Transferring

I'm trasnferring my blogs over to wordpress.  The new address is http://www.snydercurrent.wordpress.com/.  So if you want newer updates, please follow me there!

What Vacation?

Where did vacation go?  No sooner did I start enjoying the time off, then it's back to the routine!  Well, at least we had a little fun.  I've been using face paints on the girls when I get a chance - got more paint for Christmas, actually!  So this weekend we had a red cat and a panda bear on Meghan, a red butterfly on Jenna along with her face painted kinda puppy-ish.  The black paint did not want to come off in the bath!

We had one really busy day over vacation.  We went rollerskating, then watched Tangled in the theater, and then a marionette version of Wizard of Oz at a local library! That was a fun day!  We love seeing movies on the big screen, and the girls do so well.  This weekend we hit both Lowes and Micheals for free things to do, while we were waiting for Mark to get back from being called into work.  Now the girls have aprons from both Lowes and Home Depot! 

We now turn to... Vacation!

Last week was so busy, hopefully this week will slow down!  We had Meghan's class caroling at the Sr. Center, tea party in Jenna's class, magic show at school, town party - Whew!  This week we're caroling with the Girl Scouts, lunch with friends, maybe get together with a friend to go scootering, Children's Museum for Jenna's birthday, and Mark's off Friday so goodness knows what we'll do!  I'm still working on getting 3 presents done. Unfortunately they are all East Coast people, so they may end up late since I can't afford express postage. 

Jenna's so excited about her birthday!  She knows that for her birthday we are changing out her car seats for smaller booster seats and she loves that she'll be able to buckle her seat belt easier and feel more like a big kid.  She's actually grown quite a bit this year, keeping the gap between her and Meghan about the same.  We should go through her clothes together and pull out the small stuff (and go through her toys as well) and pass them on. 

We rearranged her room in preparation for her loft, and for some reason she's keeping the toys all picked up really well.  She's even earned back most of the toys that were taken away for refusing to pick them up!  I've watched Meghan clean her room, and she likes everything out where she can see it, to the point of lining up minuscule toys in lines.  We're trying a different approach, putting things in clear containers so she can see them, but they're more manageable.  Jenna prefers to just dump things in containers, so the toy bins in Meghan's room will go to Jenna when we get the loft, and we'll add narrow shelving under Meghan's bed for smaller, clear containers.  I'm hoping to help Meghan find a way that's easy for her to keep her room manageable, to avoid how my room looked as a kid - otherwise, her door will be closed a lot, and then it might not open!  

Christmas pic

These are the pictures going out in the Christmas cards.  Most will get the bottom photo, but we did print some of the top one.  Jenna's lips are all shiny from drinking grape soda (her fav), but it's what the girls typically look like!  I was hoping to get pictures with Santa, or at the tree farm, but I forgot my camera.  We went to a tree farm where we could cut our own tree, a first for our family (but not for me!).  The girls took a more active role in choosing, unlike previous years when they had no interest in the pre-cut trees.The tree is up, decorated by the girls. They also each have a little tree of their own. As kids, we had our own fake trees, and it was something I liked. The girls' trees are only 3' tall, but Mark even put lights on them! As we started running out of room on the big tree, I kept asking if they wanted ornaments for their trees. They didn't use many, but we'll probably make more on winter break.

 

This was Thanksgiving Day.  We had just enough snow to go sledding over at the church.  Jenna was going down by herself after a while.  Meghan was over the pneumonia enough to have fun and not feel too drained by it - we were sledding/playing for about an hour.  It's not a very big hill but very safe - almost impossible to reach traffic of any kind.  We only have one sled (which now has slices in the plastic bottom), which may need to be remedied.

Ice and Fire update

Yesterday was interesting to say the least!  I took Meghan to the Dr since she was still running triple digit fever.  Diagnosis: pneumonia.  He wanted xrays to make sure she didn't have fluid in her lungs before starting antibiotics.  I made arrangements to get Jenna to a friend's house so I could concentrate on Meghan (thank you for watching her!).  We had a time limit to get the xrays done and then back to the clinic for the antibiotics if her lungs were clear, which we just made.  I don't want to think about how they get fluid out of lungs.  Thankfully, she was good to go, which was rewarded with supposedly the most painful shot you can get in the butt.  Picked up Jenna, got meds, went home so she could start taking icky, awful meds.  I hope I don't have to see Meghan so worn out again - limp rag doll syndrome.  I had her in a wheelchair at the hospital, otherwise I carried her where we needed to go (Mark had the stroller with him in Gig Harbor).  Good news is today she's tarting to perk up, eating a little bit and excited about the snow.  Yes, snow.  It started this morning, a dusting on any surface cold enough.  For some reason it makes me want to listen to Christmas music, drink hot chocolate and curl up in a blanket, which is pure drivel since the house is 79.  Thank you, wood stove!  Jenna and I went to my other commitment last night, the school carnival.  I am so thankful that I can trust her to behave on her own - she had the run of the joint last night, had a ball, made some new friends.  Today is unwind, regroup day.  Maybe we'll go play in the snow!

Snow and Fire

There's more and more snow on the hills here - some of the ski resorts open this weekend.  There was ice on the grass this morning - not frost, actually slushy ice.  I really should get out my winter coat!  The wood stove has been going, keeping us toasty warm, perhaps a little too warm occasionally.  I don't think they've closed the pass yet, but it won't stay open much longer.  The forecast is for cold from the north, and then a storm from the south, so we could be seeing snow on the ground soon.  We might need to put some snow on Meghan!

Meghan's been home since mid-day yesterday with a fever and occasional stomach pains.  The fever has hit triple digits, but Tylenol seems to bring it down quickly.  The pain seems to have left (wrong side for appendicitis), but general lethargy and no appetite have stuck around so far.  I've heard of a bug going around with similar effects, so I'm not too worried, just trying to keep her hydrated.  There's a lot planned for this weekend, some of which has other people counting on both parents to be present (unfortunately, at over 2 hours apart).  Sigh.  We'll see how it goes!  I might need to apply some of that snow to myself, to just chill!

Powderpuff Derby

Dad had cut out the car, Mom sanded, Meghan painted and picked out "accessories" and placed stickers. Mom did some "finishing touches". Meghan said," I'm going to win!" We coached her that participating was the reward, not to count on winning. They lined up all the Daisies to watch their races.
Meghan was so excited when her car raced - even more when it won! It started out competitive, but when it reached the flats it took off! Turns out Mom's research on the 'net pays off.


Then it won the next race - and the next. The last race was for the top 4 cars, and would be run twice to make sure. Turns out Meghan was right - she won! She took first place for the Daisies! Another Daisy from her troop (Megan B) came in 3rd.
We left after the Daisies ran, since the kids were hungry and getting bored. Thinking back, we should have stayed to see if they would have run her car against the other levels! But there were a lot of other cars to race, and they were getting antsy. Note to self for next year - bring lunch (the races started at 11), and be prepared to stay the day. We'll have 3 cars to race next year - Daisy (Jenna) Brownie (Meghan) and Adult (Mom!).