Christmas Party

Yesterday we opened daycare Christmas gifts. They had so much fun. We also spent the day reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" Dr Suess and watching the cartoon of it. We ended the day with some Christmas cupcakes and also sang "Happy Birthday" to Mckenzie. She turned 12 on Sunday= Happy Birthday!! Here are some pictures:

Our Loot:

Baby Crib

Baby Bottles!

Dr Suess Movies

Tag Reader Books

Tag Reader with our new books.

Whac-a-mole and Let's Fish Games

Watching the movie after reading the book

The end. Hope everyone has a very merry Christmas!!

Christmas Party

We will be having a Christmas party on Monday the 19th. This year I will be giving the kids presents for the daycare. This way we will get new things to play with here at daycare. We will be opening those presents and having some other special treats. Also a reminder that I will be closed the next two Friday's December 23rd and December 30th. Hope everyone is having a wonderful Holiday Season!

Basement is finished!!

Many of you already know this but our basement is finally done! Yay!! It has been amazing to have all the extra space. I really feel like kids aren't on top of each other anymore and are enjoying being spread out. I had a huge pop up tunnel and bus set that we haven't been able to play with because of limited space. Today I took them out for the kids to play with and they got busy running around and being crazy. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pics:

Easton checking it out. He was a little hesitant at first but then joined right in.

Hi Brianna!

You can't see but the tunnel goes all the way back to the doors.

Phoebe driving the bus.

Emma's turn!

Too busy, can't pause for a picture!

For the Birds

Wow, I've been away for awhile. Sorry. Excuse me as I update with multiple posts. We'll begin with our bird feeder project. We made some food for the birds with toilet paper, peanut butter, and bird seed. Unfortunately I don't see any birds around here. But the kids had fun doing it so here it is:

This was just after she took a huge finger full and ate it.

Trevor smearing his peanut butter

Trevor rolling it. It was hard to get the other two since they needed more help.

Hey everyone. I will be taking the 23rd and the 30th off for the holidays. Both are unpaid time off. Also I have an appointment on the 13th so I need to be off at 5 (just a heads up even though everyone is normally picked up by then). We are going to be busy with some Christmas projects soon!

The Plan

Hello, hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Holiday. We are trying to get back in the swing of things here. I am writing this post to get everyone on the same page and let you know what's going to happen within the next year. I have been diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome, it's what's been causing my infertility. I went to a specialist yesterday who came up with a plan for infertility treatments. We are taking a break the month of December to give my body a rest. Then in end of Dec/January we will start treatments. With treatments will come monitoring appointments and bloodwork appointments. Elizabeth Vockrodt (Emma's Mom) has offered to be a substitute for when I need it. She is great with children and has an Early Childhood Degree. But sometimes I may need some time off during the day to go to these appointments and unfortunately I won't have much notice so neither will you. I'm going to need to ask for your patience and understanding during this time. Thanks all!

Welcome Baby Ray!

Today we welcomed a new baby. Emma's cousin will be joining us 3 days a week Tue-Thurs. The kids were excited to see him. I think they were more excited with the baby stuff coming out. In May we will welcome another new baby- Emma's going to be a big sister. Congrats to them! And as Mckenzie said "We will have a whole Emma gang here."

Funny Kid

Today the kids were playing babies and Emma grabbed the diaper bag. Usually this becomes the treasure bag in which anything they find ends up in it. Today however it was a window...

Disclaimer: the bag was not over her head and she promptly took it down to breathe... and laugh along with us.

Yay!!

Every year in September I can apply for a Child Care Resource and Referral Grant. This year I was awarded money to buy a new playground set. I am so excited! First I have to take 12 hrs worth of classes and then I can purchase it. I am taking classes in February/March so I should be able to get it just in time for spring. We have big plans to cement it into the ground so it will not go anywhere in any storms ::fingers crossed::.

Here are a couple I have my eyes on:



Anyone have any suggestions? I want to spend $500 or under.

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween. It was the perfect morning for a spoooky party. We closed all the curtains and made it as dark as we could while we watched Monster House this morning. We also made little frankenstiens and showed off our glow bracelets. We had a spooky lunch and spooky snack. I loved all of our friends' costumes. It was a great day!

They really were having fun. Honestly!

Mummy chicken sandwiches, Bones, and Eyeballs

Graveyard Dirt

Our Frankenstiens.

Spiders from last week

BOO! Ghosts we made last week.

Tattoo Sisters

Brianna, where do you want your Tattoo?

Brianna: On my belly

Emma, where do you want your Tattoo?

Emma: Points to belly.

Brianna is 2

Well Brianna has been 2 for a week but I haven't gotten to posting about her birthday yet so let's all pretend it's still October 14th. Happy Birthday Brianna! We had a great Friday celebrating your birthday and ended it by eating some cupcakes. Also she got her cast off yesterday so I'd say it's been a pretty great week for her!

She wouldn't give me any smiling pics with her lit candle and us singing Happy Birthday. But she sure did have lots of smiles after digging into that frosting!

The Life of a Pea

Can you imagine being a pea and having to be rejected by this guy? Alright maybe I'm not promoting the best eating habits by laughing at this stellar performance but how can you not? Someone get this guy an Emmy. Everyday at lunch we struggle with the veggies and everytime I reach for the spoon I get instant headthrownbacklookofdisgustmymouthislockeddown look. At least he's not spitting them back out! Lol I've had enough fun for one day check out Easton's video:

Halloween

Just wanted to let you know that we will have a Halloween party on Monday the 31st. You can bring your kids in their costumes and we will play games, watch Halloween movies, and eat some treats.

Pumpkins

We kicked off the week painting a picture of pumpkins. We have been reading lots of pumpkin/fall books. We've been learning a lot about where pumpkins grow and how leaves fall off the trees with changing seasons. We will be doing various pumpkin activities and will end the week glittering small pumpkins. And all of this is making me want to visit a pumpkin patch. Happy Fall!

Contact Updated

You can call/text me now on my 320-293-5569 #. Thanks!

Contact

Well my phone finally died completely so if you need to reach me please call me at 701-866-2855. I will let you know when my number is up and running again. Thanks!

Songs

We sing songs almost daily here and a lot of the times kids will go home and request a song we've been singing. I decided to write a list of the songs we know well but we are always learning new ones!

The first is a fairly new one we are trying to learn- Tooty Ta:

The next is a favorite and we sing it almost everytime we sing a song. 5 Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree:

The next is also a favorite and I introduced it about a month ago. Baby Bumblebee:

We sing our ABC's daily and count to 10 in a song. Those are the main ones we sing on a regular basis. Happy singing!

Making Pizza

Today I let them make their own pizzas. They had so much fun putting them together. Trevor even said "I'm a good pizza maker." I have to agree. Here are some pics of them making pizzas:

Starting Out

Putting toppings on pizza. The girls helped too it was just harder to get pictures of them doing it because they needed a lot of my help.

 Is it ready yet?

The final product! Yum!

Tuesday, Sept 27th

Hi all, I need to inconvenience everyone again and ask that everyone be picked up by 4:30 on Tuesday, Sept 27th. Thanks!!

Apples

Last week Sept 12-16th we learned about apples. We learned that they grow from trees and have parts like the core and stem. Here are a few projects that went along with our apple unit. I was going to make caramel apples or apple crisp but didn't get to it so I plan to make some apple crisp this week.

Our apple trees

Apple Stamping: Cut apple in half and let sit overnight to dry out.

Happy Birthday Trevor!

Yesterday (September 6th) was Trevor's 4th Birthday. We celebrated by singing happy birthday and having cupcakes. We also had some silly string fun outside. Trevor didn't like the silly string on him so the rest of us got covered instead ;).

Here he is with his cupcake. Happy Birthday Trevor!

Happy Birthday Phoebe!

Phoebe is 2 today! We had a little birthday celebration for her today complete with cupcakes. Here is a picture of her with the birthday sign.

Friday Sept 9th

Just letting everyone know I have to take off Friday Sept 9th for an appointment. Sorry for the late notice but I had no control over the timing. Thanks for your understanding!

Oops!

Easton's birthday is August 25th not September 25th :). I couldn't figure out how to edit the post so I thought I'd correct myself here, thanks Danielle!

Happy Birthday Easton!

Easton turns one today (Thursday Sept 25th). We had a little birthday celebration for him here yesterday. We had pizza roll ups for lunch and frosted animal crackers with pink lemonade for snack. We sang happy birthday and blew bubbles outside. Happy Birthday Easton!

So serious

There's a smile. Frosting face.

Reminder

Just wanted to write a reminder that I will be off Labor day September 5th. This is a paid holiday off. Thanks!

Foot-Flys

I know this project is a week old but I had to share this cute project idea. All you need are two feet and some paint. the kids really liked getting their feet painted too.

Good morning beautiful

This is what Easton looked like when he woke up from his morning nap:

The look on his face says it all.

Lazy Day

It's been raining all day and the kids have been really good about it. We've been keeping busy with play dough and other inside activities. This is from last week but it's fitting for the rainy day we are having today.

Emma Lounging

Monday

Well we spent all of last week in the pool due to the heat wave. We had fun and the kids enjoyed pool time everyday. Back to a full week this week, hope everyone enjoyed their 3 day weekend!

Welcome Phoebe!

Today we welcomed a new friend named Phoebe. We are so happy to have a new friend to play with. Welcome Phoebe!

Releasing the Butterflies

Last Friday we released our butterflies. It was fun to watch them but it was time to let them go. Here are some pics:

Empty Yard

I am very sad to say that Friday nights storm took away our swingset. We left Friday night and came back on Sunday to a very big mess in our yard. The swingset was completely broken and un-salvagable. Even the swings themselves were broken. The only thing that made it was the slide. Every piece of wood was broken. Also the plastic climber was broken and apart. Fortunately we were able to put that back together. I'm not sure what I will do yet about getting another one. It will be hard to be without one for the rest of the summer. :(

Keeping Cool

We spent the whole morning outside. It was a great morning there was a breeze so it wasn't too hot and they got to be in the pool. This afternoon however we spent indoors. I went out to get the mail and could barely breathe so we will occupying ourselves in other ways.

His future is so bright he's glowing.

McKenzie found a frog!