Winter Sports and Activities

• Set reasonable time limits on outdoor play to prevent hypothermia and frostbite. Have children come inside periodically to warm up.
• Using alcohol or drugs​ before any winter activity, like snowmobiling or skiing, is dangerous and should not be permitted in any situation.

Ice Skating

• Allow children to skate only on approved surfaces. Check for signs posted by local police or recreation departments, or call your local police department to find out which areas have been approved.
• Advise your child to:
• Skate in the same direction as the crowd
• Avoid darting across the ice
• Never skate alone
• Not chew gum or eat candy while skating.
• Consider having your child wear a helmet, knee pads and elbow pads, especially while learning to skate.

Happy New Year!!

Winter Health

• If your child suffers from winter nosebleeds, try using a cold air humidifier in the child's room at night. Saline nose drops or petrolatum jelly may help keep nasal tissues moist. If bleeding is severe or recurrent, consult your pediatrician.
• Many pediatricians feel that bathing two or three times a week is enough for an infant’s first year. More frequent baths may dry out the skin, especially during the winter.
• Cold weather does not cause colds or flu. But the viruses that cause colds and flu tend to be more common in the winter, when children are in school and are in closer contact with each other. Frequent hand washing and teaching your child to sneeze or cough into the bend of her elbow may help reduce the spread of colds and flu.
• Children 6 months of age and up should get the influenza vaccine to reduce their risk of catching the flu. It's not too late to get the vaccine! Around 80% of all influenza illness generally occurs in January, February, and March. 

Merry Christmas!

Be sure to take some time out of your busy life to enjoy the magic of the holidays this season.

This Christmas...

...spend quality time with your kids before your extended family arrives. Christmas is a good time to teach your family, especially children about values like love, compassion, giving and sharing. Try to include the whole family in different Christmas activities like festival related cooking, decorating the house and the tree and wrapping up gifts...

Fun Interesting Christmas Facts for Kids

• Christmas is an annual Christian holiday held on December 25th celebrating the birth of Jesus.
• Christmas trees are also known as the Yule-tree.
• Christmas trees are evergreen trees, usually either a fir tree, pine tree or spruce tree.
• It is believed that decorating Christmas trees originated in 16th century Germany when Christians would bring decorated trees into their homes.
• Some people say the Christmas season officially begins when Santa arrives at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.
• Did you ever wonder where X-Mas came from? X means Christ in Greek so to shorten the word Christmas we sometimes use X-Mas.
• In 1836 Alabama became the first state in the US to declare Christmas a legal holiday. 
• Oklahoma became the last state to declare Christmas a legal holiday in 1907.
• In June of 1870 Christmas became a federal holiday in the US.
• Christmas trees were first decorated with foods such as apples, nuts and dates.
• In the  18th century Christmas trees began being decorated with candles.
• Electric Christmas tree lights were first used in 1895.
• Did you know that giving presents were once banned by the Catholic Church.  It was believed that gift giving was connected to paganism.
• If you received all the gifts from the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” you would have 364 presents.
  

Darling Deer

• Cover a cardboard tube with patterned paper.
• Cut a triangle head and two large and two small oval ears out of paper.
• Glue the smaller ears inside the larger ones and fold in half. Glue to top of triangle.
• Cut felt circles for eyes. Glue googly eyes to felt. Add pom-pom nose.
• Glue the triangle to the top center of the tube.
• Use straws and pipe cleaners to make antlers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! From our family to yours!

Easy Turkey Pinecone Craft for Kids

1. Cut a small diamond out of yellow construction paper and fold in half to create the beak.
2. Cut a wattle (rectangle with a heart shape at one end) out of red construction paper.
3. Glue beak, wattle and google eyes to pinecone.
4. Twist dark pipe cleaner around pinecone base and poke into orange.
5. Glue fall leaves to opposite side of orange to create tail feathers. (Or trace your child's hand on two different color sheets of construction paper. Cut out and glue them together, overlapping.)
6. Glue two acorn caps to bottom for feet.