Blizzards and Christmas!

Once again it is one of those busy times of year. Getting ready for Christmas and New Years and in my families case a new baby as well. On top of all this hustling and bustling we have been dumped on with snow (which I cannot say I am not unhappy about - I LOVE snow at Christmas time). However much I love snow, doesn't reflect the fact that all of you have no doubt encountered many troubles getting out of your house to head to work or my house, or traveling scary slick roads as well.

Last week we had a full list of festivities for the kids to help them enjoy the Christmas season. I wanted it to be a fun and relaxing time, while also getting to do many things we don't always get to do.

Monday we had a free day, where the kids got to pick all day what they wanted to do next and we had to do it (within reason of course) without complaining. That turned out ok.
Tuesday we had a pajama day and the kids love it. I don't know why I don't do it more often. Maybe from now on, when the boys don't have school we'll have a pj day. I think my main reason for not doing it more often is because we have to load up everyday to make the school run.

On pajama day we got to run around in our pajamas and draw and have a daytime slumber party! I know I enjoyed wearing my pj's all day too!!Wednesday we had our green day and our Christmas party. It was a lot of fun. No one forgot their green! We watched the Santa Claus 3, made and decorated sugar cookies, had gifts from Matt and Alex's mom (thank you), treat bags from me and made a couple of cute crafts. I love the handprint Christmas trees the boy's made, and I hope you all liked yours too. We played Christmas Bingo and listened to Christmas music all day. It was a fun snowy day!

Thursday Matt and Alex were my only kids for the day, but we still enjoyed our game and movie day. Matt and Alex brought a Mickey Mouse movie to share and the game Hot Potato, which my kids had never played before. We decorated some more Christmas cookies and had a relaxing day.

Friday of course we were closed, but I hope everyone had a great holiday! Here are some pictures that I wanted to share of our week last week. Also, my Midwife has decided that unless Tess has a major growth spurt, her intentions are to let me go into labor on my own (so that leaves it up in the air as to when she will come). My mom comes this Saturday (the 2nd) for if she comes next week, but that leaves us wide open for this week. If for some reason she comes this week, I will call you if it's during the day to come pick up the kids, while also calling my mother-in-law to come watch the kids if need be until they get picked up. Whatever day she comes, that next day until a week from then I will plan on being closed. For example if she were to come Wednesday, then I would be closed Thur. and Fri. then the whole next week. But we can figure that out when the time arrives.

If you have any questions please let me know! Enjoy the pics. and I look forward to having everyone back.

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

Many people totally hate the snow. Maybe it's because school was closed today and tomorrow and I don't have to leave the house or it's just December and I think that there should always be snow this month to make it more Christmasy, but I didn't and don't mind all of the snow we are getting right now!

We tried to take advantage of it today since the kids were so upset that I wouldn't let them play in it yesterday. Today we had a REAL snow day. We got bundled up and played outside, we listened to Christmas music and drew Christmas pictures, we played a couple of games and we had popcorn and hot cocoa for a snack. At the end of the day we relaxed with a good old fashioned movie.

I thought it was a very fun day, and I hope the kids did too.

So I took a few pictures of us playing out in the snow and thought they turned out really cute! I hope you all enjoy and made it home safe and sound.

Still able to play on the swings, even in a snow storm!

Almost Christmas Time!

Brown day...


I know, once again it has taken me a little while to update our blog. We've been keeping busy with Thanksgiving projects, the letters and numbers and practicing rhyming words.

Now we are gearing up for winter and Christmas projects while continuing our letters etc. We will be doing lots of fun things in the upcoming weeks and I think the kids will enjoy some of the crafts and activities we will be doing. I love celebrating Christmas time with the kids, because they always have so much fun with it!

Please let me know what days you might be gone for vacations etc. so I can plan what day our Christmas Party will be. I am planning on only being closed Christmas day (unless something happens with baby Tess).

I think the kids have already been restless with the cold weather the last couple of days after such nice days the beginning of the week. We will be practicing our listening skills a lot more over the next few months, because in my experience, for some reason kids have more trouble listening when the season changes to Winter and I think it's just because they don't get as much time to run and exercise.

I will keep you all posted on any baby news as soon as I know something. Please have backups at the ready just in case she decides to make her debut unexpectedly! Also as a reminder Christmas Day is a paid holiday.

Playing in the Leaves!

Today we spent a considerable amount of time in the front yard playing now that the leaves have finally dried out after all of our rain! The kids went a little crazy playing in the leaves and I thought it was so cute! They were throwing them and playing chase and rolling in them and it was a great photo opportunity. So I took a bunch of pictures of them playing. Since the weather is supposed to be so nice this weekend, my goal is to get as many leaves raked up as I can (we'll see how that works out!) and so this might be one of the last times they have this many leaves to play in for awhile.

So I hope you enjoy the pictures of your kids playing and enjoying the beautiful Fall weather!

October in Review!

So I know I am still only good at posting once a month, but you'll have to forgive me for that. We have had a busy month learning the letters d,e,f and the numbers 3 and 4. We also learned about pumpkins, fire safety, triangles, and had our orange day!

We celebrated my birthday and Mila's birthday and Alex's is actually today! We also had our Halloween party on this last Thursday which turned out really well. We all got our costumes on and colored pictures, played games, had Halloween treats, made a pumpkin craft, danced and watched "The Great Pumpkin". Faith's mommy provided us with cute little Halloween activity books, and Alex and Matt's mommy made treat bags for the kids. Thanks guys, they were both a hit!

Also this month we have welcomed Skyann back to our house! We missed her and are glad that she has rejoined our group.

Below I have posted a bunch of pictures, so I hope you enjoy. I will again try and be better at posting more often, but I can't make promises yet! :)

Also, I am now 30 weeks pregnant with the new baby, but I still am not sure what days I will be taking for my vacation time until it gets closer. My mom will be coming that first week of Jan. I believe to help out and be my back up in case I go into labor when the kids are here!

The week of Thanksgiving I will be closed that Thursday (Thanksgiving day) and Friday. I do have paid vacation on Thursday but Friday will be an unpaid day for me, just as a reminder. Thanksgiving day and Christmas days are my only paid holidays off.

School Update

We have now completed our first two weeks of preschool and are beginning our third week! We have been very busy jumping right in and getting down to the business of learning. We have already worked on the letters A and B and will be working on the letter C this week. We have also been working on the color red and the circle and the numbers 1 & 2.

We have set up our library system (even though we did not check out books this last week), learned about ourself and our families and neighbors, and done some cooking. Each Friday is our cooking day where the kids get to help make their snack for the afternoon. Cooking not only gives the children a lesson in nutrition, but it also teaches them math skills like measurements, science skills like mixing liquids with solids, etc., and language arts skill like learning to read a recipe. It also teaches them responsibility like cleaning up after themself, following steps, listening to directions and working together.

Our first recipe was to make chocolate chip cookies, which we got to share with our families. I hope that they were delicious! Then last week we made Rice Krispy treats and the kids got to cut out shapes with cookie cutters, which was fun. This Friday, in honor of the apple and Fall, we will be making caramel apples! YUM!

In addition to all of these topics, we work on the days of the week, the months of the year and the calendar every morning during our circle time.

Another subject we have been working on is our pre-printing practice. Each time the kids color those fun coloring pages, I make them work on holding the crayons correctly and trying to stay in the lines, which helps with future writing. I also work with them on spelling and writing their own names on their papers. We will be doing a lot of tracing pages coming up, which may not look like much but straight lines, but it is actually a very difficult skill for children to master and one that is necessary in order to learn how to write properly. This is something you can work on with them at home. Also at home you can draw straight lines on a piece of paper and with child scissors allow them to practice cutting following the straight lines that you have drawn.

So as you can see, we have been very busy and will continue to be very busy! I would like to plan a field trip coming up, since we haven't taken on in awhile, but don't have details yet, so I will keep you posted as I make a decision.

I don't have a lot of pictures of the last couple of weeks, but hope you enjoy the couple that I do have. I hope the kids have been as excited about learning as I have been.