spring field trip

 

we're supposed to hit 60 degrees here today *gasp* and we decided to celebrate with a little morning field trip to the local nursery. the idea of roaming around the greenhouses hadn't occured to me recently, so we were glad rene thought of it and invited us along. the kids had a blast checking out all the little baby plants, watching them be transferred from one tray to the next, playing hide and seek, and so on. when the sun came out in full force, we had to either shed some layers of get out of the greenhouses. three cheers for warm sun and heat that didn't come from a wood stove!

p.s. blogger is changing things around (again) and i am not a fan, so far! so my apologies in advance if the pictures aren't coming up very clear or not at all. why fix what's not broken, blogger?

on swimming (or not)...

we decided to go for a session of "school year" swim lessons to mix things up about, and to give us a good reason to get out of the house at this point in the winter/spring. we normally do several sessions in the summer, but wanted to give it a try without the usual summer pool craziness. i have to say, the results have been mixed at best. partly because it's still cold/flu season around here (i.e. lots of missed lessons and who knows what kind of germs floating around that pool) and also because it's a different teacher and dynamic compared to summer. good thing it's so cheap, so we don't feel like we're eating too much cash if we miss a week or if a certain two year old refuses to go near the water.

not surprisingly, isa has been gung-ho since day one and is really improving on her swimming skills. she can swim the length of the hot tub on her own and can swim the same distance in the big pool solo too. it should be a fun summer for her as she gets better and better swimming on her own.

sylvi hasn't enjoyed the same enthusiasm, which was a pretty big surprise after how much she enjoyed her last (big kid) session over the summer. we're not sure if it's the class size or the teacher or what, but she wants nothing to do with it! my hunch is that she isn't too keen on this teacher, who can be pretty gruff and not exactly gentle when it comes to getting reluctant kids into the pool. ok, it's no longer really a hunch as sylvi said very emphatically today, "i really don't like that lady!" as we left the pool. but despite the effort and the drama, we are still insisting that she suit up and atleast try, even if it ends in the now predictable shower of tears. and truth be told, mommy is pretty glad that wednesday is the last day of swimming til summer rolls around!

roo is ready to party.

i can't get pictures these days without this little stinker sticking her tongue out at me! not the worst of problems, i suppose, since it's still ridiculously cute. we all fell in love with this new Party Flags shirt this afternoon and as usual, there have been requests for one in each of their sizes. i suppose i should take advantage of the fact that they actually like what i make while i can, right? it won't be too long before they're way too cool for old mom and her handmade wares.

flashback friday, flash forward spring break!

it's flashback friday, spring break edition! w00t! and since we're craving the desert again and will be headed down there in about a week, it seemed only fitting to do a flashback from canyonlands 2010! we learned alot from our trip last year, including that it can be hard to get a campsite in april, even if you get up at the crack of down and troll around waiting for people to pack up and head out! so we decided to try something new this year... we entered the lottery on january 1st for the big (great) group site! since there are so many people that head down to southern utah during this time, we figured it wouldn't be too hard to find people to help us fill up a group site (it has a 50 person max... yikes). so we asked around throughout the year and sure enough, there were lots of folks interested. and as luck would have it, we won the lottery and got the sites for the dates we want... woohoo! so this year it will be us and four other families too. what's better than a week in the desert with small kids? a week in the desert with some of your best friends and their kids!

paging doctor roo...

this little one has had more than her share of rough days lately and we really hope she's seen the end of this string of sickness. after yet another trip to the doctor yesterday, we hope we are in the clear. the diagnosis was another virus-- the thinking is that she has just gotten unlucky twice with two nasty bugs back to back. we were glad to hear that despite the fever and cough and general ill feeling, her lungs sound crystal clear and her ears are ok at this point.

as you'd expect, she is not a big fan of going to the doctor these days and at any mention of the word (or anything related) she will adamantly shake her head and said, "No, I don't wanna go to the doctor". in spite of that, she is still a really good patient and even remembers her manners after being poked and prodded and bothered-- she always says thank you to them when they leave and usually flashes a smile too. as you can see here, she doens't mind playing doctor either. every stuffed animal in the house, and her baby dolls, have apparently been very sick lately. she is constantly taking care of them and tell me that they were sick but she took them to the doctor and now they are all better. so, here's hoping that magic works on real babies too!

tgif

there are some days that just call for something out of the ordinary, and perhaps... random. today was one of those days. two (still) mildly sick children (and therefore no childcare and ballet) and one mildly ill mommy, and not enough low key things to do to fill the time. suffice it to say that enough tv has been watched in this house in the last week, and we needed something entertaining that didn't require too much energy. and it needed to be interesting enough to coax them off the couch. so... we painted rocks. yep, pretty random, but good enough. it didn't require a trip to the store or anything that we didn't already have on hand, so we went for it. lucky for us, there are a few hundred river rocks scattered all over the yard, so we could entertain ourselves for days if the need arises.

there you go. happy random friday.

the other extreme

although, to be fair, when there isn't puking and coughing and general malaise... there is a whole lot of silliness. kids are creatures of the extreme-- ill one minute, and bouncing in their beds the next.

if anyone is looking...

...this is where they will find us. snuggled up on the couch with blankets and pacifiers and a whole gang of little stuffed animals, atleast until this wretched virus finally gets out of our house. between the girls and myself, we've been battling this funk (on and off?) since last tuesday. and every time we think it's gone, the sickness morphs into something else. case and point: sylvi woke up puking from her nap this afternoon. according to the pediatrician, all of this nastiness is related... the eyes, the ears, the coughing, the vomit, the fever. it's all a part of this spectacular package of crappiness that descended upon us last week. so, there we have it. after 9 days of trying to fight if off or figure it out or whatever, we're surrendering to the couch until it's finally gone!

kindergarten registration

i think we must have entered a time warp at some point, because we just registered our little baby isa for kindergarten this morning. what? that's crazy talk! but it's true, the goose will be in kindergarten starting in the fall. we have absolutely no hesitation that she is ready, even though she will be one of the youngest in her class (the cut off here is mid-september). her preschool teachers and the screener this morning agreed... the girl is ready for school!

it was a nice little informative session for all of us. the school district has been restructuring schools in the past year, in effort to even out the field (socio-economically) for all kids, regardless of individual schools, and get kids into the safest school buildings. so isa will be in a school with just kindergarteners and first graders for the next two years. we were also told the school board voted last night to have the k-1st students be in a "tracking" system-- meaning that students will be grouped in classes based on academic ability. the teachers we spoke with felt like this was the best organization for this age because it made it easier to identify and work with those kids that needed more help early on, as well as challenge those who were further along. while we have some reservations about the school system here (testing, testing, and testing?), we do feel good about where she is headed and we think she will do fabulously :)

bring on the quarantine.

i am sure i made the remark recently that, "it's been a pretty healthy winter around here for us!" and in that moment jinxed us like it was nobody's business. because for the last month, it's been one bout of nastiness after another. the pediatrician actually just called this "the winter of never-ending snot" to make it more clear. no joke, sylvi has had a cold for well over a month and it's still hanging on. this morning we made our second trip to the doctor in the last 5 weeks, this time because it seemed like an infection was settling in to that cute little head of hers. i put my money on ears or sinuses, but it turns out that her ears were fine (yay!) and that she hasn't actually developed sinuses yet (huh?)... so, what's left to be infected? her eyes! apparently pink eye doesn't always mean that the eyes are visibly pink. i know, it sounded strange to me too. but so it is, the little booger has a raging case of pink eye to add to her miserable, never ending head cold.

as indicated by the pediatrician's remark, it seems to be going around. actually almost every kid we know has the same nasty nose going on. so because of that, and because we are leaving for an almost two week vacation soon... we are going into quarantine mode! as antisocial and crazy as it may sound, we're sticking to ourselves (mostly) for the next two weeks until we finally kick this crap and get well before we head to the middle of nowhere, southern utah. good thing the weather is turning and it's nice outside, we'll just turn these two out to pasture in the backyard until noses cease to run and we pack up and head out.

p.s. just as i hit publish sylvi came up to me and said, "mommy you hold me? i have a bad day." not surprisingly, the two year says it best!

stinker

this one is keeping us on our toes lately. not necessarily in a bad way, but just being her normal 110% full throttle, smarty pants little self. she's said a number of things that crack me up lately, but my favorite conversation took place in the shop last week. she was "helping" me by organizing my care tags by color and pattern (classic isa) and was really excited about the fact that we were working together. the conversation went something like this:

isa: mom, i am helping you work in the shop today!

me: yep. thanks for helping.

isa: speaking of which, i can only work on wednesdays.

me: uhm, ok then.

isa: wait, what's today again?

me: it's tuesday.

isa: ok, i can only work on tuesday and wednesdays.

this Weather Report brought to you by...

maybe it's something about the northern climes or maybe because we're human or maybe we just have nothing much else to say... but i feel like the blog turns into a bit of a weather report for the colder half of the year. i think the same phenomenon happens on facebook too-- the days grow shorter, the snow falls, and everyone starts giving you the local forecast from their neck of the woods. then the weather talk mostly stops, we settle in for the winter and things quiet down again for a while. then a new season begins, things change, and we pick up with our forecasts right where we left off!

with that being said, we've officially entered into mud season around here. it's the time of year marked by longer days, the sun creeping more over head, ice chunks melting (slowly), piles of dirty snow, and mostly importantly lots and lots of mud. the spring thaw unveils heaps of yard detritus... the random toys, the lost mitten, the deer poop. oh yeah, lots of treasures to be found underneath the feet of melting snow. but being that this is a new yard to us and we've never seen it in the spring, it feels even more exciting. yes, even the deer poop. without sounding too annoyingly anxious, i have to say yet again, that i cannot wait for the warmer, greener spring to be here. who knows what this new place will bring! at the moment, march feels a little like a no man's land... (atleast until today) it's warm enough to tease you into thinking that winter is over, but not green or gentle enough to feel like it could really be spring. no one ever knows how long winter will really last around here, so until then atleast we have cute mud boots.

frankly

this is what they did after asking to have their picture taken.

and this is what they did when i asked for their funny faces.

not a whole lot to report around here lately, atleast nothing substantial or earth shattering in any way. that being said, it seems like there are lots of little (tiring and consuming?) things going on... like vaccinations and kindergarden registration and swim lessons that we are running late for and constantly changing childcare and and and... you get the idea. first world problems.

on a positive note, the sauna is officially up and running. there wasn't anything wrong with it to begin with, but phil wanted to double check the wiring (he's good like that) before we cranked it up for the first time. it's officially been cleared now though and if anyone comes looking for me after 7:30pm on a given night, that is most likely where i will be.

that is all for now. carry on...