'You need new sweats..'

Last week, my husband kindly told me I should consider going shopping for some new 'comfy clothes'.  He told me I needed new sweat pants & shirts, and a few cute little matching jacket & pant outfits..He thought my daycare families were probably getting tired of seeing me in the same-old same-old every morning.  I just looked at him with a 'Are you kidding me look?!'..  he couldn't figure out why I was upset.  He thought I would be excited to go shopping for myself!  So anyway, I guess I'm on the hunt for new work clothes, although I am positive that any mom (or dad!) reading this knows perfectly well that sweat pants & t-shirts are the most comfy things ever to chase kids around in.. and get pooped on..peed on.. barfed on.. you name it! 

I really couldn't ask for better kids to take care of.  Not one of them is a handful (other than Brigham!) and 9 times out of 10, everyone plays well, eats well & naps well, so I really couldn't ask for more!

Here are a few pictures of the kids from the past few weeks.

This little guy's previous daycare provider told me he would be the easiest kid to watch.. she was right!  

 

 We did some painting last week!  I told the kids it was magical paper & that once they started to cover the paper with paint, their name would magically appear!  It worked!  :)

      Gracie gets so focused when she paints or colors!

 I didn't dare give this little guy a paint brush, so he got a snack instead!  Bennett just celebrated his 1st Birthday!

The older kids love to play games.  Memory, Trouble, Connect 4 and Candyland are some of their favorites!  I usually have to supervise closely or they start to blame each other for cheating!

 Makinli loves it when I read books.  She listens SO WELL and then likes to read it back to me.

Each week we try to do a letter craft for a capital & lowercase letter.  It takes quite a bit of prep work on my part, but the kids love it & it's adding some nice direction to the cement wall in the basement :)  I found the idea here for anyone that is interested. 

 

I've had a lot of people ask me if I am enjoying having a daycare.  It worked well taking a few kids here and there, but I was skeptical of taking on permanent part-time families.  It was something I had always thought of trying, but there was a part of me that wondered if it would drive me crazy. I'm a clean freak and having kids around messing up the house all day was a huge worry of mine! Silly I know, but I was more worried about the mess than the stress :)  I am very surprised at how well it has gone.  There are definitely days that I look at the clock, patiently waiting for it to be 5:30, and I love having a day or 2 off a week...but overall, it has gone much better than I ever expected!  The kids are awesome, and so are the parents, so I am very blessed!  It took me awhile to get into a groove that worked well, but I have found that it works best for me to clean the entire kitchen during rest time every day & that all the kids help with clean up around 4:30 or 5 so that when the last kids are picked up, you would never know there were kids playing here all day!  Speaking of cleaning the kitchen... I better get that done.  All the kids are sound asleep, or resting their eyes quietly!