Nap Time Woes

Naptime.

It's the only shot I get at a break in my 10.5 hour day, and when it goes badly, I get crabby.  Crabby Abby is not nearly as pleasant to be around as Happy Abby.

Lately naptime has been, shall we say... rough.  Connor has outgrown his naps, but I still make him because I  haven't outgrown his naps :o) .  So that's rough spot number one.

Then there's the crazy running around that ensues as I'm trying to lay each child down in their nap spots and helping kids to the bathroom, changing diapers, swaddling babies.  They think it's a free-for-all lately, and it only amps them up.  It's only been like this in the last month or so, but I'm tired of it.

So today we did something different...

After lunch was over and sort of cleaned up, I corralled everyone into the living room where we watched about 10 minutes of Signing Time while I changed the toddlers' diapers and helped them try the potty chair, all in the living room so nobody can escape the pre-nap confinement calm-down area.

Then once everyone was changed/pottied, I brought them one by one to bed, starting with the baby.  Once they were in bed (would have done this before laying them down but had to find it) I started a lullaby cd for some background white noise and to act as a sound cue that it is time to sleep.  Now that our noisy air conditioner isn't being used, it's too dang quiet for them to sleep!

So while it still took some time to get a couple of them to fall asleep, it was calm and peacefull and felt much better for all of us.  They are now, all 4 of them, sound asleep, and I'm going to get some birthday invitations done and some things ready to be mailed.  And drink more coffee! :o)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This was our first week of preschool for the year, and this month I ignored my Funshine Express curriculum book and went with something with more flexibility since I also started a 12 week old baby last thursday.

This month we are reading various Eric Carle books and doing extension projects related to the books we read.

This week we focused on The Very Hungry Caterpillar among other books.  We are also working on the literary concepts of "Cover", "Title", and "Author".

Our first project was simple and adorable!

fingerprint caterpillars

The second project (different day) was to make Hungry Caterpillar hats!  This one was mostly a gluing project for these guys, we're not ready for cutting circles yet, they found it enough of a challenge to work the glue stick, and manage to line up and stick the eye parts down that were also sticking to their fingers!

 And of course we've been doing the calendar every day, figuring out the pattern and predicting the picture on that day's piece, watching the weather and recording it, and have been working on the letter A, number 1, and color Red though those haven't made it onto the board because -well - I have a 6 month old and a brand new 12 week old also in the house. :o)

This is only some of what we've been doing this week, and it's been fun!

Valentines For Tots

The Valentines Day art project the toddlers and Izzy did spanned over a few days to make.

First they painted pink on stiff white paper.  All the while we talked about the color pink, and painting, brush, and how paint is for paper - not for eating.

Then the next day we added red footprints to form a heart-ish shape.  There were lots of giggly tots and wiggly toes during that process!

The next day I helped them paint a heart around their footprints, hand-over-hand.  We talked about the color Red and the Heart shape, and how we paint nice and smooth!

Valentines Day Eve I hung them up on the door to welcome their parents (and us) in the morning!  They can give them to their Mom or Dad tomorrow after daycare!

Hiding, Pinning, Zyrtec, and More

Time for a stream-of-consciousness post of sorts.

The toddlers in my life are big into hide and seek.  They are generally terrible hiders, but that doesn't stop them from squealing with glee every time someone finds them!  Connor's found a few spots lately that we wouldn't have found him quickly at all had he been quieter.  It cracks me up how every child I've known thinks it's a good idea to hide in the same exact place (or maybe one of three places) every time.  Also, I often take my time finding them.  I mean, why not enjoy a minute or two of silence right?

Speaking of games, Connor and my 16 month old daycare boy made a game out of cleaning up these little snap-together beads.  Daycare boy stood next to the bucket about 6 feet away from the pile of beads.  Connor would pick up a small handfull, or sometimes just 3 or 4 beads, bring them to daycare boy and put them in his hands, and daycare boy would put them in the bucket.  This took them a good 5 minutes at least to pick up the pile, but they had fun and were developing their team-work skills!

We spent a few days working on Valentine pictures for the daycare kids (even the baby!) to give their parents. They are turning out really cute!  Here is a picture of the baby's Valentine, I covered up his name.  I'll show you the bigger kids' version in a separate post.

I've started following a few more people's boards on Pinterest, but have been more selective in which boards I'm following in order to keep my main page easier to keep up with.  Specifically food boards!  It's hard to look at all that yumminess when you're on a diet!

I've become slightly addicted to wintergreen life savor mints.  They help me keep my mouth occupied when I'm hungry so I don't snack all day long.

I've finally started taking Zyrtec to deal with my many environmental and seasonal allergies.  While I'm still often itchy, it doesn't feel as bad as it was.  The main difference I've noticed, though, is how much easier it is to breath!  I didn't realize what I was missing until I had open sinuses!

I'm thinking of making the Pioneer Woman's pot roast again on Sunday because it is Oh So Yummy!

Sensory Play is Important and Fun!

Although it can be really messy, sensory tables or bins are great for preschoolers and toddlers, and fun for older kids too!  Infants and young children learn by using all of their senses.  You put something in front of a baby and what will the baby do? They will put it in their mouth, see how it tastes, how it feels in their mouth and hands, smell it, shake it and see if it makes noise!

This is why most preschools and day cares will employ some sort of sensory table/bin/box or other forms of sensory play.  Sensory play can be found in sandboxes, pools and water buckets, walking barefoot in the grass, picking up snow with bare hands, crafts with ribbons, sand paper, pom poms, scented markers, cotton balls scented with essential oils or baking extracts, dry rice, bird seeds, pebbles or aquarium rocks, cooking, and when babies are involved - mouthing everything they can find!  Obviously keep your child's age in mind when you plan what you will use so your little one doesn't eat something or choke.  For little ones who still put everything in their mouth you can use edible things like finger painting with pudding, or playing with jello.  There are tons of other things to use as well, google Sensory Play or Sensory Table Ideas.

 I recently filled our small sensory bin with red and white beans.  It was a huge hit!  I provided measuring cups, small cups to scoop with and into, spoons, kitchen set toys, and little ladles.

 They were able to practice scooping, pouring and transfer skills.  They learned what happened when they filled a larger dish with beans and then tried to pour the contents into a smaller dish, and why that happened.

 They made patterns and pictures with the beans, they counted beans, they made hand prints in the bin with the beans, and ran them through their hands and fingers.  On day two of the bean bin we put the whole bin in the fridge for a couple hours and played with them cold for a new experience!

Sure I spent a lot of my time scooping beans back into the play area and bin, but the extra clean up is well worth the learning experience they had!

Recap

Snapshots of what we've been up to lately:

Sticker math

Practicing printing with shaving cream

Color mixing project

Trip to the dentist

Playing with trees

SP joined Girl Scouts

and got her math badge!

Went to the Renaissance Festival (that'll get it's own post)

And dressing up brothers.

New Baby

Starting today, there's a new baby in the house!  You know what that means?

Itty bitty feet.

Itty bitty fingers.

Tiny size 1 diapers.

Little tiny socks that are still too big.

Little 10lb cuddle bug.

3-ounce bottles.

Swaddling.

Fascinated on-lookers.

The sound of the baby swing.

Warm blankies.

My shirt smelling like newborn at the end of the day, and I love it!

The End of an Era

I feel the need to blog about today, but it's hard.  It's a very bitter-sweet day at my daycare, as 3 of my little punkinheads are moving on.  Both families I've had for over two years, and it's hard to see them go!  The 5-year-old is leaving because he's about to start all day/every day kindergarten, and the 2 year old and 10 month old are leaving to be home with their now stay-at-home-mom.

We're having a lot of fun around here today, to celebrate their new adventures, but also to distract me from what is happening.  Denial can be healthy right??

While I am looking forward to a slower pace around here for a little bit, I get really sad when I think about the fact that when I open my doors Wednesday morning those familiar little faces won't walk in.

My daycare kids live and play in our family living space, which only adds to the feeling of them being part of the family.  Three members of the family are leaving this afternoon, it's the end of an era, and I'm trying not to think too much about it until  they are gone.  Then I can have a good cry, hopefully pick myself up by my bootstraps, and move on to the next era.

It's been a great run kiddos, I love you so much, and will miss you!

Post Storm Fun

We had a pretty big storm come through Tuesday morning at about 5AM.  I woke up to what sounded like a tornado right outside the window.  I woke up Spencer in case we'd have to grab the kids and run to the basement, and went and checked the tv for weather alerts.  The storm was just a severe thunderstorm with crazy winds but no tornados.  It did, however, wake up our girls for the next hour and a half.  It was a rough morning let me tell you.

Thankfully we didn't have any damage other than a large dead tree limb that fell in our driveway (others in our area had actual damage) and a whole lot of little branches and leaves scattered across the yard.

Using preschooler creativity Babydoll and my daycare boy got to work building a nest out of the branches and leaves.

 Babydoll's plan was that a bird in the tree above the "nest" would drop an egg down to their nest and she would sit on it until the baby bird hatched.

I'll let you know when that happens...
   

Battle Play

Like a majority of daycares (I think) I do not allow gun play during daycare, because it makes some kids really uncomfortable and it makes lots of parents even more uncomfortable.  When they inevitably turn any toy into a gun (which every boy I've had has done) and start shooting people I remind them, "no playing guns in daycare".

Off-hours though, I don't care.  I don't think that because my preschool children shoot their lego guns at each other they will grow up and shoot people for real.  Because we have the daycare rule though, my kids don't really play guns anyways, except for squirt guns.

Recently some of the kids wanted to have a water gun day where they could bring their squirt guns from home if they had them and run around the backyard squirting each other.  The rare squirt-gun days are the only times I allow them to play shooting games during daycare hours.

This past Saturday my kids were outside squirting each other with their squirt guns (let me just say... I can't wait until they can all re-fill their own squirt guns!) and having a great time.  Sweet Pea and Babydoll were both still in their pajamas, and Little Man? Well.... this is what he was wearing -

Most kids are still drawn to playing good-guy/bad-guy games though and want to use a weapon of some sort.  Since guns aren't allowed, they would be happy to duel each other with swords - except with toy swords in the hands of determined and uncoordinated preschoolers, someone is most definitely going to get hurt!  Need to stay away from close-range combat! 

Harry Potter has provided a helpful alternative - magic wands!  They have plenty of fun shooting spells at each other!  Just the other day we had a boisterous game of magic-fight going.  We were mostly shooting sleeping spells and wake-up spells at each other and trying to get eachother's wands, it was fun for everyone, and not one imaginary bullet was fired off.

This game was made all the more fun by the fact that Little Man isn't shy about dressing up in his sisters' accessories.  For all he knows it's completely appropriate attire for battle!

End of the School Year

Last week was our last week of preschool for the school year, which ment my 5-year-old daycare boy graduated!  I made him a graduation hat, diploma, gave him a nice poem to hang on to, he said he's going to tape it up on his wall where his dog won't scratch it.  Cute kid.  We also had celebration cupcakes for the end of a successful school year.... which were of course a huge hit!

I'm very proud of their accomplishments this year.  Babydoll has another year before kindergarten and she already knows the names of every letter, and the sounds of all but 2 letters (U and Y are tricky)!!  Next year she'll be working on learning lowercase letters and blending letter sounds to start reading simple words!

We also did a flower petal project using roses that Spencer recently gave me.  They were getting wilty so instead of throwing them away we played with them.



Sorry there's no finished product picture, but you get the idea :o)

Easter Preparations and My Little Troublemaker

I've got enough Easter pictures for two posts, so this first one is dedicated to the preparation part.

Last Thursday I planned an Easter egg hunt for the daycare kids.  Our neighborhood does a huge one every Good Friday morning but one of my daycare kids (besides the babies) lives outside our neighborhood and I knew she'd love hunting for and collecting eggs, so we had one in our backyard!!

First I set out fun springtime foam stickers, plastic cups with two holes punched in the tops, one on each side, sparkly chenille sticks, and Easter grass.  By the way, I hate plastic Easter grass. Go paper, it's way less messy!

 And I set them to work making little baskets to put their goodies in!

 Since Sweet Pea was home from school that day for spring break I asked her if she wanted to hide the eggs, or find them.  She chose to hide them.  Once they were all hidden, and cup/baskets were made, they were off!

 This was Little Man's first egg hunt that he could participate in.  Last year he was still just a crawler.

 I gave the toddlers a little head start, and when they each had a few eggs I reminded the bigger kids what their egg limit was and let them loose.

After the big neighborhood hunt on Friday morning Spencer, the kids, and I decorated our Easter eggs! 

 Little Man wasn't too impressed with the process, he really just wanted to play with the bowls of dye.  Not gonna fly with this Momma!  So he took off to play while the rest of us did the eggs and played with Easter egg-shaped playdough.

 
Oh did I say play? 

Hey... where's the little guy?  I don't hear him anywhere?

.
.
.
His door is closed.
.
.
.

 Busted!!

Beautiful Spring Day

SO THANKFUL FOR SPRING!

It's been a long, hard, snowy winter here in Minnesota and there's only so much a girl can take of snow and ice.  Also, I'm a big ol' wimp when it comes to cold.  I don't like being cold one little bit, so it says a lot that I was outdoors with no coat/jacket/hoody this afternoon.  It was a gorgeous day, I believe it was almost 60 degrees today?

The funny thing about this time of year though is that I still need to bundle up the kids during morning outdoor time because it was only about 30-40 degrees, but this afternoon we were playing coatless!

First of all, during naptime I opened the front door to hook the dog up outside and what was standing across the street, on the grass?  a bald eagle!  I've never seen one so close in the wild!  Right away it flew away and I was able to really get a good look at those magnificent feathers and that huge regal body!  I watched it fly to a tall tree down the street where it perched for a minute and then flew off.  I really wish this had happened when the kids were awake so they may have caught a glimpse of it before it was gone.  They would have loved that since we've been following two bald eagle families via Eagle Cams online. Links to those cameras can be found here and here.

This afternoon we played outside from 3:00 - 4:00, playing in the sandbox, hitting the wiffle ball off the tee, driving little cars around the yard, hopscotch on the patio, pulling some buckets and balls out of the shed, swinging, running, and enjoying the warmth.  Little Man had a great time running up and down the hill, especially since the last time there was no snow on the ground he was much less steady on his feet.  My daycare girl returned to her love of collecting things outdoors such as rocks, sticks, and now pinecones.  Babydoll and my daycare boy built an amazing sandcastle and re-learned how to hold a bat. 

I woke the baby up from her nap shortly before Sweet Pea got home from school and we all went on a walk down the nature trail.  We were able to get pretty close to the geese who were particularly fun to watch in the ponds today.  Because all the wetland plants and trees haven't sprouted up yet the kids could see all the geese and ducks in the ponds!  We found old cattails and played with those on our walk and after we got back home.

When we got home we played in the front yard collecting pinecones and turning eachother into geese with our magic wands until the daycare kids were picked up and my kids and I went in to start dinner.  After dinner SP went to play practice, LM went outside in the backyard to play, BD started a movie, and I bounced between the two of them. 

It was a wonderful day, I am so excited that Spring has finally arrived (for now anyway ;o) !

Ocean Adventure

Last week and the week before we went on an ocean adventure, learning about fish, salt water, whales, dolphins, sharks, crabs, sea stars, where the oceans are, and more!  Here's a very small sampling of what we did for those two weeks.

We went "fishing" for our snack one day.  We dipped pretzel sticks in strawberry cream cheese, bating our fishing pole.

 Then used our fishing poles to catch some fish!

 We learned that sometimes we had to gobble them up quickly or they could fall off!

Ship portholes

the toddlers' crabs

Preschoolers' crabs, currently keeping watch from the top of the tv.

Sea Star home

Jelly fish (these were really cool)

Current theme is Spring Sparkles, and I'm loving all the new springy supplies!!

Pancakes for Lots of Kids

I like pancakes.

The end.

Just kidding:o)

I like pancakes, and the kids all like pancakes, but they are kind of a pain in the butt to make for many children and then cut up for many children.

Recently I tried something different to make the process more efficient so everyone could eat at the same time and I didn't spend forever-and-a-day cutting up the little kids' pancakes.  Here's what I did...

Pull out the big skillet!

pour your batter into a rectangularish shape, and don't beat yourself up about the irregular shap.

It was at this point that I realized flipping the dang thing would be impossible, so I used the spatula to cut it into 3 flipable chunks

Flip!

but watch the edge!

when done cooking move them to a large cutting board, take out your pizza cutter (it's good for everything!) and cut it into strips that they can pick up with their fingers and dip into a little syrup!

serve with some syrup and fruit

and enjoy!

There's a way to make pancakes like an actual cake, in a cake pan, which makes things even easier, but with the pancake mix I've been buying it just doesn't turn out right.  Also I don't really know how hot to cook it at or for how long :o) 

I hope to return to regular blogging after our taxes get done (should happen next week) and can once again devote some of my brain power to blogging!