Our daycare party...

Our group picture... it is so hard to get everyone looking at me and smiling, but I'll take this one!

Gaby helped me make our Dora ball toss into "The Boo Game".

Each child brought a snack to share... we had cookies, brownies, meat/cheese, choc. covered pretzels, and nachos. We ended the morning with Mr. Pizza Man coming and bringing us lunch!

We danced to spooky music, wrapped the children as mummy's, went on a spider hunt and much more... we had a great morning and now everyone is ready for naps.

(Parents- there were just too many pictures to put on my blog; I will create a FB folder and add pictures ASAP to share)

halloween week...

Just hangin' out... best buds!

This week we brought in old costumes from Gaby and Kadyn to use for Halloween dress up!

C liked it at first then changed his mind...

A loved playing Piglet- she was mad when it was time to take it off. Such a cutie!

F as the black cat...

J as the "mengo" as KK calls it...

K is dressed up in one of my favorite costumes that K ever was... Lumpy!

And KK as Jo-Jo...

Today we worked hard on our letter of the week "J". We worked in our workbook, ate Jam on toast, and drank Juice with our snack.

25 weeks... and a new sweater!
Baby Kendal seems to be very active these days. Jumping on my bladder, making my belly move, and lots of strong kicks. I have had a lot of tummy pains and tightness... Dustin and I both think it is my belly growing. What a change. My last OB appointment went well and I don't have to go back until November(ish). Life is grand!

more night creatures...

Today we read facts about bats... Gaby was so excited that I have been using her book this week to teach the kids about owls, raccoons, bats, and wolfs.

Today during circle time Gabs caught a picture of me and said, "you need to blog about reading my book- it's really a good book".

(25 weeks along today-yippy)

We also reviewed our letter of the week "I" by having a special snack... Ice cream! And, I most certainly would never ever in a million years feed them a snack like this right before lunch. Nope! Not me!!!

And here are our bats... we marble painted them so you could still see the picture. The kids really love pouring the paint in, dropping in the marbles, and shaking!!!

Lots of spooky night creatures flying around daycare today!!!

Night Creatures...

This weeks theme is Night Creatures. I thought this would be a cool theme to go with Halloween. So far our creatures haven't been really scary but so stinkin' cute!

Yesterday we talked about owl facts and made these little creatures!
They are so adorable and very hands on for kids of all ages.

Today we talked about raccoons...

and traced our hands for the eyes and colored their bodies. My older group was able to practice cutting as they cut their hands out... it was a challenge but they did a great job.

So far, I am in love with Night Creatures week...

Finishing up a week of fall... we painted our arm and hands brown to make the trunk of the trees...

Then... we glued "leafs" aka tissue paper on our trees. Just like in real life, none of our trees looked the same.

Just beautiful...

Yesterday was Kadyn's first field trip with her preschool. She was so excited. They went to the Pumpkin Patch! I am not sure if she was more excited about the pumpkin patch or riding the school bus... either way, this girl had a blast.

Here is KK by the window in the school bus. There was plenty of room on the bus so I was able to ride with her and experience her excitement.

At Lambert's Pumpkin Patch... coming out of the hay tunnel. She was a little scared to go by her self so a preschool buddy offered to go with her!

Picking out the perfect pumpkin from the patch!

While we were there, the class rode the train, played on the hay mountains, and did a fun hay rack ride...

It was a little windy but over all perfect fall weather... KK and I sneaked into the store and bought some apple cider slushes and popcorn to take home for our after school snack.
We had a blast!!!

It's a girl...

Oh wait... you already knew that. But... did you know that Dustin and I and the girls already have a name picked out??? Are you ready??? Do you want to know??? Are you speed reading this post to see if I announce it or not???



Hummmmm... Okay, the wait is over... Dustin and I, Gaby, Kadyn, and Mia are excited that Peanut Fluke will now be Kendal Lynn Fluke.

Kendal is a name we both liked and Lynn is after Dustin's sister, Kara Lynn. Gaby isn't 100% sold on it since we already have a "K" name and Kadyn will go with anything at this point!

Anyway... there it is! Now onto getting her room ready!

Dustin and I working on cleaning up the shed area...

Burn pile/bon fire from the clean up of the shed area... Yummy Smores!

Kadyn being goofy and telling me to take her picture!

24 weeks... it seems that all of the sudden the belly is popping out a lot more. It kinda happened over night!

getting ready for fall

Sadly I will admit that I was okay with skipping the decorating process for Halloween this year! As we were driving around, Kadyn says, "mom... you see "dose" decorations?", I said, "yes, I do see those decorations". To which Kadyn replies, "why don't we have dose decorations?". So... purely out of mom guilt, we spent Sunday afternoon decorating our house for Halloween. You gotta love looking at the world through a 4 year old eyes!

Our new buy... plastic pumpkins. They had a Gaby, Kadyn, and Mia size!

All of my little pumpkins!!!

Kadyn helping me hang up our sign... she was so excited to get everything out!

This year we added a scary skull too- This was Gaby's favorite!

And... after a cold afternoon of being outside, we came in and warmed up with hot chocolate! Could the afternoon get any better, I don't think so!!!

random thoughts...

So, yesterday I closed daycare due to sickness. This is always such a huge choice... to close or not to close! I always have such mom guilt if my kids are sick at home and I can't wait on them hand and foot because I still have my "job" to do. And, they don't rest like they need to because they want to play with everyone and it just makes for a hard call. Coming out 5 days of flu like symptoms for myself... I did it. Closed! And, boy did it make a difference. We all slept in (even Gaby- I was a horrible mom and let her have a free day), Dustin went to work, and we rested. K saw her RN lady and confirmed nothing much had to be wrong but I still wanted to get her checked out just in case. I woke up today in a great mood, re-energized and ready to start back to daycare! What a difference one day of slowing down and resting can really do for everyone- it was what I needed to get over the last hump of being sick!

If you can ignore the bad picture/hair day, I just went to put something in the mailbox and was rained on...Nice! But, here I am at 23 weeks today! Baby girl peanut is kicking, dancing and moving everyday. She is still way low and loves to kick my bladder! Such a mean game to play-how many times can I make mommy pee in an hour.

Have I mentioned I have been sick this last week??? Oh yea, I was... and let me just tell you how much my husband ROCKED during these days! Last Friday around 9am when I was dying, I called him up in tears telling him how badly I felt, I could barely move, and when I would I would puke. He spoke to his boss and came home for a half day to get me through the crazy part of the day, fixed lunch, let me sleep, and got the kids in bed!

The entire weekend, I was out. Dustin took on the kids, dishes, house, meals, and never complained once about it! He even got up with me at 3am while I was hurling to make sure I was doing okay! What a man, what a man!

And...Look at what I got this week....... Answer to prayer!

And, why do I get weird looks when I talk to my children when I am at Walmart?
I always take Mia with me so if Dustin has things to get done he can and the older 2 can goof off. People just don't get that even when your baby can't always talk back, they thrive when you speak to them, make goofy expressions to them, and ask them which can of green beans we should get. Simple! Plus, Walmart shopping sucks so why not have someone fun to talk to while you suffer?
After all, who can have this face looking back at you from the cart and not smile, talk, and play games with her? She is too darn cute!!!

(and yes, she had already flipped out once due to the railing being left down while reaching for a diaper- not telling which parent it was because it would spoil everything I just wrote about him at the top of this blog)

And who buys ice cream from the ice cream truck in October... we do! One time this summer we missed the truck because I had no cash and Gaby melted down and I promised we would get it next time! Well, here is our next time. In October. $2.00 ice cream which she didn't even eat all of. And it made her face all purple and sticky. And ice cream truck driver had more gold in his teeth when I have in my jewelry box. And, he wondered why it was slow for business that day...maybe it was because it was October!

I will also close with how much I love rainy nap times and eating cheese and crackers while drinking a cherry coke! Life is good!

H is for .... apples!

Okay not really, but we changed themes and letters today! Our theme this week is fall/apples, and our letter is H. What a good FALL week to talk about FALL, don't ya think??? Okay, moving on!

Here are some of our morning activities! This picture cracks me up because she is trying to say "cheese" while her mouth is full of APPLE snacks...

A is also holding up one of the oldest art project ideas known to man, painting with APPLES. However, no matter what age or how many time we have painted with fruit or veggies, it never gets old. The kids thought it was awesome we used a green apple and red paint. Soooo, on our paper we have red apples. That was a huge discovery for them.

Today we also introduced our letter H. We worked on our writing pages and H pictures but I figure you have seen many pictures of the kids sitting at the table doing "learning work". So, I thought I would tell you that is what we did! =)

Today while outside, we played with the Dora tent... the boys loved going camping and looking for bugs.

While my girls love cooking with sand and our almost dead herb garden to made "smelly sand". Sounds Yummy, huh?

We love fall fun and friends...

Big/little week...

Our week started out with painting their hands and mine to show the difference between big and little. The kids had fun seeing that our hands did not match!

This week we also did our G moves... we galloped (most of us tried) like horses, hopped like grasshoppers, we acted like geese which really turned into being ducks, but whatever, then we pretended to make goals.

Some of our snacks this week have been grape juice, graham crackers (w/frosting, yummy), granola bars, and we even sprinkled garlic on our bread sticks today.

Today we explored "Goldilocks and the three bears". We read the story, acted some of the parts out, and finished up by labeling the bears on their cottages. The older group worked on cutting the pieces out and gluing while the younger ones worked on gluing!

Next week... we are falling for fall with Apple week!