Today we talked about fireflies - How their tale lights up, how they have special chemicals in their body that allow their tale to light up, and when we can see them.

Today we colored our firefly and added foil squares to the tail to make them "light up".

In the making... my kiddos working hard

Yesterday we made bees. We learned that bees are very helpful to us since they pollinate the plants, and provide us with beeswax and honey.

Jackie led our craft yesterday. Our busy bees turned out sooo cute!

Catching up on pictures...

Well, as I mentioned before I am behind on posting pictures. I still have not figured out where the pictures go after I download them but last night the hubs put these where I could find them. Yay hubs!

We are on week 2 of our bug them...

Here is some awesome dancing going on. The kids love these streamers.

Our new favorite thing to stamp with, pom poms. They made perfect buggy bodies for our art.

On of our stories for the week...

Baby K playing with some infant foam numbers and pegs.

Finishing up our stamping...

Outside time... even with the hotter temps, we still played outside in the morning before it became too bad. Luckily, most of the deck and back yard is in the shade!

Pretend play

Our finished bugs!

Kenni perfecting her coloring skills.

My little hot messes...

Mia wearing a bowl as her hat... because she can.

I just put Mia in her bed for a nap. As I am walking into her room, toys are out everywhere. I lay her in bed and I say, "Mia, when you get up from nap, you are picking up your room. It is a big mess". She giggles and says, "No, I a big mess".

I really couldn't argue with that.

I finished our talk with, "When you don't pick up your toys it makes mommy very very sad".
Mia looked at me with a sad face and said, "Awe, you so sad? Look at me I can swing from my bed, I not sad". (She has bars above her since she has a bunk bed)

Clearly I wasn't getting my point across.

Then there is Kendal.

Kenni is supposed to be wearing shoes all the time to work on her balance and stance. She out grew all of her shoes so I picked up a couple of pairs to get her by. She loves shoes. She also loves playing with her shoes. This is her new fun way to wear her sandles. Kenni undoes the top and keep her monkey toes on top of the shoe. She even gets mad when I try to fix it.

My little hot messes!

Buzzing right along

Our beautiful bug unit will continue into next week as we explore more bugs, what they eat, where they live, and grow. Today we made an Insect collage. We had a picture of a friendly insect and added different bug pattern paper to his body. They we colored and named our buggy friends.

Mia and her bug Olivia

Today we reviewed our numbers up to 16. Today's color sheet involved tracing the number 15 and 16. Then we colored a set of 15 then 16 bugs. We did a lot of counting today.
During circle time the big kids read, "I love bugs", and "Max goes to school". We talked about insect vocabulary like : legs, head, wings, thorax and antennae.
Our morning ended with us acting like jumping bugs... we learned that a grasshopper could jump as far as 20x the length of it's body. Crazy. We jumped as far as we could, then we just practiced our jumping skills!

I am so excited that we are buzzing right along...

Weight Loss Update...

Oh wait... there is nothing to update. Here is a picture of Dustin and I back in May of this year. I was still on the bandwagon at this point and was at my thinnest weight. Summer is in full swing and I feel like I have wasted it- or have I??? Like I have said in other post, this summer has been and continues to be one of the best ones yet. Our kids are at great ages and it was so easy to enjoy them and their time off from school.

Summer has taken it's toll on me- it allows for worn out evenings and lazy nights where I just want to sit, watch TV with the family and not have to run off to the gym or Jazzercise. Even during the school year I didn't compromise family time to workout- it would be so easy to work out as soon as Dustin gets off work and get it out of the way but I don't- I enjoy working out after the kids are in bed so I am not taking mom time away from them.

I hate using time as an excuse for anything. I think if you want something bad enough you will make the time to do it. However, as our kids are growing up, their activities demanding more time and taxing, trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle is becoming more of a challenge. This past year Dustin and I have belonged to a 24 hour gym. It is right up the street and it was my home away from home. But even when I was using the membership Dustin was not. By the time I would get back home, that put him up at the gym super late. After a long 8 month debate, we decided to invest in a treadmill. We put it in the downstairs family area so there is no excuse not to use it. It was an investment for sure, but I feel like I can use my nap time to hop on for a few minutes and Dustin can have the evening time. It was a great purchase for us both. Time will no longer be an excuse for me.

Meet my new running friend... (sorry so blury- I was running while taking the picture)

So... because we purchased the treadmill, I am saying goodbye to my long time friend...the gym. We have had lots of laughs and tears. It was certainly a love hate relationship. I loved that I lost 44lbs while being here but hated the pain that it took to get me here...

Moving forward... as soon as I get this foot this worked out. Last weekend a friend and I walked the lake (7.2 miles). It felt great besides the blisters I got from socks and older shoes. I got home fixed up the blisters and wore flip flips the rest of the day to avoid rubbing of my foot. Nothing abnormal about this- I walk in flip flops a lot or barefoot. By the end of the day my right foot was hurting so bad. I could barely walk on it. The next day I was sore from the walk and my foot still hurt so I didn't work out. By Sunday night the blisters were better but not the foot pain.

So, I posted on FB about it and two of my friends brought up a foot issue to look into. Plantar Fascitis is the issue that kept getting mentioned. After day 3 of extreme pain, I started wearing my tennis shoes around the house (which I HATE) and finally got some relief. Monday night I tried running, it was an epic fail. My foot hurt to bad- which lead to my mini melt down. Today I was able to walk 30 minutes and run 10. So, I hope I am on the foot mend.

After thinking over my summer and thinking how I wasted the time, I realized nothing was wasted. I kept my weight within 5 pounds and I had a blast just enjoying the past couple of months. We got a lot done with our family and house projects. Who could ask for anything more??

Well, I can. I still have these last 25lbs to loose. I am back to the drawing board. Day 1 for everything. I am starting over with my bodybugg, workouts, and food journal. I am easing myself back. I challenged a friend and myself to make some goals for the next month. Mine this months don't reflect numbers on the scale. I need to find my routine and structure first then start my weigh in's again. Plus, if I follow each weeks goal, the weight will come off anyway.

This week's goal is to get my workouts in 6 days a week... run/walk an hour or Jazz class
Next weeks goal is to meal plan/count calories for meals while getting workouts in
Week three goals are wear bodybugg and journal personal calories while getting workouts in
Week fours goals are to do all three weeks goals and add weekly weigh in.

Thanks for checking in... I'll update some goals in a month. Hope you are doing well and hopping on that healthy lifestyle bandwagon. Gotta take care of you so you can take care of others!

bugs, bugs, and more bugs...

Everyone getting ready for calendar and circle time... I love that my little ones are starting to take interest in this learning time. Today we talked about different types of insects: ants, beetles, bees,grass hoppers, moths, and flies. The kids were able to name a lot on their own.

Then we learned a cute little song, the kids had a blast with this:
There's a bug, There's a bug
On my knee, on my knee
Shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo
Now he's gone.

Each verse we changed the body part that the bug was on...

So many laughs and giggles during this song.

We chatted about crawling insects and flying insects.

After talking about insects we looked at them like an entomologist (a person who studies bugs) would do. We took turns with the microscope to see spiders, bees, and flies.

Our last activity was to make bug catchers. We had plastic cups with lids and we decorated them with bug stickers. If the rain lets up- after nap time we are going on a bug hunt.

Today's books were: "Bugs, bugs, bugs" and "Bumblebee, bumblebee, do you know me? "

On a completely different note, I received our first set of Scholastic book order forms for fall- WooHoo! I am so excited. There are a ton of books I can not wait to add to our library and learning time.

Peanut Gallery Daycare is having their first parent meeting this next week. I work with a great group of kids and parents but drop off/pick up times are different for everyone so we are having a meeting for the mom's and dad's. This is a time to go over some fantastic new changes and for the parents to socialize a little outside of the work day. I am super excited and can't wait for the meeting to take place!

total randoms...

Here are some total random thoughts and pictures. I felt like I needed to blog and even though I have a ton of daycare pictures to share, I still need to upload them into the right place..aka I need my hubby's help because I have no clue. Which is why I am using my iphone to take pictures and blog. It works...

The above picture is one of my favorites of Dustin and I. We had a date night a couple of weeks ago and it was awesome. We ended up getting his and her massages then going out to dinner. We had lots of time to catch up and gear up for the upcoming craziness known as the "school year". I love date nights- they certainly don't happen often as I would like but then it makes it that much more special when they do happen. The best part of our night was that it was paid for- I had received an awesome going away present from a family who's son is going to school this year. We cashed in all of our gift cards and it made for an outstanding and cheap night for D and I.

Here was our room... all dark and relaxing. I was super tense at first since I don't like a lot of touching from peeps. But after a while, I was able to relax and enjoy the hour. Dustin loved it- he is ready to go back anytime.

So, another major house project checked off our list. A fully concreted driveway has now been completed! I am so excited that it is finished and we can actually park on it Friday. I'm almost scared to use it though- which kinda defeats the purpose of getting it done, huh? But now we are moving on- our last huge project will be painting the house. I am still shooting for August but not 100% sure since I just set a date for us to have a garage sale too. If I would just stop adding things to do, we'd actually get things down.

Speaking of adding things... I am excited to be taking on more responsibilities with our church Awana Cubbie's group. I am going to be the director this year. It is an outstanding program and I am excited to be doing more- however I have some hard shoes to fill so I pray that I do the program and the little kids that attend justice. And, if you are reading this and have some time on Wednesday nights, we always need some leaders. There is a lot to be done this month before club meeting start- very excited about what this year will bring.

Daycare is taking a huge step this fall- we are switching curriculum this year and I couldn't be more thrilled. We are also adding Weekly Readers from Scholastic into our week as well. Our year will have a fantastic balance of art/crafts, learning games, more hands on/dramatic play, worksheets, songs, and more. I am so uber pumped about it! I love the change and I think the kids will too!

Kenni and I goofing off- Kendal is really taking to walking now. She still looks a little out of place when she is doing it but it is still coming along. I am proud of her progress. She continues to be so vocal. At her last evaluation she tested at the 24mo level for her words and passed her hearing exams too! She has developed such a personality.

Then there is Mia who turns 3 in a couple of weeks. This kid is 3 going on 12. I really can not think how she will be be in grade school and teen years because the thought of it just scares me to death. I go back and fourth between, "It has to be her age" and "Geez, what did I do to screw her up this badly?". The sad thing is, she is totally my child. Everything I see in her I see in myself. There are days I just have to laugh at her because if I didn't I would be a heavy drinker or in a deep depression. Yes, this kid can do it to you! But, at least she is cute and does well for others like her Sunday School teachers and her dance leaders... so maybe there is hope that her behavior is just a phase!

Here are the Peanuts at enrollment. The middle one was along for the ride. I know I have said it before but I am not ready for school and summer to be over. I am sad that I will be sharing my kids' day with teachers again. I know I could not do what they do- so I have to give in and send them to school! They are starting to look forward to it. This last couple of days were spent getting supplies for school, soccer and dance bags ready, drawers cleaned out, school shoes and socks bought. I feel like we are ready for school but the change is certainly not wanted right now. It was nice to have a awesomely laid back summer.

Yesterday I got my bright neon folder in the mail for daycare- which means my evaluation for my daycare is coming up. This will be my 3rd year in this program. Based on my scores I am award money to "upgrade and improve". It is a great program to be a part of but with the grant money comes a high level of standards to meet and a lot of work. highly worth it though!

I guess I should wrap up- the one and only thing I am looking forward to when school starts is a nap time break again. My older school aged peanuts are great but they don't sleep. I will enjoy having this time to catch up and stay caught up again!

Thanks for checking in...