Christmas Break At Daycare

Christmas and New Years in the middle of the weeks threw me off. Because of how the holidays fell this year there were only three daycare days with the Bigs around. We made the most of those three days though! There were board games, Christmas lunch, special treats, movies, Nerf gun battles, Lego's, more games, and a New Year's party. 

On the 23rd, Harrison and his daycare buddy planned our daycare Christmas meals and treats. We had eggnog floats (the boys somehow found this recipe, but we create it with AE eggnog and chocolate ice cream) for morning snack, chicken noodle soup, mashed potatoes, and green beans for lunch, cookie cake, and brownies, and carrots for afternoon snack. It was a short day with just a few kiddos, so majority of the day was spent playing new board games daycare got (and a few new board games the minis got). 

I thought for sure Bellz would be a hit game, but it proved to be way harder than anticipated. Yeti In My Spaghetti was the go-to game of break.



Of course, we started off break with a good political discussion. Them, not me. I had on the morning news and went to switch it off and was asked to keep in on. They proceeded to talk all about politics, world news, and their thoughts on each one. It was interesting (and incredibly cute) to hear their views.

The eggnog floats were delicious (or so I was told, since I didn't actually have one).

My little chef made awesome chicken and noodle soup for lunch for all of daycare.

A new milestone: every school age child (which is mostly who I had during break) shut the door when they used the bathroom! Don't get me wrong, I love how comfortable everyone is, but it was also nice to see the door closed....and that they didn't try to open the door when I was in the bathroom!

How we watch movies. We watched Elf yet again.

Soooo many Lego sets to put together. And then play with. Luckily, most of the older kids love building Lego's. While Max put his new sets together, all of the other kids built houses and towns with our "old" Lego's. We have a ridiculous amount of Lego's for everyone to build with.

Pizza party and a movie with everyone. Only eight kids in my entire house that day. It seemed so quiet!

Epic Nerf gun battles. I cracked up at how they piled everything and set up bunkers.


Since I had such few kids in the house, I took the opportunity to organize the bookshelves and bring up "new" books. Book rotations take quite a while in this house because we have soooo many, so they don't happen as often. The kids (of all ages) had fun with the "new" books. The Bigs were excited to see some of their preschool faves back on the shelves. 

Our Play Dough variety pack is still going strong. They've actually become less sticky the more they've been played with. We did have to throw the foam away because it was very dried out after so much playing, but the rest are doing well.

The Monday before New Year's was daycare's busy day. A lot of friends were back for a mid-year visit, we celebrated a birthday, and celebrated New Year's. The day required that I start with two cups of coffee so I could keep up with the kiddos. I didn't have an issue though....they were all so happy to see each other that they played together all day long. I actually got extra stuff done that day. I will never completely understand how it works, but there more kids there are, the less I spend running around. It's pretty amazing.

Elizabeth's doll head that she got on Gift Card Day was a favorite among all of the girls (of course). Meanwhile, the youngest in the group worked on taking toys from the big kids and seeing if they fit in the play washing machine. 

Gluten free, vegan vanilla raspberry cupcakes. The kids told me they were delicious. I wouldn't know because I didn't get one.

The mini's new tabletop skee ball and air hockey games got played with A LOT. Somehow we didn't wind up missing any of the silver balls or the air hockey pucks.

I thought this was the sweetest and had to get a picture of it. I told the kids I needed a minute in between cupcakes and toasting with egg nog, so I told them to sit quietly a read for a few minutes. Everyone did exactly as I asked and some of the bigs read to the younger ones. Sweet, quiet moment in an otherwise crazy day.

An egg nog toast followed by balloons. It's not really a party until you get balloons involved. 

My husband came home, looked at the wine glasses on the counter and said, "so, how was daycare today?" Never once thought how that looked to someone just walking into my house! I had to laugh though because right before that, one little girl asked me "Ash, is New Year's when we drink out of the special glasses and do a pinata?" I knew instantly she was talking about Cinco de Mayo because I make them virgin margaritas and let them drink out of the breakable margarita glasses....and that's what the kids remember.

Another sweet moment: Max picked the one year old up and started pointing out states on the map. Pretty soon, the one year old started pointing at different states himself and then waited for Max to say the name. They learn far more from each other, doing little things like this while playing than they do at any other time.

Harrison happily shared his Crayola Scribble Scrubbie animals with the kids.

January kicked off our snow theme. I whipped up some flour "snow" (flour and vegetable oil mixed together to create a sand like consistency). The kids have loved playing with it!

When things got less crazy, the one year old was given a chance to play with the balloons. Once he figured out I wouldn't let him bite on them, he loved it! I love this age of discovery!

Nothing like a good fake snowball fight. I explained how to have a snowball fight and the kids still piled on top of each other and then threw the snowballs in the air instead of at each other.

A great break, lots of fun, not too many shenanigans, and lots of laughs.