Pinch patrol

Happy Patty's day to you! Every year for Patty's day we make a Leprechaun welcoming box in hopes that the wee little Leprechaun's will leave use some gold (candy) coins.

We work together to make it all pretty for the Leprechauns to give them a place to rest when they are out and about looking for the little kids who still believe in them. They are just itching to give away some gold to sweet and caring little boys and girls.


And of course we leave them "rainbow candy" because everyone know how much Leprechauns love rainbow candy. We decorate the inside of the welcoming box and make a little bed for them to rest in...in case they are tired. Every year the kids try to figure out a way to trap a Leprechaun too, but so far they out fox us every time. Those tricky little Leprechauns.



Every year the kids pick the best place to put the box. This year it was a cubby hole. Which then needed a ladder in order for the little Leprechauns to get to it. So Bubu decided that we should make one out of sticks. We used clothes pins and string and fashioned a "ladder" together. Before they went to bed they put the ladder up. Now we are waiting until their daycare friend gets her and then we will see if the Leprechauns visited us again last night in hopes that they left use some gold coins! And maybe, just maybe we caught us a Leprechaun!! ;)



You better be wearing some green!

Bright Orange Treasures

So today we made an awesome discovery. While we were outside looking at the flower gardens and playing ~ eye spy me some spring time ~ I decided to take a gander at my very neglected garden boxes. Last year I sort of gave up on my garden when I got too big with the pregnancy to bend over properly. Lets just say when I stopped being able to see my toes no matter how hard I tried my garden fell apart. I never harvested the last crop of anything and I just stopped looking at it so I wouldn't feel so guilty. I went to some ones house a little while back and notice that they had harvested some carrots out of their garden in the middle of winter and I started thinking 'hey I never harvested all of my carrots out of my garden' I sort of thought that they must have gone mushy and I had given them up to the worms. But...they're not! They were just chillin there in the dirt all happy looking and bright orange and oh did they smell good. I love the smell of fresh from the garden veggies. Atty must too because he tried to take a bite of one of them dirt and all! Bleck. Call me picky but I'd rather wash them first. ;) We gathered them all up and carried them into the house so that I could make them all some...Carrot Juice! Bubu just couldn't get over his excitement at having found such an unbelievable treasure during the winter. He kept saying "Yummy they smell so good, can I try one mom?"

I just love their earthy goodness, and I have to admit I am bitten bad by the gardening bug now, come on spring I am so ready. So very, very done with the yucky cold grey days.

All shined up and ready to be juiced. It was such a fun unexpected project of sorts to do with the kids. Wasn't a planned part of our day but I was able to make it a learning experience and a fun thing to do together. They though it was so neat to watch the juicer do it's thing.

They were even more excited to try it! I used up all the carrots and they gulped it down.

I mostly made it for this guy because a wise family friend and naturopathic doctor told us a few things we could do to try and keep his liver clean and working well (because of all the meds, some of which are super hard on the liver) and one of those things was a little carrot juice every day. He really liked it, so that's a good thing. They all did. In the summer I should have some apples from the tree and more carrots in the garden and that will make for a super yummy drink. In the mean time I will go get us some organic carrots (and maybe some apples) from the store and make up some more juice for the little trooper and his brothers. Won't taste as good though. ;)

~Move your body~

You know what made my day today?

~

Putting on the Madagascar soundtrack and dancing with the kids while they showed me how to "Move it, move it". Their shrills of laughter, their silly dance moves, the pure joy they find in the movement of their bodies and the sound of the beat. It's so freeing and fun. I'm not sure who enjoys it more me or them.

~

"I want to move it, move it. I want to shake it, shake it"

~

You do NoT want to see me dance to that, trust me...but the kids on the other hand, they don't realize I have no sense of rhythm what so ever, they just think I'm being funny.

The newest and coolest

Atty started it. It's the newest thing. Sleeping in your chair is the latest fad around her. All the cool kids do it. The little girl on the bottom left is actually faking so that I will carry her to her mat...anyone who knows anything about anything knows that it's so much more awesome to be carried to bed instead of walking on your own two feet.*
Is it bad to say that nap time is my favorite time of day? It is my Only break of the day, and I treasure every moment of it! Plus they look so peaceful and sweet it reminds me of how absolutely precious they are...a much needed reminder on some days I must admit.

Soggy day fun.

Sometimes rainy days are the best. After weeks with out rain we have had a few soggy days as of late and that means I either come up with fun and exciting things for the kids to do, or I go insane. A house packed with six young children can be fun...or a nightmare...depending on how I plan the day. So on one of the days I decided to build a fort with the kids, which is something we haven't done in a while. I got the reminder from Tiffany at My Litter of Six (check her out she's awesome!) she posted about letting her kids build a big ole fort a while back. We built a smaller version and all the kids had so much fun, then I let them watch a movie in the middle of the day which is something we never do and we munched on some popcorn while watching the movie. They really thought the whole thing was so super cool. It kept them entertained for a good long time and gave me some peace of mind...which is so unexpected on a rainy day. Our magnificent chair fort, oh so fun.

I can remember building huge forts when I was a kid and I always had a blast. There's just something so fun about hiding inside of a blanket cave.

Bubu was having fun I swear, I think he was just trying to tell me to get the irritating camera out of his face. He's not much for pictures these days.

Since we are not doing preschool in the summer time it leaves for more hours to fill. Which can be a good thing because then we have time for bigger projects. There's an art project that I like to do with the kids every summer where we make butterflies. They always love it. We start out by doing paint blot art. They have so much fun "smooshing" the paint to spread it out.

Then we (I since all the kids are little right now) cut the shapes out into butterfly wings. I give them a body piece, a pipe cleaner to turn into antennas, and googlie eyes to glue on to the wings and ta-da we have butterflies.

Which we then hang up around the room and enjoy. They are super simple to make, but with six kids it takes a while to get them done, so it's a good way to fill up a rainy day.

We also did plain old water color painting on one of the rainy days and that turned out to be a lot of fun. Even the littlest enjoyed it. Since I had them take turns they didn't tire of it for a long time and it really filled up the day. They would paint, then switch with someone else and go play, then come back to paint...it worked out well. They did of course eventually get bored of this though so we cleaned it up and moved on to an Animal Dance Party. Boy was that fun! I got out the dress up clothes and picked out some jazzy music and it was on.

Atty doesn't like to dress up, never has. So the most I could get him to do was put this Dino hat on and pose one second for a picture before he ripped it back off.

The rest of the time he wore this one red wrist band and just hammed it up. I guess he's enough of a character he doesn't need to dress up!

Bubu decided to be the Dino, and then proceeded to wear the costume for the rest of the day.

Spike chose the monkey suit...doesn't he make for a cute monkey.

Then those animals got their grove on! It was super funny and they had a blast. After they were tired of dancing they just changed outfits a gazillion times and made an absolute mess of the playroom, but they were having fun and that's all that mattered on that wet, wet, wet day.

Pinch Patrol, no green, no mercy...

HAPPY PATTY'S DAY! The tricky little Leprechaun's left us gold coins, so exciting. We left them "rainbow candies" being as it is there favorite. We usually make a Leprechaun welcoming box and deck it all out really nice and then rig it to try and trap a Leprechaun, but some how St. Patrick's Day snuck up on me and we didn't have enough time. All the kids are little enough that they didn't call me on it, but if this had still been at the old daycare, I would have been in real trouble!

Then we made a lucky shamrock cookie and of course decorated it with "rainbow candies" in honor of the Leprechauns.

The kids were very excited for the Patty's day party. They did a great job helping to decorate the cookie, and of course lick off their utensils when done (or at least almost done).

Then it was time to enjoy, green milk and all. Those are plastic fancy glasses, just so you know. The kids just love getting to drink out of fancy glasses.

Then in a desperate attempt to balance out all the sugar and green food coloring I made cheesy biscuits and stew. I tried to go a bit Irish on the stew and used cabbage and potatoes. except I didn't have regular green cabbage, oh well.

I acknowledge that it doesn't look very tasty, but it was delicious. I wasn't very prepared this year, because my pregnancy hormones took over this last weekend and I was a sick sad little mess. Had to send hubby to the store for groceries on his only day off in the last 10 days. I would have started puking at some point for sure, probably while waiting in the check out line, into someone else's grocery cart. Things always get a little lost in translation when I send him grocery shopping, even though I send him with a DETAILED organized by food groups list. Oh well. He was a dear for going.

We also made a cute little art project, Leprechaun hats.

~*~

So all in all we've had an awesome day, even if I was flying by the seat of my pants. I can't preplan anything to save my life right now, it's really irritating. Brain is mush. What day is it? Where do I live? Who are you? How old am I? That one works out as long as I remember to guess about 5 years younger. ;) Yeah...it's getting pretty bad, pregnesia is what I call it and it's a sad, sad thing.

"Luna ate poop, Ms Riah"

In keeping with the current theme, this was my playroom yesterday after watching six kids ALL day. Don't you wish you were me? This picture doesn't even really show the total wreckage, it was INSANE! Five boys and One girl for the majority of the day, Yikes! I had such a crazy day. I knew I was interviewing a parent that night, yesterday, and so I was preparing for that. I had been working on a new parent packet the night before and didn't get to my floors like I normally do. So yesterday morning my schedule was already thrown off when I had to make room in my super packed day to scrub my floors. First thing in the morning, I am on all fours, frantically scrubbing away, trying to get done before two very rowdy childcare boys showed up. I was almost done, having to stop and put Spike on the toilet at one point so that he could go poo (Yay). I welcomed the boys and was talking to the mom while drying up the floor when I hear this "Luna (our dog) ate Poop, Ms Riah, Luna ate poop" WHAT! Sure enough Spike decided that although he had already done his business on the toilet, he needed to totally and completely embarrass his mother right in front of a Childcare parent. Thankfully we have become good friends, and she know me fairly well, but still mortifying. Poop on him, on the rug, on the bouncy horse, even (and I'm baffled by this one still) on Tank, and one happy dog. Yuck...so I grab Spike, put him on the toilet, run back with a towel to place over the poo, grab Atty plunk him in the bathtub because he is at this point a ticking mobile poop bomb, turn on the water, run back out to grab the bouncy horse and throwing it in the laundry room, snatching the carpet cleaner up and place it in the playroom, rush back in the bathroom to put Spike in the bath and turn off the water. All in front of the parent who is watching my every move of course. Scrub, drain, spray boys off with the shower head, dry and run back out to the playroom to activate carpet cleaner. Thankfully the mom had left by this point so I don't have to hear any more stories about how her kids never pooed anywhere but in the toilet, and yadda, yadda, yadda, bla, bla, bla while I'm breaking a sweat trying to get every thing back to normal (what ever that is). Oh the joys of childcare. So deep breath, poop catastrophe behind me, back to getting the house in order in preparation for the prospective Childcare family. Not that my house isn't already clean or what ever, it's just that I am sort of a freak about every thing being in order when people come over (I think that was made obvious in my last post) and it makes it even more so when I am interviewing a Childcare parent. I had a packed day though, with activities, lots of kids, preschool, etc to do, on top of wanting my house to look nice when they showed up at six that night. I cleaned though nap time which is usually my break time if I am lucky. So fast forward to the picture of the disaster formally known as the playroom, and yeah...it was a crazy day. I made it though, house was spotless (at least what they could see) and the interview went well. The boys were really well behaved, which was a miracle in it's own right, they are usually very burnt out by closing time, so I was proud of them. Interviewing parents is my least favorite part, I can't wait until I am set with my group of kids, and things get back to the way it was before we moved, sort of all settled in. You know what's funny, when I am interviewing a family, I am more focus on what kind of a parent I am dealing with the their kid. The type of parent or person they are really is the secret ingredient to a successful Childcare for me. So far I have always ended up with the best group of parents and kids. I have heard horror stories from other childcare providers, so I feel really lucky. I still haven't made up my mind about this family, and I have to do the call back today. A few things left to mull over. Well see. I also got another call so if I take in both kids, I will have a full house, which will make a Huge difference in income. Very needed, since my husband is laid off at this very moment, yuck, that just made my stomach turn, just typing that, worse then cleaning up poo.

baby in a box

We put Juicy baby in our letter box, we are on the letter I and since his name starts with I he got put in the box too, along with the insects (fake), index cards, and instruments. This letter was a hard one to find things to put in our letter box. There's always icecream and ice, but those would have been a little messy...

It's a good thing we had him just sitting around, or our letter box would have practically been empty.

He didn't want to get out though, I think he could have lived in there, he stayed in the letter box for the rest of preschool time, and only the lure of snack coaxed him out.

Look mom I made purple!

Um, yeah, I was speechless.

Situation went a little like this;

Me- washing another child's hands in the bathroom after our painting project in preschool.

Bubu- from the dinning room "I like purple"

Me- Hummmmm..... (answer for everything when busy.)

Bubu- "Purple is nice"

Me- "Oh?" (wait a minute, purple? We weren't using the color purple.)

Bubu- "I like it on my body."

Me- "Bubu, what are you doing?"

Bubu- "It's fun, Atty too mom."

Me- Wait a minute he's calling me mom! "Bubu, come here"

Bubu- suspiciously silent.

Me- "Bubu!"

Dashing back to the dinning room, almost run into little purple man, auggggg!

Bubu- "I made purple!" He shows me his hands with pride.
Good grief...and there's Atty all grins and giggles, covered from head to toe, enjoying purple. Well what can I say, it was a pretty color they made, although not my favorite. Maybe next time we will experiment with yellow and blue.

Preschool painting projects are so much fun!

no not THE "F" WORD

So yesterday during preschool we started a new letter, the letter F. As part of the learning process we were talking about words that start with the letter F, like fish and frog, fence and fire. We went through some Flashcards with pictures of items that start with the letter F, then wandered the house collecting items that started with the letter F and putting them in our letter box. As we are doing this, I am confirming with them that yes that is an F word or no that doesn't start with the letter F. So flash forward, an hour or so and a child is being dropped off for care. All the other children are greeting him, his mom is putting his stuff in his cubby, and Atty grabs a frog from the letter box and hands it to the child. At that very moment Bubu yells out "F word" were as the mom whips her head around and stares at my son, then turns her quizzical gaze to me. I am left stammering, "um yes that is an 'F' word, frog"

I pretty sure for a moment she was wondering

what kind of a preschool I was running!