{iPhone Rewind} :: March

Snuggling up with some books for Read Across America Day!

We are SO excited to have a library card again!

Kids are the worst

We're learning about famous composers and artists...so this day we were listening to Beethoven, and painting like Mondrian

Working on our fine motor skills, sorting, and colors

"Come on marsha-mellows. Let's do this."

Cute girlie :)

It's recycling day!!!

Making paper caterpillar chains! They loved this silly little craft and played with those caterpillars for weeks.

Just chillin'

A tired little dude, snuggling with Daddy

Feeding his obsession of garbage/recycling trucks

"Look, Mommy! I wrote an 'E'!" All by himself. Never practiced or instructed once. He's a genius.

Aiden hit another book milestone!

We made homemade bird feeders!

And then the squirrels took them haha. Aiden was SO upset when the squirrel took his feeder. "No! No! No! Put that back together! Put that down, squirrel!" Poor kid.

It's lovely when they play nicely together.

An actual good smile when he said "cheese!"

These two are 2 peas in a pod...which means they're going to be big trouble as they get older...

Making Matzah bread to learn about Passover as we counted down to Easter

These beautiful daffodils popped up in our front yard. They're so bright!

Got both my COVID-19 vaccines...just so thankful.

A sweet member from church sent home these pretty flowers that she had grown in her garden!

We introduced an OK to Wake! clock to hopefully encourage Aiden to sleep through the whole night {we're kind of over the 3am, 5am, and 6am wake up screams...}. Eli and Maddie have Gus the Green Bug, and now we have Poppy the Purple Flower :)

Butterfly Garden

Over the past few weeks, we watched caterpillars turn into butterflies! :)

I got a kit from Insect Lore and ordered our little cup of caterpillars. The kids loved checking on them every day to see how much they had grown. There was a lot of excitement when they could watch the caterpillars crawl around the cup haha.

I'm really glad that we were able to watch this process. But I have to say that I was totally grossed out by it the whole time. I'm not a fan of bugs, and I willingly invited them into my house. And they were creepy and crawly and gross. But I did it. For my kids.   :)

Day 1...such tiny little things.

Day 6....they got really big, really fast.

Day 10...ready to start forming their chrysalises!

We had to wait 3 days for the caterpillars to form their chrysalises, so there was not much activity. The kids kind of forgot about them; they didn't think this phase was all that exciting haha. But on Day 14, it was safe to move them to their new habitat, and watching Mommy do that was a bit more exciting. We had to carefully transfer them into the new habitat, and the kiddos got to see how they wiggled back and forth in defense. "Look, Mommy! They're moving!"

So gross.

Day 14

We checked them every day, and the kids couldn't wait to see their butterflies. They thought 3 days was a long time to wait with no activity...they had to wait all week for the butterflies to emerge. But once, they did, they kept emerging pretty quickly! We soaked some cotton balls with sugar water for them to eat, and waited to see if they would all emerge {the company guarantees 3 of the 5 will become butterflies}.

Day 19: Butterfly #1

Day 20: Butterfly #2

Day 20: Butterflies #3 and #4 snuck out of their cocoons pretty quickly! 

Day 21: we woke up to find Butterfly #5 had made his way out too!

All 5 of our caterpillars emerged as healthy butterflies! The kids were so excited to see them fly around the little enclosure. They each claimed a butterfly as their own, and they were convinced they knew which was which {they all look exactly the same haha!} If the butterfly climbed up the net, they would say, "Look! I'm climbing!" or whatever "their" butterfly did.

Today, on day 22, it was time to let our butterflies go into the wild! I asked the kids if they wanted to hold a butterfly, and both Maddie and Aiden were more than ready to hold one. Eli had zero interest. Which worked out perfectly, because only 2 of the butterflies let us hold them, while the others were more than ready to fly away haha. 

This little guy loved Aiden! He didn't want to go...it took a lot of coaxing to get him to fly away.

It was fun to watch this process with the kids. My animal/creature-loving Maddie was really sad to say goodbye to the butterflies, but she was excited to see them fly free to go off and do butterfly things.

1000 Books Before Kindergarten :: 1500!

We have loved re-starting Toddler School and getting back into a groove of weekly library trips. It's also fun to be at a couple of new libraries, with a better selection than what we had in Collin County!

You can find the books we have already read here:

• 1-100
• 101-200
• 201-300
• 301-400
• 401-500
• 501-600
• 601-700
• 701-800
• 801-900
• 901-1,000
• 1,000-1,100
• 1,100-1,200
• 1,200-1,300
• 1,300-1,400

1. Wild Reptiles: Snakes, Crocodiles, Lizards, and Turtles by Chris Kratt*
2. Cars: Rally to the Finish! by Disney Book Group*
3. A Tale About Tails by Tish Rabe*
4. Cars: Driven to Win! by Disney Book Group*
5. Nellie Sue, Happy Camper by Rebecca Janni
6. Pete the Cat Goes Camping by James Dean
7. Duck Tents by Lynne Berry*
8. Do Princesses Make Happy Campers? by Carmela LaVigna Coyle
9. Big Bear Little Chair by Lizi Boyd
10. Wild Cats! by Chris and Martin Kratt*
11. The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola
12. Beep Beep Beep Time for Sleep! by Claire Freedman
13. The Little Ice Cream Truck by Margery Cuyler*
14. Minnie's Happy Helpers: Minnie's Surprise by Disney Books
15. The Goose Egg by Liz Wong
16. Shape Patrol by Nickelodeon Publishing
17. There's a Lion in My Cornflakes by Michelle Robinson
18. Winnie the Pooh: Forever Friends by Lisa Ann Marsoli*
19. Penguins Love Colors by Sarah Aspinall*
20. Thomas' Color Book by Random House*
21. I Spy Colors in Art by Lucy Micklethwait
22. A Rainbow All Around Me by Sandra L. Pinkney
23. Mixed: A Colorful Story by Arree Chung*
24. Thunder Trucks by Cheryl Klein
25. Monster's Trucks by Rebecca Van Slyke
26. The Mixed-Up Truck by Stephen Savage*
27. It's a Tiger! by David LaRochelle*
28. Truck Stop by Anne F. Rockwell
29. Turtle Splash! by Cathryn Falwell
30. Red House, Tree House, Little Bitty Brown Mouse by Jane Godwin
31. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Car by Kate Dopirak
32. The Cat in the Hat: Cooking with the Cat by Bonnie Worth
33. Cat Likes Red by Christopher Russo
34. Every Color Soup by Jorey Hurley
35. Calling All Cars by Sue Fliess
36. Bear Sees Colors by Karma Wilson*
37. Snow by P.D. Eastman
38. Duck & Goose Colors by Tad Hills
39. The Fire Engine Book by Tibor Gergely
40. Curious George Builds an Igloo by H.A.  and Margret Rey
41. Zoom In on Ladybugs by Melissa Stewart
42. The Alphabet Tree by Leo Lionni*
43. Zoom In on Butterflies by Melissa Stewart
44. Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea by Cynthia Rylant
45. The Marvelous Thing That Came from a Spring by Gilbert Ford
46. Zoom In on Grasshoppers by Melissa Stewart
47. Mooncake by Frank Asch
48. Bear Can't Sleep by Karma Wilson*
49. Beethoven's Heroic Symphony by Anna Harwell Celenza
50. Clink, Clank, Clunk! by Miriam Aroner
51. Dolphins! by Sharon Bokoske
52. Immi's Gift by Karin Littlewood
53. I Love Bugs! by Emma Dodd
54. Ish by Peter Reynolds*
55. Hunt with the Fireflies by Karen Latchana Kenney
56. Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner
57. The Bug in a Jug Wants a Hug by Brian P. Cleary
58. Stop, Thief! by Heather Tekavec*
59. Mr. Postmouse's Rounds by Marianne Dubuc
60. Goodnight, Sleepyville by Blake Liliane Hellman
61. The Little School Bus by Margery Cuyler*
62. Winnie the Pooh: Tails, Tricks, and Traps by Lisa Ann Marsoli*
63. Bubble Guppies: Dump Truck Trouble/Let's Build a Doghouse by Mary Tillworth
64. Little Quack by Lauren Thompson*
65. Sleepy Bird by Jeremy Tankard*
66. Hooray for Birds! by Lucy Cousins*
67. Birdsongs by Betsy Franco
68. Flamingos by Kate Riggs
69. Dusty Flies High by Susan Amerikaner
70. Lucky Ducky by Doreen Mulryan*
71. A Berry Lucky St. Patrick's Day by Mickie Matheis
72. St. Patrick's Day by Anne Rockwell
73. Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni*
74. Zoom In on Bees by Melissa Stewart
75. Little Quack's Bedtime by Lauren Thompson*
76. Why Should I Walk? I Can Fly! by Ann Ingalls
77. Two Nests by Laurence Anholt
78. Let's Go Hugo! by Angela Dominguez
79. Little Bird by Germano Zullo
80. Cheep! Cheep! by Julie Stiegemeyer
81. S is for S'Mores by Helen Foster James
82. Railroad Hank by Lisa Moser*
83. If I Were a Kangaroo by Mylisa Larsen & Anna Raff
84. Curious George Goes to a Bookstore by H.A. Rey*
85. Would You Rather Be a Princess or a Dragon? by Barney Saltzberg
86. Penny Loves Pink by Cori Doerfield*
87. I Love You Just Enough by Robbyn Smith van Frankenhuyzen
88. Elmo's Lucky Day by Andrea Posner-Sanchez
89. Pete the Cat: The Great Leprechaun Chase by James Dean
90. Stanley's Fire Engine by William Bee
91. Wake Up, Sun! by David L. Harrison*
92. Spring Blossoms by Carole Gerber
93. What I See in Spring by Danielle J. Jacks
94. My Snake Blake by Randy Siegel
95. Stella, Star of the Sea by Marie-Louise Gay
96. Samson in the Snow by Philip C. Stead*
97. The Nice Book by David Ezra Stein
98. Hand in Hand by Rosemary Wells
99. If All the Animals Came Inside by Eric Pinder
100. Goat's Coat by Tom Percival*

*Some of our favorites

Crohn's Chronicles :: Entyvio Infusion 7.2

As I mentioned before, it took quite awhile to get on the schedule to start my 4-week doses. But I finally made it to that 4-week mark, and I was more than ready to get the new schedule started.

I arrived at the infusion center last Friday, got hooked up, and was so thankful to finally be receiving more meds. And then I got to the end of the infusion, and the nurse came to remove my IV...and we discovered that there had been a hole in the tubing, so a bunch had spilled out onto the tray next to me. I didn't notice, because my arm was on a pillow, and all of the liquid poured out away from my arm. And the nurse didn't notice until the end of my infusion. She wasn't sure how much I actually got, but wasn't confident I got even half of the meds.

I couldn't help it, but I just burst into tears. I have been beyond frustrated with this infusion center; if it was going to go wrong, it has, and the communication is a huge struggle. On Friday, I felt so done, but it's just not an easy/simple thing to find another infusion center. Because that would require finding another doctor. And going through all of the insurance approval processes again. So I am kind of stuck {for now}, hoping that we can get everything figured out and that I can get into remission soon. 

We had to wait for all of the approvals to come through, from the insurance {because it means they have to pay for another vial of meds}, the doctor {to see if I could get more medicine, or if I had to wait until my next scheduled infusion}, and the infusion center director {because it would require them using a vial on hand, not waiting for the insurance-approved vial to show up}. Thankfully, they were able to get everything squared away and I showed up this past Tuesday for round 2 of my infusion.

So I finally got my first 4-week dose. We'll see if this does the trick. And I'll be watching that IV like a hawk from now on!