This is our kind of fun. We were running back and forth for a while before I started taking this, so that is why I sound winded. lol I think the best way to spend time with your kids is doing what they think is fun, and letting them see you enjoy it also, whether you really do or not. I personally did have fun though. I though Landon was so cute. He is the only boy when he is here, and his mom calls us "his girls". At first when we were doing this, he was just watching us, and had a little smile on his face, expressing that he thought we were pretty silly, but then he joined in, and had fun too. Cute guy!

We did Turkey hands today. Can't have Thanks Giving without em!

Brooklyn is thankfull for her mom, Kassidy is thankfull for Grandma's, Adria is thankfull for Feets!, and Landon is thankfull for Birds, and Kimmy is thankfull for milk! I am thankfull for kids!!

Fall Pics

Adria is wearing her sunglasses so she can go mow the lawn with Daddy, we make sure she has something protecting her eyes just in case. I thought she looked pretty darn cute in her princess dress and sunglasses. Funny girl! The other pictures are just some of us doing daycare. I have implemented pre-school playtime back into the schedule now, and this is one of the activities we did. Can you gues which felt picture is mine, Adria's, Landon's and Kimmy's? I like how Kimmy is barely hangin on to the table. She is not quite tall enough to climb up to it herself, but she wanted in on the action. : ) We are getting another little boy to be a part of our clan, and on Oct. 23rd possibly a little girl just on thursdays. It's been fun getting back into the joy of doing daycare and hanging out with kids all day. They make me smile!

Adria playing my guitar

She got the guitar out all by herself, and started singing while she played it. If you listen closely you can hear her say "come and sing wis me!" That was part of her song.

She played it for a long time, and then the first thing she wanted to do this morning was play the "guitar". Its fun seeing her interests come about. Especially when they are things that I love to do too. She is also learning some tap dance moves. As soon as she is potty trained I want to get her into a dance class. I am excited to get her some tap shoes. We have a good floor in our kitchen for practicing!

Right now she is making me put her toy dinosaur on my head. Funny Girl! She just played with my pony tail, and now she is telling me I have "cute hair". : )

This poor little guy was so tired. He sat here and nodded off for about 5 min. I wish I could have caught a little more on video. He kept just about falling over and then would catch himself with his eyes still closed and would sit back up. Right after I got this video he finally managed to lay himself on the floor. So cute!

This is Rylen, he went to a different daycare when little Kimmy was born, but we get to have him back for two days. Its sad because he is not used to us, and so he has been pretty emotional. I try to hug him and cuddle him, but it doesn't help a whole lot. I am going to try to get a video of him while he is happy. He's a pretty cute little kiddo when he's smiling. : )

I filmed this a few months ago, but I thought it was appropriate to go with the bedtime routine post. Daddy reads to them every night before bed. He has been doing that since Adria was 2 weeks old. The benefits from it are so fun! I go into Adria's room and allways catch her sitting on her bed or somewhere with a book. She loves to read! After I leave the room at night, sometimes I still hear Adria in there, and so I will go check on her and she is reading a book in the dark. She also reads herself to sleep for naps. I hope she allways keeps that habit, and I hope Kimmy picks up on it too!

Kimberly sleeps in her own bed now!!!! Its been about 5 nights. I was really worried about putting her in the same room with Adria, but it has turned out to be just fine. When we put Adria to bed, we change her diaper, put her in jammies, and read her a story and then do prayers and hugs and kisses then bed. During that time, I also change Kimmy and put her in jammies. Then While daddy does the rest with Adria, I nurse Kimmy one last time for the night. Usually I am still nursing her after he is done and so we have had problems with Adria getting back out of bed, because she wants to give daddy "tisses". But they have both been sleeping really well, and Adria doesn't bother Kimmy at all!

The first two nights Kimmy woke up at 5 and 6 in the morning for a feeding and then would sleep again, but the last 3 nights she has slept the whole night until about 7:30 or 8:00. This morning I went in at 7:00, because I could hear Adria, but Kimmy was still asleep. So I quietly picked her up and let her nurse for a 1/2 hour or so, and she stayed asleep. It is currently 8:54 am. and she is still sleeping. Its great how you just have to try things with kids, and it will normally work out. Adria's potty training is still a different story, but I am not worried about it.

The innocent food coloring and the monsters!

julia-daycare

My sweet little Adria got into my mascara. I have to say she knew what she was doing because when I looked close at her eyelashes there was a lot of mascara on them. She just sort of missed a few times. lol

Teddy Bear Daycare

I started doing daycare about three 1/2 years ago. I started with a 9 month old little girl and a 4 month old little boy. They are both going to pre-schools now, but since then I have had 7 other children in and out, and I am currently watching my two little ones, and their cousin and a little 17 month old boy.
My Oldest daughters name is Adria, she is two 1/2, and my other daughters name is Kimberly who is now 5 months old. My cousins two 1/2 year old little girl is Kassidy, and her and Adria are bestes buddies when they are together. The little boy I watch now is Landon. I have had him for about two weeks, and we are starting the 3rd. I had a rough year last year with a miscarriage and two pregnancies and really got burnt out. I ended up taking a 3 month break after I had Kimmy and that helped soooo much! I am back to feeling normal again, and now I can really enjoy the little people again. Everyday is a new adventure for us. Lately I have been learning how sneaky two year olds can be. The other day I was making a cake for my nephew's birthday and had some yellow and green food coloring sitting out. Adria and Kassidy found the food coloring and took it downstairs without me knowing. When I went to get them a few minutes later, they came up the stairs with Kassidy with a yellow mouth and Adria with a dark green mouth. I think they thought it was lipgloss or something. At first I was upset, but I quickly remembered that it wasn't their fault. I told them it was wrong, but then took pictures for later memories. I'll post the pictures as soon as we get our high-speed internet back up.
Landon is a little cutie. His first week here was a little rough for him, but he has become used to us, and knows his way around to everything. When his dad drops him off he comes right to me, when as before it was a little bit of a struggle for him. When his mom picks him up, he waves bye bye, and blows kisses. I haven't really heard him talk yet, but he is very good at signalling what he wants, and I am pretty sure "Bah" means bottle. He sleeps pretty good too. I have finally figured out that if I put him down for a nap at about 12:00 p.m., right after lunch he will take a pretty good nap, until about 2:30.
Kimberly is a good baby, I have started to feed her rice cereal now. She loves it!!! Her fingers get in to it, and she has become really excited and has made me spill a few times. Its cute. I am feeding her about 3 tbls. right now, and she is doing pretty good with it being a little thick. I am also breastfeeding her, and plan to until she is atleast a year old. With Adria I struggled with the breastfeeding a lot, and ended up completely quitting at 7 months. Kimberly doesn't need to be supplemented with formula, and she gets plenty to eat at each feeding so I think we will do good. I guess that could change once she gets teeth, but I will do my best to overcome it.
She sleeps o.k. at night, and has started to regulate her naps during the day too. I have found that she takes a good nap in the morning after her first feeding at about 7:00-7:30. She will sometimes sleep in until 10:30, but normally until about 9:00 am. Then she eats again and I feed her cereal. About 2 hrs later she gets tired so I put her in her bassinet with blankets to snuggle her and her binky (I wouldn't put blankets with her if she didn't sleep in the same room as me. I keep a good eye on her to make sure she never suffocates herself. I am very paranoid about letting that happen, but the blankets sooth her, so I just never leave her unattended in another room unless there are no suffocation hazards around her.) She is getting to big for her bassinet, so I am going to need to put her in her crib soon. I am putting that off as long as I can though, because she will have to sleep in the same room as Adria, and I am worried about that.
I am worried they are going to wake eachother up, or not let eachother go to sleep in the first place. You live and you learn though, and I am sure I will figure something out, and it will help prepare me for future babies.
Kimmy is also rolling around on the floor all over, and she is getting better and better at sitting by herself.
She gives the best hugs for a 5 month old. All I do is pick her up and put her close to my shoulder and she will lay there and wrap her arms around me. I love it.
Adria has been working on being potty trained for the last few months. I haven't pushed her a lot, but I encourage her whenever there is an opportunity. I know she is ready, she gets excited when I ask her if she wants to go "potty" and she will take her diaper off, or whatever I have on her at the time, and she will go sit on the toilet, but the part that is taking so long is, she has never actually put anything in the toilet. I have tried having her in the bathroom when I go(hey whatever helps right?) and when her little cousins go, we make a big deal out of it, but I think she might be afraid to do it still. Her Grandma bought her some princess underwear, and tried to potty train her by just letting her run around in underwear so that if she had an accident she would feel it, and so I tried the same thing today, but 5 min. after I had her sit on the toilet, she had an accident her underwear. All she did was say " I skinky". I said "oh no, you should put your peepee in the toilet, not on your princess panties ", she says "ya", and I put her on the toilet incase she had more to get out, but she didn't. She peed on my blanket, so I put her back into pull ups, then reminded her that she should put her pee pee in the toilet and not in her big kid pants. I appreciate the extra advice on potty training, but I think with Adria I am going to need to just be patient with her, and encourage her. You shouldn't punish a child in training, because it will just all backfire, and she will want to do it less. I potty trained the 4 month old and the 9 month old when they got old enough, and positiveness and patiencewas the only thing that helped them. I have also found that the closer they are to 3 years of age, the easier it is for them to catch on. They are by no means less intellegent if they don't miraculously catch on by the time they are 18 months old like some little ones do, and I have also found that those that potty train that early are more likely to go into regression later on, and will struggle a bit with it before grasping the concept again. I am perfectly happy about letting her take her time. I only want it to be a positive experience for her. Kassidy is the same age as her, and is in the same place as Adria with it, and I think by encouraging them both together will help both of them.
Adria also is a sugar girl. She loves sweets, and candy. I learned early that juice has a lot of sugar in it, so since she was able to have other drinks besides breastmilk, I have made it a point to only give her water when she is thirsty. Juice does have good nutrients in it, but that is what fresh fruits are for. I let her have all the apples, oranges, and bananas that she wants. That way she is getting a natural source of sugar, and fresh nutrients with it. I have also found that if you don't offer sugary things all the time, then on those special occasions when maybe someone else wants to offer it to them, it is a special treat to them and they appreciate it. Adria is also a little sensitive to cow's milk. I know she needs the vitamin D and calcium from it, so I give it to her sparingly and I just make sure she can get those vitamins from other sources. By giving her water every time she wants a drink, she has learned to like it the best and doesn't ever ask for juice or milk unless someone else asks for it, and she doesn't really drink it all. I have also only given her pop 2 or 3 times in her life, and she never asks for pop. At church, it is fairly commen to bring snacks for your kids to help occupy them so they will behave. I have found that it is necessary to have something for Adria to snack on, otherwise she will go to other families and eat their snacks, leading to disruptive behavior. So instead of bringing sugary snacks, I have learned that grapes are a good treat for her, cheerios are great if they are the unsweetened ones, although they like crackers, end up making crumbs and messes. So I think fruit is the best snack you could bring to a meeting like church for kids. I have learned that if you only offer natural tasting things to your kids from the time they are first old enough, or even if you start to do it consistantly before they are 5, then they don't want junky things later on. They might want it if it is offered to them, but they don't crave it otherwise.
Well I need to go so I will post more later.