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!

Video Game Obsessed

My husband likes to brag about beating video games since he was the age of, well, nearly a fetus.  It is his favorite recreational activity... well, one of them.  Some guys play golf, some guys play music, some guys camp, Spencer plays video games.

When we were dating we'd often hang out either playing video games together or I would watch him play (some are indeed fun to watch for a while, I genuinely enjoyed it back then).

Fast forward to these last several weeks and I'm thinking...

Why did I agree to have three children with an obsessive enthusiastic gamer!?


My kids, particularly my younger two, are obsessed with video games!!



Babydoll, who is barely five year olds is kicking butt on Zelda Twilight Princess on the wii.  Also most recently she has become obsessed with watching Spencer play the new Batman game.  He's not even all the way in the door after work and she asks, "Can we play Batman now!?"   They actually beat the game yesterday, but now they are playing it again on the harder level.  That's right, she sat through the entire game with him!




Sweet Pea, who is nine years old, has had a long-lasting love affair with Viva Pinata.  She wakes up in the morning and heads down to the basement to play, and plays again after her homework is done in the afternoon.  Not as often really as her younger brother and sister, but she is currently on another viva pinata kick.

Notice how the nine-year-old is playing a game for ages 3+, and the five-year-old is playing a game intended for ages 12+.  

And they aren't the only ones.  The most video game crazed child in my life is currently Little Man.  I have to force him to stop and play with real toys and eat meals or he would just keep on playing his computer games.

He's been playing two games, but his current favorite is a Tonka Construction game.

In this game he is using construction equipment to build skyscrapers, castles, parks, clean up a ski resort after a blizzard or avalanche or something, and something involving a quarry that I've never caught the beginning of to know what it's about.

He and I have both been learning about excavators, front loaders, graders, and other equipment.  I particularly enjoy hearing him say, "front loader" and "scoop"... pretty damn cute!

He's a wiz with those computer games, knowing how to navigate all over several of them.

What does it all mean?  When I want some peace and quiet, they can play their games and I can catch my breath.  When I want to spend time doing other things with them.... I'm in trouble.

Yes they have limits, and yes they must wait to play until after school/preschool activities are completed.

Parent of the Year?

I've been gone a while, and I apologize.  I guess there's only so much "extra-curricular" fun I can handle, and my evenings have been full of reading, watching tv and netflix streaming, spending time with spence, and spending time with friends.  Blogging time has suffered!

So because my blogging has suffered, I thought I'd share something that may be a tad controversial?  Now, since I am a daycare provider/preschool teacher, you may think my free time playing with my kids would be full of songs, board games, reading, skipping, bike rides, and the like.  While my work hours are most definitely spent like that, this is what we played after daycare was over one day last week - and keep in mind it was initiated by my daughter... not me!

Hey! At least it was the shady side of the tree!


Disclaimer: she wanted to be tied up ("captured") and I unwrapped her before I went inside... wouldn't want any police or neighbors driving by to get the wrong idea!

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!

No Small Feat

We seem to have hit another milestone in our family.  All three of our children are now old enough to play a cooperative game together.  This is unusual because generally speaking, 2-year-olds do not play games like this with other kids very well.  Typically they would just grab those fish and do what they wanted with them rather than play properly.  We've been working on taking turns a lot around here though, and that helped him be willing to hand off the beloved fishing pole and wait his turn to go fishing.

 This is our Fisher Price Go Fish game.  The object is to use the fishing pole with the suction cup on the end to catch a fish from the pond.  The bottom of the fish is either one of the 4 colors, or an item of litter.  If they catch a fish of their color they get to keep it and put it in their boat. If they catch the wrong color they have to throw it back. First player to fill their boat wins.  There are other ways to play, there are numbers on the bottoms too, but we really only do the color one.

 Babydoll kicked butt at this game that night! 

 Poor Little Man kept finding everyone elses colors, but it didn't phase him at all.  he wasn't discouraged by the fact he was losing, he just had fun playing with his big sisters!

And my oldest just can't help make faces and pose when there's a camera in front of her.

Sitting around the "fish pond" with my 3 little punkinheads and realizing that they were all, even my toddler, playing cooperatively together a game that was not ring-around-the-rosie moved me - I had to capture the moment!

So when they are all in their 20's and talking about the drinking games or whatever they played the weekend before, I'll be able look back on when they all happily played Go Fish together on the living room carpet and smile.

Movie Quiz Answers and Winner!

When I announced this little contest last weekend, I knew it would be fun for me to put on, and boy was I right! I hope you enjoyed the game too!  There were a couple movie stills that stumped people more than others (number 1 and 6 in particular), but it was a VERY close race!  All of the scores ranged from 13 - 15 correct, and had there been a tie in the top score, the winner would have been the person who got that score first. 

1) 300

2. Die Hard

3). Inception

4) The Goonies

5) Newsies

6) Vicky Christina Barcelona

7) Enchanted

8) Knight and Day

9) Finding Neverland

10) Braveheart

11) Star Wars 3, Revenge of the Sith

12) The Princess Bride

13) Public Enemies

14) Batman Begins

15) Home Alone (the first one)

16) The Notebook

17) Walk the Line

18) Bruce Almighty

19) Kill Bill vol 1

And the winner, by a margin of 1, is Jodi!  Congratulations!  I just need your email address and you should have your $10 amazon giftcard in the next few days! 

Here's the link to the original post, submitted answers are in the comments below the post.

Thanks for playing everyone!! This was really fun!



Phonics Toys That Ticked Me Off

I love educational toys. Love love love educational toys.  Because I have young children, and I do daycare, and I teach preschool to these children, I get to research them, buy them, and use them whenever I want.  For the most part I'm pretty good at picking out educational supplies and toys, but sometimes they wind up backfiring on me.

These magnet letters for the Leap Frog Fridge Phonics dealibobbers are one of those toys.

In general I love these dealibobbers! (fun word huh?) The single Fridge Phonics one teaches the letters and the letter sounds, the Word Whammer teaches the letters, letter sounds, and has different settings for spelling real words and creating words on their own.

                                
 
Both Thingymajiggies have a music button that when you press it, it sings the alphabet... this is a VERY popular button let me tell you.  And, thank the creators for including a volume switch!

These have both been well-loved toys.  Sadly though, the Word Whammer was purchased way back when Sweet Pea was 2 or 3 years old and we've lost most of the letters for it, and it doesn't work anymore, so that's a bummer.  Also sad, I have tried replacing the batteries for the single unit but it doesn't seem to be working anymore either.. it is only a couple years old. 

The only problem I have with this toy, and it's an annoying one, is that we have been using the letters as fridge magnets for holding various art and papers to the fridge... except they don't ever stay on the fridge. 

The are big enough to not be a choking hazard if they fall onto the floor and into the hands of a little kid, but they are also big enough to be really easily bumped into when walking around the fridge.  Not to mention Little Man's favorite thing to do with the magnets (since the doohickies aren't working) is to swish all the magnets within reach onto the floor, which means they fall to the floor, get kicked around, stepped on, and are always in the way when sweeping!

groan.

this has been an all too common sight for far too long.

I finally got sick of it and put up the thingymajigs and threw all unused magnet letters into a bag and hung that bag up in a cupboard.  I did not do this with any kind of cheer or good feelings... I threw the letters in the bag and stuffed that bag away as quickly as possible... I had kicked my last magnet across the floor!

Or so I thought.

Because we're still using some of the letters as fridge magnets.. because they are holding stuff up... they are apparently still determined to be on my floor.  When I knocked one down today I wanted to throw the damn thing out the window!

I guess a run to the store is in order where I can find a better type of magnet for my fridge... big enough to not be choked on or swallowed, strong enough to hold up paper, and flat enough to not be a shoulder hazard.

All this lamenting aside, they are great toys, but only under these circumstances:

Your fridge is located in a spot where you will not walk past it and brush it with your arm.

or

You keep the magnets in a container only to be brought out when used and put away when not.

for example

You wouldn't even need to use them on the fridge, play with them at the table, also baking

sheets make excellent surfaces for playing with magnetic letters or numbers.



These circumstances are what keep me from throwing my Fridge Phonics thingy away all together.  If I can get it working again (perhaps different batteries.. the ones I tried were unused but pretty old) I'll bag it up in a zippered bag and it will come out to be used at the table. 

I really don't know why I'm hanging onto the non-functioning-letter-missing word whammer.

That I should really just go toss out now.

All in all, it's a pretty great toy... just don't count on those fridge phonics magnets necessarily staying on the fridge.

Movie Trivia Time!

edited: answers are now at the bottom.

I put this up on Facebook for fun, and because I didn't blog on thursday or friday last week, I'm putting it here too for fun. 

Now if this blog made any money, and I had spare cash to give away, there would be a prize for the winner.  But Babydoll's birthday is tomorrow and the little dear wants a present, and a cake.  She's so demanding that way. 

So the prize is praise, aknowledgement, and your name next to "And The Winner Is..."

Name the movie quotes, without looking them up online.


‎1. Well I may be an outlaw, darlin', but you're the one stealing my heart.


‎2. As your leader, I encourage you from time to time, and always in a respectful manner, to question my logic. If you're unconvinced that a particular plan of action I've decided is the wisest, tell me so, but allow me to convince you and I promise you right here and now, no subject will ever be taboo.

‎3. Now let's cut the stupid cake because I know the fat guy's gonna have a heart attack if we don't eat again soon...

‎4. George: This is Jack. Second in line to the throne. And that one's Michael. He's only five.
Michael: And I'm in prison for it.

5. Please excuse my father. It makes him feel young and powerful to treat us like idiot children.

6. You know how they say we only use 10 percent of our brains? I think we only use 10 percent of our hearts.

‎7. So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day.

8. What's his type? Wilting flower? Bright and bubbly? Or smoldering temptress?

‎9. --- Do you know if the hotel is pager friendly?
--- What do you mean?
--- I'm not getting a sig' on my beeper.

10. There's a lot of people out there, and they ain't just gonna go away. They got voices now and they're goin' to be listened to. Putting them in jail is not going to stop them. That's the power of the press, Joe. So thanks for teaching me about it.


****Nobody played on the blog post, but I got people guessing on Facebook, many of the quotes were figured out!  Here are the answers!****

1. Thelma and Louise


2. Kill Bill

3. The Wedding Singer

4. Finding Neverland

...5. Legends of the Fall

6. Wedding Crashers

7. The Notebook

8. Moulin Rouge

9. The hangover

10. Newsies

Candy Hearts Math Games

   Did your kids get those little candy hearts for Valentines Day this year?  Before letting them eat them, consider one of these math games to do with them!
   This is what we did the other day with my toddler and preschoolers.  First I took the little boxes of candy hearts, one for each child, and emptied them into snack-sized ziploc bags so the kids could manage them and see them better.

Next, I cut hearts out of construction paper, one heart of each candy color, per child.

   Now it's time to start.  I didn't get pictures of this because my photography assistant had the day off... something about appendicitis, or the flu, or the plague,... big baby.

   Sit down with the kids, and give them each a set of hearts.  Have them spread their hearts out in front of them.  Then give them each a bag of candies and tell them not to eat them yet, that they can have one when the game is over.  Ask them to sort the candies by putting each candy on the paper heart that is the same color.  After they've done that, help them count the candies in each color group.  After they've counted all the color groups, ask them comparison questions like, "Which color do you have the most of?"  "Which color do you have the least of?"  put emphasis on the early math words "most" and "least". 

   With kids that are a little older, you can use the groups to create simple addition and subtraction problems.  You can give them a group of 7 pink candies, next to a group of 4 yellow candies, and ask them, "How many more pink candies than yellow candies are there?"  or conversely, "How many fewer yellow candies than pink candies are there?" 

   That's all for this week, I hope everyone has a fabulous Valentines Day weekend! 

                                               All my love, 

                                                     Abby :o)