Carrots

The preschool I teach at, and that Taylor goes to has a neat option to stay after lunch and take a "special". Taylor takes a gardening class one day and does drama the other. She LOVES both classes and the sweet teachers she has. In December, her drama class did a Christmas play. Today, she got to bring home a carrot they grew in their garden up there. Here is a picture of her holding hers. We measured it when we got home. It was 11 inches (I taught her how to measure with a ruler, as she was wanting to use non-standard measurement). Then she washed it and used her kid knife to chop it up. She was so proud of that little thing!

My Sweet & Adorable Kids

The cutie patooties.

Going to try to keep up with this ; )

Let's see if I can keep up with this a  bit better this year.  I hope to use this to track our year, and keep any friends and family that don't facebook up to date.

As of today:
Taylor:
is about a month shy of 3.5
has started sounding out words, can write her name legibly when she's focused
has played her first season of Soccer and is ready for more
still naps about every other day, and naps hard when she does
thinks Caden is the greatest thing ever
goes to school 2 days a week and is the youngest in her PK-3 class
can ride a two wheeled scooter and asks when we can take her training wheels off her bike ; )

Caden:
is 5.5
loves to read and is quite good at it
has completed 2 triathlons and 2 kids' runs
has played soccer, tee ball, and done swim team
does NOT nap anymore, though sometimes should ; )
thinks Taylor is a pretty awesome little sister
is in Kindergarten full days
can swing much higher than I am comfortable with

In the next two weeks, both kids will get signed up for spring tee ball, I will be hoping to catch up on my running (marathon in about 6 weeks), and we will hopefully be back on schedule after the holidays.

I managed my first time away from my little family alone.  Well, not fully alone.  My preschool send its teachers to conference annually to learn about being better at what we do.  It was stressful getting everything ready, the kids organized, meals planned, lunches figured out, knowing who was responsible for which kids when...  But that said, it was a great time and I learned a lot from a couple of my workshops.  I am glad to be home though!

WOW, I'm behind

Ok, so apparently I am not doing SO great with keeping up with this blog. I made a trip to Tyler with the kids to visit Nana, Papa, and Kyra and get pictures done. The trip itself was a long one... the normally 4 hour trip was 6 hours because I waited too late to leave and hit traffic : ( Lesson learned!

I took the kids to the Discovery Science Place there... Caden loved it... Taylor tolerated it. Then, Nana got to take the next day off and we took the kids to Build-a-Bear. Kyra made a bunny, and Caden made a Longhorn... creatively named Bevo.

Then, they went to jump on the trampolines with the harnesses... Kyra flipped and jumped and had a blast... Caden held Nana's hand, jumped a little, and verged on tears. This was a step forward though. Before, he'd never even let them harness him up.

Then, we ate lunch and played at the house before spending nearly three hours at the photo session... photos will follow once I have them scanned in : )

Then, on Saturday the 20th, we had a little surprise 30th birthday party for Robin. Caden was so proud of getting to help with everything (and not telling Daddy). If anyone in the Katy area needs a cake for anything, please contact me... the lady that made his golf themed nailed it on the head... gorgeous and tasty!!!This week has been back to normal a bit. We went to the zoo on Monday and had a blast, and Caden's had playdates each day this week... talk about being busy with play ; ) Thankfully, he's also been behaving quite well too. Now, I am trying to get organized for a couple of Discovery Toy parties for next month, as well as cleaning out and organizing the office (wish me luck!!!)

Playing Bedtime Catch-up

Ok, so I am already a few days behind. Caden woke up at 3:15 am Tuesday coughing and not able to go back to sleep. He just wanted to "snuggie"... to the couch we went and watched cartoons until Taylor woke up @ 7. Robin had left @ 4:45 to make his flight to DC... I'm jealous by the way, as he got to see a few friends. Cut to 9:10 and we were in the doctor's office learning that the croup that he went to the ER for on Sunday was replaced with bronchitis. After the bribe of a milkshake, we went and picked up his prescriptions: steroids and a nebulizer with albuterol. For anyone who's kid has never taken steroids... expect pee and LOTS of it. I digress. We didn't end up with the child mask for the nebulizer, so the first round was with the mouthpiece:

Luckily, that night we got it, so we made the switch... he was not a big fan of the "smoke" getting in his eyes, so me being quick thinking and all grabbed his fairly new Buzz Lightyear goggles and put them on along with the "firefighter mask". Good thing he likes to pretend :

During the little bit of down time that day, I did manage to make a craft... not sure why I didn't sleep, but I am also typing at nearly 11 rather than sleeping... I made a picture frame for Taylor:

So, Wednesday he still wasn't much better, but Taylor was trying to get up on all fours and crawl... she started army crawling back on Saturday... very cool. She's also saying "Mama" a lot : )

Oh yeh, but back to the steroid thing. Caden had croup back in November and we caught it before he ever even coughed. I noticed a wheeze and took him in. They gave him the steroids back then, and he was fairly newly potty trained... leaks through nighttime diapers again, accidents left and right... Now, he's been potty trained for nearly 6 months and we are again having the same problem... something must effect the urgency or something, but he rarely has accidents, and this is like 2 a day : ( On top of the cloth diapers, there is LOTS of urine soaked laundry...

Yesterday, I painted a wooden "wall plaque" with our last name on it... it didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped, so I posted it on Facebook and asked for input. Thanks to some crafty women with good ideas, I came up with a finished product I think I'll actually hang somewhere : )

Trying Something

Ok, so I got this blog set up SEVERAL months ago, but am just now trying it out... Facebook has been my main source of comminucation lately.

Let's see... Taylor has started crawling and is about a week shy of 7 months old. And, being my girl, she crawled after a soccer ball as her first pull (ok, she army crawls, but I am counting it!) She did that on Friday, and today, there is NO stopping her : )

Caden, unfortunately, has croup : ( Last night he and Daddy made a trip to the ER @ Texas Children's Hospital and he got a steroid dose... hope it takes. No fever today, so that's good.

Well, that's it for tonight, hope I can get the hang of this and be good about updating : )