The week in between Christmas and New Year's was the slowest holiday week I've ever had since running my daycare! I'm usually extra busy during the holidays, but with the way the holidays fell in 2016, most parents had most of the time off of work. If you read our Christmas 2016 post, you know that the oldest mini was sick over Christmas. It kinda made the rounds (with the kids at least, fingers cross it doesn't get me!) and as it turns out, no one wants those germs. Tuesday was supposed to be my first day back after Christmas, but I wound up with an extra day off because of those germs (I'm sooo over these icky germs).
The minis and I had a very relaxing day. I did some writing and coffee drinking, the kids played with their new toys, including a dinosaur dig and A LOT of Lego's.
These two got a lot of quality playtime together since big bro was sick. They were pretending to go skiing....with their coats, slippers, and new shoes on around the house.
Hubs came home from work and helped with the Lego building.
Wednesday was our Soup Day at daycare. I think everyone loved this theme day!
The kids got in a lot of coloring with the new markers and pens and pencils. The oldest mini even did a few of his new workbooks and then lectured the kids about what he was learning.
We got one more read through of all the Christmas books before they were put away until next year.
My kids doing their part to put a stop to bullying. Their discussion carried over to daycare. It was interesting to hear what kids consider bullying and what they don't and how the kid's various schools handle bullying. I had a lot of school age kids throughout the week and I love that I got some extra moments like these with them. I can't put into words what it means to me to have known these kids as babies and hear them carry on a "grown up" conversation with me (and the other kids) today. I was beyond lucky to have had such amazing kids through my daycare.
The weather was gorgeous for December. The kids took advantage of the 40 degree days by playing outside all afternoon. Their great adventure outside was chopping up what little ice there was left.
Wednesday night we celebrated the oldest mini's half birthday with an ice cream sandwich cake. We are not typically half birthday celebrators however the youngest mini made such a HUGE deal about her half birthday at the beginning of the month (and demanded we celebrate it just as we would her actual birthday) that we could not not do anything for the boys. So 2016 was the year we celebrated half birthdays.
The kids wrote poems for each other.
The new Barbie gymnastic toys kept the girls AND boys occupied. One has a magnet involved which had the kids doing magnetic experiments with the Barbie (and the beam she came with).
Sick mini on the couch for two days. She was bummed about everything she missed out on.
Painting pictures with the new Glitter paints.
The Magic Nuudles were awesome! The kids created some awesome things. The Nuudles kept the kids busy for over an hour! I highly recommend these for preschool age and up.
Of course I got a migraine Thursday night and required some help getting things ready for our daycare New Year party. The oldest mini made the cupcakes.....and got to use my new hand mixer before I did!
Thankfully after a bit of rest I started to feel better and was able to complete my NY party visions in the play area.
And this one missed out on all activities (but she looked pretty cute sleeping on the couch as everyone ran around her).
Our first activity of the party: face painting with the new face painting crayons.
In the past we've had a cookie count down clock, a brownie clock, and now this year we tried a cupcake clock. I was one 1 short so I used a candy cane and the granola bar was requested by the kids because the very first year I did a clock with food, I used a granola bar (it was the only thing that was a food and straight that I had on hand). After counting down from 12, they each got to pick a cupcake and blow out the candle. After they had all eaten a cupcake, they got together to blow out the remaining candles on the cupcakes.
A sparkling cider toast in plastic champagne glasses. I was unsure if they'd like the sparkling cider when I bought it. As I poured the glasses, I started tell them what we were doing, how to toast, about sparkling cider, etc. The big kids looked at me and said, "what kind of cider is it? We really liked the white grape kind from last time?"
It took them telling me about our previous celebrations with toasts to realize that we've done plenty of toasts and had plenty of sparkling ciders here! I feel ridiculous when I can't even remember the things we've done here at daycare!
We did several countdowns, one of which my kids insisted on doing the Fuller House countdown on Netflix.
I decided against a balloon drop this year and instead opted for noise makers, party poppers, and giant balloons (so giant that the kids could sit on them and bounce without them popping). The kids didn't complain once about the lack of their favorite balloon drop.
We had a pizza picnic while watching Storks.
The kids made their own countdown clocks.
The mess after the party.....
I sent the kids out in the backyard with their noisemakers, snappers, and party poppers. I'm quite certain the entire neighborhood could hear them! The video is me sticking my phone out the front door (not the back door) to catch the racket on video. Good thing our neighbors like us!
We ended the week with Play Doh, storytelling, and another movie.
While the week seemed jam packed with activities, it was certainly quite laid back. Of course I would have loved all kids to be here, it was nice to get some quality one on one time with the bigs AND plenty of opportunities for breaks since the bigs can take care of themselves. The first daycare week of 2017 will be fairly laid back. Of course it looks to be cold again (too cold for outside time unfortunately). We'll mostly spend the week getting back into our routine, as some of the kids haven't been here in nearly two weeks, and starting in on our first part of January theme: snow!