So greatful!

I am so grateful for the promptings and "coincidences" that come across our lives quite frequently as mothers. Let me explain one in particular:

We are all sick with colds at my house...no big deal, right? Trevor's cough was especially bad though. I thought of it as "just a cold" and thought that there was no need in taking him to the doctor because they don't do anything for colds anyway. But for some reason, I was inclined to make an appointment anyway...I don't know why. I was about to cancel the appointment when Ryan had mentioned that his ear hurt. He had an ear infection a couple of weeks ago and was completely done with his antibiotics by now. I looked in his ear with my otoscope and saw that his ear drum had ruptured. So I changed the appointment for Ryan instead of Trevor. Luckily, I have an amazing Pediatrician and he always peeks at all of my kids when I take one in. (It is for this reason that I made him a birthday cake for his birthday. He has the same birthday as Ryan.) He confirmed that Ryan had, in fact, ruptured his ear drum and assured me that it should heal on its own but that he had to take another round of antibiotics if it didn't lessen in redness within two days time.
I mentioned that Trevor was miserable (I've never seen Trevor this sick) so he took a listen to his lungs. He informed me that Trevor had pneumonia and and he was to immediately be put on two different types of antibiotics as well as an infant's pro-biotic (kind of like to goodness that yogurt has to offer but much stronger.) with instructions to bring him back in two to three days if he is not remarkably better. Had we not caught that, he could be in serious trouble. After one dose of his antibiotics, he seems to be a completely renewed Trevor. I am so grateful for modern medicine, "coincidences" and a great pediatrician. We are so blessed!

Playing with food...

Lizzy decided to make an ice cream stand today. No pre-school...she must be bored. Luckily, we had some ice-cream in the freezer. Who am I kidding...we ALWAYS have ice-cream in the freezer. She gave Daddy a pretty good deal (him, being the one to buy the ice-cream and all...) just one hug and a kiss. Anyway...here's my cutie-patootie.

Frogs and "Scientific Stuff"

A couple weeks ago, the pre-school theme was "Reptiles and Amphibians" and the letter "C". The kids LOVED it. We made froggy faces, had turtle races (with turtles that we made from styrafoam bowls and played a lilly-pad cakewalk (which helped with numbers). We made a a display of all things that start with 'C', and did a couple of 'C' worksheets as well. Here are some pics. BTW: if you ever want any of these ideas, let me know and I can send them to you.

This past weeks' theme was "Science Experiments" and the letter "E". Lizzy loved doing "Scientific Stuff" as she calls it. We did tons of fun experiments. I even wore a lab coat and my glasses (...that I never wear. They make me look like a geek) to make the experiance memorable. The biggest one (this was getting them ready to do a real science experiment in elementry school) was "Which salt grows the largest crystals??? Epsome, Kosher or table salt. Kosher salt won. We even did a crude version of a Science experiment display on a poster-board that I had left over. The kids got a huge kick out of it. They loved coming to school the next day and finding the crystals that grew.

We also learned about: Static electricity (balloons rubbed on their hair and then stuck to the wall), How plants drink water (we placed celery stalks and carnations in colored water and watched them change color), How germs "run away" from anti-bactierial soap (a pie tin, filled with water, sprinkled with pepper and you drop a drop of dish soap in and watch the germs (pepper) run away from the soap.) We finished off the week by making an "Invention". The kids loved this the best. Lizzy's invention was a hat that sheilded her mini pine cone from the sun (she put a mini unbrella on top of it) and it also tickled people because she put feathers in it. Ryans was a spaceship that taught you the alphabet because he put foam letters on it.

I love spending this time with my kids and getting to watch them learn. I will look back on these days and remember what fun we had.