days of our day care

Oh why I have not done this before is beyond me!  Not long ago I had the big idea to add a coat rack right inside the back door of the day care which is the door we all use.  If someone knocks on the front door I make a strange face like "who the?"  I felt I needed to wait until fall was over and my lovely life-sized scarecrow was ready to be taken down.  So I waited on that but why I didn't think of this before I don't know because it is fantastic! 

 

I informed Shaun of my plan and he came up with a piece of wood for me to use.  I measured and he cut it to the right length... twice actually.  I didn't have a measuring tape on me nor can I locate my yard stick so I was using a one foot ruler and mis-measured the first time.  I painted the piece of wood and screwed it to the wall at a good height I think.  I also put on eight hooks that I found at Lowe's. 

 

I had fears of catching my bags on the hooks coming in the door or of someone hitting their head on them but the fears are gone now that the coat rack is up.  I love it so and don't see why the idea never hit me before.  I got the hankering to hang up the paper snowflakes that I made last winter so that's what I did.  I think it looks great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



lego land

Aaahhh Legos.  I have always been a fan.  In fact, when I talked my Mom out of this set from her house that were played with by me as a child, I found myself playing them with at the day care and actually losing track of time!  The first morning we played with them, one of my moms walked in with her boys to find me being the only one at the table building.  There were other children here I promise... they had just gone off to do other things at the moment.  I knew especially the older boys would be very good with the Legos and they would allow their imaginations to flow in a different way and I have to say I was right about that.  

My creations.

What fun!

holiday child care

Because it's the Holidays...

Because I know you've got things to do...

Company parties to attend...

Sunday school gatherings...

Christmas shopping to wrap up...

and because I love ya...

For more information about Giggle Box Child Care please visit

Giggle Box Child Care

what do you feed yourself?

When I ask you "what do you feed yourself?", I'm not just talking about food.  Sometimes, when we feel rotten, wore down and unhealthy, it is majority of what we are putting in that is giving us the bad outcome.  Not just what we eat, but what we watch, talk about, listen to, and even read.  I am sure, by society standards, that we feed ourselves plenty of bad things like news stories of violence and sickos, fast food, soft drinks, gossip, alcohol, processed foods, porn, or self-criticism.  If we keep putting bad in to our minds and bodies surely the outcome is not going to be good and stressing over things that we can't control will also run us down.

Why not make an effort to purposely feed ourselves with only what makes us feel good, be it healthy food, a favorite song on cd instead of the morning news, a glass of water instead of diet mountain dew, a walk around the block after a long day at work, yoga or a good stretch?  I feel like if we turned  off all the bad and turned on the good for a full week we would each begin to see a huge difference in our individual worlds.  It could actually change the way we eat, sleep and treat others.

Before all my diet changes, I had never really felt like I fed my body foods that made it feel good and refreshed.  Stopping to get a biscuit and an energy drink on the way to work was just the way it was.   But now I can truly tell a difference in the way that I feel.  Now if I can just make myself exercise!

Why not try it for one week?  Make a small list of just a few that make you feel "not-so-good" and replace them with something better, something that has a more positive twist on things.

days of our play care

So, when we were out at the dirt pile the other day, I noticed that there wasn't much mud leading up to the water and thought "we could actually get close enough to set some a-sail".  I almost couldn't wait for nap time to drag out my computer to see if I could find an easy origami boat tutorial.  I wound up finding a really good DIY and after nap time it was on.  The kids colored sheets of white copy paper and as they finished I neatly folded each one while I explained the rules of the pond.  

As we were lining up at the gate to head out the thought hit me.... "are you nuts woman?  You are taking these kids to water!  They could wind up wet.... muddy... wait and build something that can hold water in the yard or get a pool."  But if I listened to the sensible angel on my shoulder we wouldn't have had a ton of fun setting our paper boats in the water, with the wind blowing them just right, and having a terrific time.  We had to get our the black pipe we found at the dirt pile to help when one of them started to sink and all boats were retrieved with success except for the toppled one.  It was promptly crushed by it's owner.    

I wish the boats would have sailed all the way across the longer way of the pond but they chose to stay closer to the edge.  I did think ahead to warn the children that we may have to leave them in the water if we weren't able to get to them but luckily this wasn't the case.  When we got back to the DC we pinned them to the clothesline to dry.  I have a feeling this will not be the last boat race we will have!

HERE is the wonderful tutorial that I used to learn how to easily make paper boats that float!  Too cool!

spring gardening

Gardening has already begun here at the day care!  So excited to get out and dig in the dirt!  We have a row of lettuce planted, two rows of spinach seeds planted and our garlic from last fall is up.  We have also started lots of seeds.  Most of them will be for our garden at home but some will live in the wee day care garden and some will live in pots.  The seeds that are coming up are peppers, tomatoes, snapdragons, lavender, dichondra, stevia, rosemary, and dill.  We are growing three kinds of tomatoes this year.  Two of them are new to me.  Those being Bonnies and Early Girls.  The others are black cherry tomatoes that I adore!  We dig and putz around our garden every sunny chance we get.  Everyone helps in some way to clear out unwanted greenery and turnips from last year while loosening the ground for a healthy season!  Gardening is great exercise for the abs and arms too!

Hello garlic!

Two little rows of spinach marked by pretty fake flowers.

Proud of the peppers coming up this year!  I have thirteen so far.

Our little DC greenhouse.  Hey, it works great!  

The heater is regulated to keep it between 72&78 degrees.  

Although it sometimes gets much hotter in there when the sun is shining in.

This is my first year to buy a tray with the little growing pellets.  They work great so far.

I may have overdone it with the snapdragons seeds!  They're so teeny!

Tomatoes started last Wednesday.  Most were up by Sunday.  Growing like crazy by Monday!

A bit on planning a garden with kids.

This is when we planted the first garden at the day care along with some markers we made.

And a July look at our first little garden.

dc days

ahh our first trip to the dirt pile this year.  it has finally dried up enough for us to walk and climb on and not get stuck in the mud.  this trip was actually a week or so ago and much needed. most of my kids were already gone for the day so it was three of us.  we were actually on a bear hunt and took a detour, climbing the highest dirt pile for a better look.  plus we found bear tracks around the dirt pile.  not really.... but really.  we had corn stalk torches that we would pretend went out and had to relight with each other's until we got tired of toting them.  here's our song... or bear hunt chant rather.

we're going on a bear hunt, one two three

we're going on a bear hunt, you and me

we're going on a bear hunt, wait and see

we're going on a bear hunt, what's in that tree!

the last part would startle them because i would point and yell... hehe  not everyone has this much fun at work i don't think.  i like to hunt for arrowheads of which i found a piece of one that day (not pictured)

like me... they come back with pockets full of treasures.