trail mix with 100 pieces (ten pieces each of ten snacks).  I had a great time in the class; I'm so happy I was able to be there.  Collin's class did not do anything special for the 100th day; I guess that's what happens when you get to third grade and have to prepare for MCAS!

Reagan finally lost that tooth yesterday.  It was hanging by a teeny tiny thread for days!  The new tooth is already there.  Reagan was excited to find $4.00 under her pillow this morning!  I guess that tooth fairy was VERY BUSY last night, because I saw her trail of fairy dust entering Reagan's room at 6:00 this morning.  It's a good thing Reagan was still sound asleep.

Kate has had a cold all week and today she sounds croupy when she coughs.  I hope it doesn't get worse.

Tom and Collin are at the Friars basketball game right now!  Collin was looking forward to it, and I bet they are having a great time.  I love that Tom sends me pictures like this one when he is out on special adventures with the kids!

Tonight and tomorrow we are supposed to get more snow!!!

Trash and Water

Kate has become especially fond of doing things she sees me doing.  That's all well and good except that one thing she really seems to enjoy is throwing things in the trash.  Unfortunately, she does not discriminate - books, dish towels, toys, etc. have all been found in the trash!

I found her throwing away one of her favorite books!

She also discovered that she can get water from the refrigerator if she has the right tools.

Here she is using a measuring cup to push the dispenser.

Then she poured the water into her cup and drank it!

I guess that wasn't enough water because she went back to the fridge with a pitcher!

She is SO clever, and keeps me on my toes all day long.

STUFF

Kate loves clothes.  I was sorting hand me downs for Kate and she wanted to try on all of the clothes!  She kept bringing me dresses and gesturing for me to put them on her!

Reagan and Kate both do this thing with their big toes where they lift the big toes a little bit higher than the rest of the toes.  I don't really know how to explain it, but I have always loved it about Reagan and I'm happy that Kate does it too!

Kate wakes up in a great mood in the morning, but waking up from nap is a whole different story.

Reagan FINALLY has her very first loose tooth (see it all wiggly and gross on the bottom?  I am not a fan of loose teeth).  Her top front tooth was pulled when she was three after she hit it on a table and an abscess developed, but this is her first "real" experience with losing a tooth.  So far, it is still hanging on by a thread, but it won't be there much longer.

Kate discovered the joy of writing on the chalk board this week.  She did this for quite a while.

 Why do these kids always want to sit on the dog's bed?  Poor Kelly.

Odd place to hang out.  KIDS!

Nemo - The Blizzard of 2013

On Friday, school was canceled and everyone across the state "battened down the hatches" and ran out for bread and milk in preparation for Nemo, the blizzard of 2013.  

Speaking of bread and milk, did you see the You Tube video that went viral about getting bread and milk before a snow storm?  Too funny!

Back to Nemo, I don't remember other blizzards having names.  I'm sure they did, but I just don't remember.  It must be the fact that this one shares a name with that silly orange clown fish, and so it is just memorable.

The snow started in the morning, but it didn't begin to accumulate until the afternoon.  Governor Patrick declared a state of emergency around 4:00 PM and banned all traffic from the roadways due to the high winds and limited visibility.  The snow was coming down at a good rate and the winds were strong, but with all of the hype, I have to say that I expected it to be worse than it was!  I'm not complaining though!  AND, I was not outside, so maybe it just seemed like it wasn't too bad!

Around 5:00 PM on Friday 

Reagan and Kelly walked to North with Tom shortly after 5:00.  They said it was very windy!

Reagan at North Elementary

Here is a video of Reagan and Kelly at North.  You can hear the wind whipping!

I really like this video of Reagan being silly dancing out in the blizzard.  She is too much!

Kate was so amazed.  She looked out at the snow for quite a while.  She can't pronounce the "s", so she says "no" for snow.

One last video!  I took this one just before 9:00 PM.  It was so windy; I was certain we would lose power!

 This morning, I woke up to find this!  We were happy and fortunate to still have power; many people were not so lucky.  

Reagan and Collin with Max and Jack in the Finlaws' yard.

Tomorrow will be a great day for sledding!