Attack the hair!

Over the weekend, I got my hair cut and colored. Good-bye dirty blonde hair with the blonde highlights! I got it colored the prettiest brunette. And I'm thrilled with it.

But Chloe, my white cat, was freaked out. When I sat on the couch to watch some tv at the end of the day, she launched a full-out attach on my head. First she sniffed it, then she licked it. Then she let loose a banshee cry and started swinging at it. Who knows if it smelled funny or if she just didn't like it.


Kylie is still sick with her cold. I'm grateful that she's so conscientious about keeping her nose clean. But she orders, "TISSUE!" like she's a queen commanding her subjects. Some of her energy came back yesterday and we went out onto the back porch for the first time in weeks. The snow has melted and frozen so much that Kylie can stand on it without sinking.

But as you can see in the background, everywhere we look we see huge piles of dirty snow. I really can't wait until Spring.

Home

After a week of being home due to the snow, we've had another 4 days of being at home because Kylie caught a cold.


The poor little bear has just felt awful. Her eyes are constantly teary and her nose is stuffed up and running at the same time. Fortunately, we found that Triaminic manages her symptoms better than Tylenol Cold which did nothing to help her.

Kylie has watched WAY more tv than normal. In this shot, she's brushing her hair with one of the little brushes that came with on of her Little Ponies in order to soothe herself. Poor little darling one.


As she's been sick, nothing has really suited her. Yesterday at 10am, I told Kylie I wanted to do some dinner prep for a new recipie. She, of course, wanted to come with me upstairs to the kitchen/dining area.

First she asked for a sticker project.
Then she wanted to water color.
Then she wanted some apple slices.
And a grilled cheese sandwich.
Then she wanted some milk.
No, not milk, water.
Then she wanted a napkin so she could clean her hands and go chase the cats.

One hour later and there is no dinner prep done. Just this new mess to clean up.

Life with Kylie sometimes reads like a Laura Numeroff book like, "If You Give a Moose a Muffin".

Wonderfully fun and full of messes.


But then there are sweet surprises like this one. We live in a two-story house. And it seems like I spend a great part of my day going up and down the stairs. But the good part of it, is that Kylie's toys stay downstairs in her room and in our family room and our upstairs stays relatively toy free. But lately, Kylie has wanted to carry a toy with her as she goes upstairs to eat. So I often find her toys "hidden" in sweet places around the table or in our bedroom.


After taking care of sick and tearful little Kylie all day, I really look forward to working out or scrapbooking pages like these:




Have a great weekend everyone!

Just a few photos

Kylie at her My Gym class


I so enjoy Kylie's imagination. This was her princess scarf and Tigger was her prince.


Just look at all those tangles! Some mornings, I dread combing out Kylie's hair. Fortunately, she's a great sport about it. She plays with her plastic crocodile while I tame her hair into submission.


I'm so tired of the snow. But I thought these little bird tracks were sweet. I'm glad I tossed the birds some sunflower seeds yesterday.

iPhone Games and Scrapbook Pages

When Kylie is ready to take a break from running around the house and playing hard, she'll often say, "Can I play a game on your phone?" It's music to my ears. Kylie will snuggle up next to me as we take five or ten minutes and play a quick game. She's entertained (and still and quiet, hurray!) and I get to cuddle with her.

When Momma Karen gets home, Kylie will ask to lie in our bed and play a game on Momma's phone.

So we've got quite a collection of iPhone Games! I've got some on my phone and Karen has a set on hers. Here is the list of them.

New Favorites:
Cookie Doodle
Monkey Preschool Lunchbox
Toddler Teasers Whatchamacallit
Memory Pro
Giraffe's Matching Zoo
Peekaboo Wild
Tozzle
Blow
Make Me a Princess
Flickapop
Hatch

Old Favorites:
Preschool Adventure
Toddler Teasers Quizzing
Peekaboo Barn
Wheels on the Bus
Old Mac
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Softick Coloring Book Elementary
Coloring Book Creatures
Bee Book
Bubble Wrap



I've been on a roll with my scrapbook pages. Here are a bunch! You can click on the picture to get the page details.

Slide

On Wednesday 2/10, it snowed another seven inches. This brings the total snowfall in our backyard to something between 3 1/2 and 4 feet of snow.

Darling Kylie decided to make her own gym in the house by turning over her chairs and making slides out of them. I love her optimism.






Girlfriend is getting really good at somersaults. Her slide to a somersault move makes me want to hold up an Olympic "10" sign.

Scissors, stamps and more

I found a use for all of my rubber stamps. I debated about hanging on to them once I started creating my scrapbook pages digitally. I'm glad I kept them because Kylie really enjoys stamping with them.


In the above picture, you can see one of her cutting pages (the sheep page). She's been nuts about her scissors the last few days. She still hasn't quite got the hang of it. She uses her other hand to help her open the scissors. She's not doing straight line cutting yet. Instead, she takes small snips along each side of the paper. Yesterday, she went through four pages of this book.

It seems the older she gets, the more she enjoys her art projects. She asks for a scratch art page about every other day. And she still loves to finger paint.

Here are two more iPhone pictures.


Not only does Kylie have her own sock monkey dance partner to go with her ballerina skirt, but there is so much about our daily life shown here.
--the artwork Kylie lined up on the TV table so she can show her Momma the moment she gets in,
--the pretend tea set under the table. We have two tea sets and they both get used every day.
--the tv cables for Kylie's new Zippity game which she loves.
--and the package of toilet paper sitting on the steps for me to take upstairs.
A little slice of our life!

Weekend

What did you do this weekend? Oh, I shoveled for eight hours and made two snow walls.



In this second picture and from this view, you can normally see my SUV parked next to Karen's car. But you can't in this picture because of the snow walls. I would shovel the snow into a pile until the pile was over my head and then I would push it back and down so I could shovel some more. As a result, I made a "wall" that is about 4 feet wide and over 5 feet tall. Have you ever shoveled snow over your head? Good times.


We were lucky in that we never lost power, thank heavens. But I don't even want to think about shoveling the 3+ feet of snow off our back porch. And it's supposed to snow again tomorrow.


It was a fun challenge to get our cars cleared off and our driveway shoveled. But, in the end, I was so disgusted with it all, that I didn't take any pictures until now. Today I'm trying to see the beauty of it; I really am.





In other, non-weather related news, Kylie jumped from the top "step" at Gymboree down onto the padded mat all by herself. She's been making the three-foot jump for a while but has always wanted to hold my hand. On Friday, she did it solo. She still loves going to Gymboree.


She and I finished our hand-made valentines for our family on Sunday. Of course, I can't get to the mailbox so who knows when our family will get them. But kiddo and I had fun putting them together.


We also made this fun cowgirl hat with supplies we got from Michaels Craft Store.




Here are a few last pictures to share:

Sorting buttons for fun.



The circle on the floor was originally a toddler bulls-eye game where your little one could toss velcro dragonflies into the frogs' mouths. But Kylie was decided it is her special dance circle. When a song comes on that she wants to dance to, the dot gets thrown on the floor (like a mexican hat dance) and she dances around it and in it.

Of course, she first gets her pinwheel and purse. The kiddo's sense of style amuses me every day. Even at 7:30 in the morning.


Kylie thought the potato-head earmuffs made a fun mustache.


My sweet darling girl.

Progress, pages and more

Putting some fitness challenges into my vacation last week paid off. I lost 3 pounds last week for a total of 20 pounds lost in 65 days. Other than some extreme chafing, I couldn't be happier.

I had visions of completing a month's worth of scrapbook pages while I was away. Instead, I completed these four. You can click on the picture to see the page details.









We had another snow storm in DC last night. Right now, Karen and I really miss having a garage! Still, I shoveled out our car early this morning so that Kylie and I could go to swim class. Please, can it be Spring now?

Lastly, I want to give a shout out to friends Tara and Julie. Their son was born on January 29th. Head over to their blog and give 'em some love.

Missed her

While I thoroughly enjoyed our vacation, I really missed the kiddo. It was fantastic to have her throw herself into my arms at the airport on Sunday. All day yesterday, instead of running around doing all the laundry and putting away and cleaning that I needed to do, I sat and marveled at my darling girl.

I am struck by the sparkle in her eyes, her spirit, her giggles and her joy. I laughed as she shared some new phrases like, "You're awesome" and "That's cool" that she probably picked up from her cousins. I rolled my eyes as she said, "Are we there yet?" for the first time (and then the tenth time) as we ran some errands.

Before vacation, I hadn't picked up my Nikon in over a week. I've been taking my picture-a-day with my iPhone instead. But my delight in seeing the babe had me firing over 100 pictures in two days. We came back to snow--again snow!--in DC. But if it makes Kylie this happy, it's all right with me.













My darling sweet girl.