Thurs. Jan 9, 2014 - my concept of cold has changed forever

 Riley wore her Cutler jersey to "Packer (or other sports) Day" at school. She was proud that she and her friend Eric (parents also from Illinois and U of I grads) were the only preschoolers to wear Bears jerseys

 Micaela has made some very impressive tiny circles, I think she's learning to write from her big sister

 Daddy makes a good seat

 Despite the forecast it never got above -17 on Monday and wind chills made it feel like -40 to -50

 Poor Seamus was so cold I put his Packers sweater on him

 We didn't have school on Monday, Tuesday or Thursday (a pipe broke and flooded the school) so we had time for a special pancake breakfast

 Tot Art

 Plenty of time to finish homework

 Of course a chemical engineer and neuroscientist had to try the "throw boiling water into the air and watch it freeze before it hits the ground" experiment

 It was cool so we repeated

 Our next experiment was swabbing various body parts (including between the toes) and areas of the house to culture bacteria on gels made from our "Disgusting Science" kit

 Riley loved it

 Then the art studio opened. Riley spent a lot of time mixing paint to get new colors.

 I'm very happy we now have 2 easels so everyone can paint at the same time

 Not sure which girl thought Seamus needed some company during his nap

Love my girls

 Doing squat thrusts during Karate

 Jumping jacks

 Micaela watched with great interest

 Time to kick!

Riley earned the first stripe on her belt, white for demonstrating listening and control skills

We've had quite a reintroduction to the Midwest. Last year we got over 60 inches of snow in a winter that didn't end until mid-April when all that snow finally melted. I thought I was better prepared to deal with winter this year but nothing could prepare us for the "Polar Vortex." Chad had to go to work but school and all activities were cancelled on Monday and Tuesday, the coldest days. Luckily we had all the new Christmas presents to play with so we kept very busy doing art projects, science experiments and watching our new princess movie, "The Little Mermaid." It was a lot of fun but I was glad to get a break when Riley went back to school on Wednesday. But it was a very short break. On Thursday a pipe broke and flooded Riley's school causing it to be cancelled again. At least the weather was a little nicer so we could run errands and get out a bit. 

Our winter activities have begun and we have found some really fun things to try. Riley is doing yoga and karate. I usually only sign her up for 1 physical class at a time because I don't want to over-schedule her but knowing we'd be spending more time indoors (I didn't realize how much more when I registered her) I let her choose 2. She did well at yoga and absolutely loves karate. The class has 14, 4-6 year olds and she is 1 of 2 girls. As always, we're proud of her for making her own choices and going her own way,

Micaela and I are doing a parent-tot swim class for the next 7 weeks. She loved her goldfish class last year but sunfish are expected to be much more independent (kicking while holding  on to noodles instead of holding on to parents) and Micaela is not quite sure about that. She was content as long as she could maintain a death grip on my suit. I'm not going to push her and I'm sure she'll be fine but it might be an interesting 7 weeks.

Tonight I went to an information session about the Appleton Area School District Kindergarten. It was very helpful to a first-time parent new to the system; its a little overwhelming to think of what is expected of kindergarteners these days. I teared up just thinking about my little Riley turing 5 and going to kindergarten; I predict that I'm going to be a wreck on Sept. 2!