Happy Halloween

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Hilarious Hat Day

Today at Ellie's school/daycare was Hilarious Hat Day. We had to make a paper hat and then the kids would add the 'hilarious' to it at school.

I found a paper hat design for Ellie that was different the the normal sailor hat and made it out of different colors of construction paper. It was unusual to say the least.

When I picked her up today she had her hat all decked out.

She is pretty proud of it.


I wanted to make sure to get all angles so that you would get the full effect.


The side view you are able to see the bells, feathers and the motivational stickers.

She had a fantastic day at 'school'!

Pumpkin Carving

The kids and I headed over to the neighbor's, Jim and Heather, to do some pumpkin carving with the kids.

The kids were sure excited about the whole thing but I knew it wouldn't last long.


Hayden was cutting the top of his pumpkin out himself


After Jim cut the top off of Duncan's, he began to clean out the pumpkin


As per Ellie's face... she was not liking the gooey icky stuff inside her pumpkin


This is about as close as Lydia would get to clean her pumpkin out. Hahaha


Yay! Hayden got the top off.... but eeewww it was rotten inside! Jim and Heather gave Hayden one of their pumpkins to carve. So, it was back to the drawing board and cutting off the top of another pumpkin.


I helped Ellie clean some of the pumpkin out and I made her try again. Can't you tell she was loving it! NOT!!!


Duncan wanted me to take a picture of his pumpkin top... I am not sure why... but I obliged.

Jim did most of the work. I cleaned out Ellie and Hayden's pumpkin. Jim cut out both of the girl's pumpkin faces out and the boys carved out their own faces. Here are the pumpkins:


Here is Lydia's. She didn't like it because the pumpkin was mad and she didn't want a mad pumpkin.


Jim did a great job on Ellie's pumpkin


I wasn't able to take a picture of Duncan's pumpkin without a flash because not enough light was shining through but he did it himself!


Hayden's pumpkin that he carved himself.


This is Hayden's first pumpkin that was rotten... I painted it!


Here is Jim's pumpkin


All the pumpkins together. What a fun night!

Breakthrough

I came across some good information and I implemented it this weekend it is having great results already.

I not not sure who gave me the advice whether is was a friend at school, Daycare provider, or one of the ladies from my Life Group... BUT they had said that when disciplining children the punishment needed to fit the crime in that don't take away their TV privileges if the "crime" wasn't related to the TV.

Well, I am constantly flushing toilets after the kids and on Friday morning I was cleaning and both toilets were not flushed and they both had #2 in them so I know that it wasn't one of the kids.... it was both of them. So, thinking along the lines of what kind of learning activity they will do the next time they don't flush, I came up with... if you don't flush the toilet, then you will have to clean it!

You know what?... it is working great so far. I haven't had to flush a toilet the kids left all weekend. Woohoo!!!! I can't express how excited I am.

Pumpkin Patch

Time has just flown by and there is less than a week to Halloween so I needed to head out to the pumpkin patch. Our neighbors Duncan and Lydia met us there. The prices have gone up steadily over the years but I really like taking the Hay bale ride to the patch and back.

The kids enjoyed going through the Hay Bale maze

Next it was to the Hay Bale pyramid

Lydia posing and Ellie holding on tight to her jacket



Duncan made it to the top. He has his Puss n' Boots hat and so the reason why he is trying to give me the pitiful face. hahaha

We then headed to their little petting barn. One sheep, four goats, one pig and two calves.

Poor pig didn't want anyone to be around him/her






On the way to the pumpkin patch


My 4th attempt on trying to get a picture of her! It will do. ;-)


Lydia stylin' and profilin'


Hayden and his pumpkin that took forever to find.


This was the best of the three I took. With four kids it is hard to get them all looking at the camera at the same time.

Probably tomorrow we will carve the pumpkins. I will keep you updated.

A Blessing in Disguise

I truely believe that things happen for a reason and although we don't know it at first the Lord will show us why.

I found a new awesome daycare provider! We (Heather and I with both girls) had an interview with Mrs. Roxanne on Friday evening and we LOVE her! She used to be a teacher and the "classroom" is set up just like school. They will be doing pre-school four days a week. The curriculum is Christian based which I think is awesome. When the girls are ready, she will teach them math!!! Mrs. Roxanne has a beautiful Golden Retriever name Samson and a cat named Miracle. She states that she has been blessed with a gift and she loves working with the children. We were there a hour and the girls both had fits when it was time to go. hahaha. Mr. Chuck, the husband, kind of laughed and said the kids usually wait until the third or fourth day before they do that.

With all this extra school stuff that Mrs. Roxanne will be doing and it is the same price as the last daycare. What a blessing!!!

Disrupted routine

It has been a little nutty 24 hours! It sometimes amazes me how things can change so fast and your life turned upside down for a few moments.

Yesterday afternoon my daycare lady called me while I was at school and stated that I needed to pick up Ellie and Lydia (my neighbor's kid) from daycare. She had said other things but all I heard and was "pick up the girls" and then I went into 'mother rescue mode'. I figured that girls had push Ms. C to the edge and she needed them to be picked up! Those two can be a handful on their bad days.

I pulled up in front of the house and there was another parent picking up her kid and I knew that this was not her normal pick up time. I walked in the door and the girls are sitting on the steps getting their shoes on and Ms. C and her assistant are putting all the girls clothes from cubbie in bags. I am thinking to myself that the girls must have went too far today or something. Then the state childcare licenser came up to me and explained that there had been a serious accusation and that Ms. C was no longer able to provide childcare and gave me her card and the number for the Child Care Resource and Referral line.

I stood there dumfounded, paralyzed almost and couldn't think of anything to say but, "Okay". I started getting Ellie's stuff together. Ms. C asked if I had called Lydia's parents to see if it was okay fro me to pick her up and I said I hadn't but it wouldn't be a big deal and the licenser made sure I was on Lydia's approved pick up list. Ms. C wouldn't really look at me.

As I left and I was trying to get the the girls in the car while bribing them with a visit to 7-Eleven to get a Slurpee... all the questions that I should have asked came to mind... What kind of serious accusation? Was it abuse? Child endangerment? What?!? About a hour later Heather and I had process through the 'shock' phase and now were on the 'doing' stage and I called the state licenser to get more information. For confidentiality reason she couldn't give me a lot of info but it was regarding the background of an individual that lived in the house and had access to the children. The only person besides Ms. C that lives in the house is her boyfriend, Mr. F. I had told the licenser, "OH, Mr. F?" and then she asked questions about him and I told her what I knew, which wasn't much.

Ms. C was very particular about rules and followed them to the 'T' so I had assumed that Mr. F had passed the appropriate background check but apparently not. Then I started thinking. Ms. C knew he needed a background check for her to be licensed and she knew the convictions that would limit/exclude a person from getting a child care license. Maybe she knew that he wouldn't pass and that is the reason why she told the state that he didn't live there. After looking up the particular WAC codes there are some convictions that could suspend your license for 5 years and other are permanent. If you were convicted for racketering... you would have to wait five before you get a child care license but felony count of drug trafficing would be permanent offense.

I considered Ms. C a friend and I feel betrayed and saddened. Ellie loves her and they had a close bond. It is going to be hard for her to transition. Lydia and Ellie will go to a new daycare together and hopefully the transition won't be so bad. Pray that we find a good daycare.