Sick Day

Caroline's first sick day in quite a while, marked by fever, a tummy ache and suspiciously frequent and mushy products of the gastrointestinal tract. Not the most productive week for Mom. Ben and Rebecca just went back to school today after having two full days off and an early dismissal this week. Caroline had an early dismissal, a snow day, was sent home sick before noon yesterday, and now is home sick today.

Here is miss tummy bug looking pretty pleased with herself this morning. 

Poor Clara

Clara went outside last night to go potty and came inside hobbling on three legs. We thought she might have slipped on the ice going down the deck stairs. This morning she was no better, so I loaded her and all three kids up and took her to the vet. Turns out she tore the doggy version of an ACL, an injury that requires a fairly complicated (read: expensive) surgery with a lengthy recovery time. There are several surgical options so Joel and I are looking over those before deciding exactly how to proceed. In the meantime Clara is hobbling about pathetically and getting lots of extra attention from the kids!

Snow Day

Not much snow, but enough ice/ slippery conditions (and it does not take much) to give all 3 kids a day off from school. As you can see below, as of about 10am it was still a bit slippery on untreated roads, much to the kids' delight ;) Most of the ice has since melted though. The yelp at the end of the video is Caroline, right before Ben crashed into her. Whoops.

Snow

The merest suggestion of wintry precipitation yet again sends the South into a panic :) the over-reaction to what is currently about a half inch of snow included a two hour early dismissal from school and a snow day already declared for tomorrow! Caroline's preschool dismissed at 4PM and their decision for tomorrow is still pending. Caroline marked the occasion by trying to catch snow on her tongue, and then warmed up with a hot chocolate bottle.

Look! Snow! Panic, everyone! PANIC!! There is currently barely more snow than this out there. 

Hoping For Some Snow Today!

1-3 inches expected starting later this afternoon :)

School Project

Here is Rebecca hard at work on her 100th day of school project. Hopefully mommy correctly counted out 100 hearts ;)

TCBY

A little post-basketball victory celebration. The Pinkberry around the corner from us inexplicably closed and reopened as a TCBY. Very upsetting on the one hand because I personally love Pinkberry and despise TCBY, but Ben and Rebecca are not so discrimminating. Also, we had been staying away from Pinkberry because we were not sure how well the machines are cleaned between switching flavors and did not want to risk gluten-contaminating Caroline. But TCBY on the other hand has some hand-scooped flavors in addition to the soft serve  that are gluten free so I guess TCBY is in the dessert rotation now whether I like it or not ;)

Tickle Time!

Adventurous

Unfortunately after one trip down the slide on the other side of this climb, she decided that climbing up was fun, but going down was a little too scary. So I had to climb up twice and haul her down, after she climbed up and wouldn't go down ;) I managed to redirect her to some two-year-old-friendlier attractions after that. 

Caroline is not the only one who had a fun MLK day morning at Sports Connection; Ben and Rebecca were very good and played very well together playing hide-and-seek on the inflatables. Ben spent $20 in the arcade in a record four minutes and 27 seconds ( or so it seemed) but then he graciously cashed in his tickets at the candy counter and shared generously with his sisters without being asked!

Basketball Hugs

Time out from coaching for a hug from Caroline! Ben had a great game today -- so great in fact that his team won 22-10 and I think Ben scored 12 of those 22 at least. One of the coaches of the other team came over to Eric, our team's other coach besides Joel, and was asking how old Ben is and didn't seem to believe him when Eric insisted he was nine! As if we have nothing better to do than cheat at U10 Hoopsters :P

Sleepover Swap

Last night Ben and Rebecca had "dueling sleepovers" --Ben went to his friend Colby's house and Colby's sister Sara came to our house. I definitely got the easier end of this deal-- the girls were curled up in front of a movie by 7:45 and announcing they were tired and ready for bed by 9 :) They were up talking until around 10 but seem to have fallen asleep after that and slept until Caroline woke up and started yelling from her crib a little after 7. 

Ben on the other hand reportedly went to bed at 2 a.m and was up by 6:30. This morning (after chocolate chip pancakes) I drove Sara home and collected Ben, while Joel headed off to work. 

Say Amen

Caroline has started to try to sing the blessing they use at school before snacks/lunch. She has got most of it here though she's hard to understand ;) (No, not all of it is in Hebrew LOL). She has also begun demanding that whoever's listening say "Amen" when she is done.

Math! Reading!

Halfway through Kindergarten, and looks like we're definitely learning something ;) Becca all of a sudden started writing addition problems on the white board and solving them herself. (It helps if they don't add up to more than 10 though, because otherwise she runs out of fingers to count on and gets a little confused). 

Her reading is coming along too. She brings home books that have a lot of repetition and pictures to help figure out the words she doesn't know, but she can usually read them without any help from me. She's also starting to try to sound out words she doesn't know.

Cuteness

Some post-bath snuggle time with one of our furry family members :)

Basketball

Yesterday afternoon Ben and Rebecca had their second basketball games of the season. Ben is in the under 10 league at the JCC and Becca is in the under 8 league. Becca is still getting the hang of it, though she plays really good defense she still is not quite sure what to do on offense when she does not have the ball. She did score her first basket in today's game though! And she was so proud of herself (and us of her) afterwards!

Ben's league keeps score and plays full court basketball, with the only amendments to the rules being no double teaming and no pressing. Ben is so fun to watch on the basketball court, he hustles on both offense and defense, making some great plays. He scored probably half of his team's points in yesterday's game, and though they lost, it was close up until the final quarter. When he scores he doesn't celebrate or even look around at me or anything he just runs right back on defense. And even in defeat, he was good-natured and had a smile on his face after the game. Love that kid, so proud of him!

24 Hour Date

Saturday Joel and I used the mini getaway package we had purchased at the silent auction back in September. It included a night at the Hampton Inn in Southpark, a gift card for dinner at PF Chang's and a gift card for Sunday brunch at Upstream. Both of those restaurants are in the same shopping complex as the hotel is in. We had babysitter extraordinaire Sharon arrive at 11am, and before noon we were enjoying cocktails (pictured below) and lunch, followed by seeing a movie (American Hustle), followed by dinner, more drinks/dessert, a relaxing night at the Hampton Inn, and brunch the next morning at Upstream. (Pictures of some of the plates from their breakfast tapas menu below). After brunch we rounded out the date with a trip to Costco because, really, who wouldn't jump at the chance to shop at Costco without the kids for once? It was an awesome time, made even more awesome by arriving home and being told about how nicely our children behaved while we were away! Sharon got them to basketball practice, Hebrew school, took them out to dinner.... As usual my kids are in great hands when she is around!

Make Your Own Pizza

Rebecca was far more excited about tonight's dinner menu than Ben was. ("Can you just make mine for me? I am going to go play video games.")

Busted!

As part of career week in Caroline's classroom, the kids got a visit from a police officer and got to sit in the back of his patrol car yesterday. This is probably the only time in Caroline's life where she would be happy to be in this seat ;) (And hopefully the only time she ever will be, LOL).

Game Time

Trial and error has taught us that playing games that have a winner (and losers) are not a good idea with Rebecca right now... She is not very gracious in defeat shall we say.  So... Puzzles tonight!

2 Year Old Checkup

Caroline had her two year old checkup today, which was awesome! It was awesome even though I had to bring Ben and Becca with me because their school was on another two hour weather delay, for no apparent reason because it was at least around 20 this morning (and is now in the 30s). These Southerners, I tell you... ! No idea how to deal with a little cold weather. Coats, people. Coats and hats and mittens. Anyway after Caroline's checkup I dashed Ben and Becca over to school with 10 minutes to spare before the late bell! Yay me.

Caroline weighed 32 pounds and was 36 1/2 inches tall. At her 18 month checkup, she was 26 pounds and change, and 32 1/2 inches tall. Now she is back at the 95th percentile for weight and the 97th percentile for height! How is that for a growth spurt??? She was so much taller than her last checkup in fact, that the computer wouldn't let the nurse enter the new height without re-measuring it first to confirm. The doctor agreed with me that the reason is because she is finally healthy again and playing catch-up, since she stopped growing basically from 12 months to 16 months of age due to the undiagnosed celiac disease.

The doctor also said she looks amazing, happy and rambunctious and talking up a storm. She couldn't get over what a difference there has been in the last 6 months. Caroline even capped it off by running over to her and giving her a hug before we left. (That was before the hepatitis A booster, so her mood might've dampened a little after that, but we'll overlook that detail).

I showed the doctor these two pictures that I came across recently and compared side  by side -- Caroline on her first birthday, she had started having diarrhea problems about a month before this, but still looked pretty happy and healthy and her belly looks pretty flat:

Caroline, wearing the same shirt, about 3 months later, looking sad and sick and with a ginormous belly. This was probably a couple weeks before we finally got her diagnosis.

Looking at this picture makes me SO SAD that it took so long for us to figure out what was wrong and start on the path to making our baby happy and healthy again, but it also makes me SO GRATEFUL for the thriving girl we have today!

New Year, New Resolutions

More Planning.

You'll see here a January breakfast and dinner menu. The breakfast menu is to put an end to the never-ending "What's for breakfast? I don't want that, what else do we have?" dialogue that happens with the older kids every morning. This morning it went like this: "What's on the menu for breakfast?" "Waffles." "Okay." And the dinner menu is so that we can do better / more efficient grocery shopping and not scramble to figure out what's for dinner like usually happens.

More structure, for Becca.

 She is VERY distractable and requires constant reminders to do the simplest of tasks. She now has a list of things she needs to do every day without more than one reminder each, and when she does them all she earns 30 minutes of "game time" with either Joel or me after her homework is done and she is in her PJs. Last night, she wanted to play hide and seek.

More decorating.

I started this picture wall in my office last week, and finished it up yesterday. I also want to hang some more artwork and maybe convince Joel to paint the kitchen cabinets and change the hardware on them. 

Cold Enough?

It was forecasted to be so cold this morning that the school district decided yesterday afternoon to opt for a 2 hour delay this morning. Now, considering that at 7am, the kids' usual time to arrive at the bus stop, it was 8 degrees, and at 9 am, the kids' delayed time to arrive at the bus stop, it was 10 degrees, I am not sure what the point of this was. I would say that I was happy for the extra sleep, except that of course I woke up at 5:30 and could not fall back asleep anyway.

At the bus stop this morning -- you'd think these kids had never seen ice before. Also the first (and probably last) time you'll see Ben wearing a winter hat in public this winter.

She Counts! She Jumps! Awesome!

Okay, you're going to have to turn your volume up to hear her counting from 1 to 10 -- she is whispering.

The Finished Product

This is the end result of the elephant Caroline painted last weekend. It looks like it is splattered with mud and dripping with blood. And I will treasure it forever. 

Fancy Birthday Party

While Ben spent his afternoon playing basketball with some friends from school, and then got dropped off at the JCC for yet more basketball (practice for the league he is in), Rebecca skipped out on her basketball practice to go to a Fancy Birthday Party for her best friend Samantha. 

Rinkside Seats

For a minor league hockey game with Dad. But can they see the game over the giant cotton candies? And more importantly, am I the one who is going to have to put them to bed after this?