SB Part 1: Daycare

 Our original spring break plans of heading to New Mexico for the week were canceled when my minis requested to keep daycare open and spend some time with friends. After all, this would be their last spring break with their friends. Luckily, they have a week and a half off for break, so I managed to switch around my days off, take all of their daycare friends, and fit in three days of nonstop fun. Literally, nonstop movement from 6:30 a.m. until bed. 

Day 1 was board games and chatting/catching each other up on their lives. I love the strong bonds these kids share.

Day 2 was crayon making, slime creating, dog walking, and prepping for an early St. Patrick's celebration.

Day 3 was leprechaun craziness! Our leprechauns came back (read their backstory here) and brought friends with them. The kids built leprechaun traps and caught themselves some leprechauns!

Ticket To Ride is one of their favorite board games to play. We've got numerous expansion packs at this point. For Christmas, daycare received the New York expansion pack. The kids liked it because it was a fun, quick play. The big cards came in handy for games of Black Jack. Sorry and Yeti In My Spaghetti were also played.

Legos were brought up and a new TV bought (for March Madness). Everyone was happy.

We got together with family to celebrate my grandma's birthday. While she's no longer with us, she knew how to throw a party so we did just that in her honor. It was wonderful, minus our night ending with a kids throwing up from a migraine. Everyone got grandma back scratches (pictured above) before the night was over. 

We had TONS of broken crayons. I gave the kids permission to peel the wrapper away and break the crayons even smaller. It's been years since I've done this activity. I couldn't remember what molds were microwave safe, so I melted the crayons in (what I knew was a) microwave safe bowl, then poured them in. They hardened quickly. While all of the bolder, darker colors seem to overpower the other colors, when the kids colored with them, the other colors really popped out. The kids called these 'galaxy crayons' because they looked like the galaxy.

I should also note that everyone wanted these crayons made and everyone complained about the wax smell that filled the house. 

Each child got to come into the kitchen to mix a slime. Then they spent the rest of the day playing with their slimes. Each afternoon, I give the bigs electronic time while the littles nap. On this day they opted to put away electronics so they could play with slime instead. Sensory fun for the win again.

While the littles napped and the bigs played with slime, I drank another cup of coffee and got a start on prep for our St. Pat's celebration. I made Lucky Charms cookies and rainbow pancakes. Magically I got both done, put away, and the kitchen cleaned up before naps were finished.

The kittens were not okay with all of the kids in our house! The dog is used to it and LOVED having everyone here. The kittens were irritated because they couldn't peacefully sit in windows without being bothered.

Wednesday March 15 was our St. Patrick's celebration. Those pesky leprechauns left their footprints all over the breezeway trying to get in. Thankfully, those green footprints were cleaned up easily at the end of the day.

Finally one of the leprechauns moved! And he left behind paper confetti because it can be recycled, but he doesn't have good aim. This leprechaun must have heard a kid coming down the hall and gotten messy with the food coloring...errr...I mean,the leprechaun doesn't have good aim. The kids thought the "pee on the seat" was hilarious.

Then we all gathered in the daycare room to make leprechaun traps. Bigs helped littles, some littles just watched, but everyone's trap eventually caught leprechauns that were enroute from Ireland in their adventure for St. Patrick's Day. 

A daycare party isn't complete without extreme craziness. Their objective was to keep the balloons off the ground while kids also threw piles of confetti and streamers in the air. The only way I got the kids to stop was telling them the frozen pizza was ready to eat for lunch!

Then our regular leprechauns, Sammy and Michael, summoned three of their friends: Seamus, Cornelius, and Robby.

A favorite St. Patty's snack: rainbow fruit plates for every child. I used to do a giant rainbow fruit tray, but due to Covid, switched to individual plates. I did the plates again because everyone seems to enjoy not fighting over all of the marshmallows, but as it turns out, the giant fruit tray would have been preferred. 

One last note after the last visit from our leprechauns. It was a fun, albeit exhausting day. 

Halloween Weekend

We love Halloween. It's a big one in our house. There's no particular reason other than we have tons of fun with it. Here in Iowa, the big day for celebration is actually Beggar's Night, October 30th. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized Halloween was actually the 31st. I refer to this as 'Iowa girl problems.'

Anyways, this year, the happenings happened at our house. I was gone all day at a Board of Directors retreat (for the Des Moines Children's Museum) and went directly party supply shopping. The oldest had his buddies over for scary movies, while the middle and youngest went trick or treating followed by a Murder Mystery Dessert Party. It was loads of fun! We also fit in a visit to the Des Moines Art Center for our favorite annual celebration of Dia de los Muertos. 

The face of a mom whose children told her they needed more from the store that she was just at shopping. This mom was not amused and told the children to inform their father.

The Art Center's ofrenda each year is beyond amazing. We love looking at all of the details in it.

All three minis got super excited to see this exhibit, only to tell me they learned about the artist during their art classes this semester.

Somewhere in the craziness, we made time to grab a new-to-us cotton candy machine (taken to the Museum, not for daycare purposes).

The middle mini decided the morning of Beggar's Night that he did want to go trick or treating. He talked Hubs into running around town for devil horns and other accessories. I had the job of ordering pumpkin shaped pizzas for the party.

They didn't want to carry their buckets, so they came up with a new way of carrying them: on their phones in their back pockets. I don't think this worked once the buckets were full.

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from this Murder Mystery set. It got decent reviews, but I held my breath because it also wasn't 100% kid friendly. Luckily, it was nothing too much (we gave it a PG-13 rating) and the middle school and high school kids enjoyed it. Hubs and I had to help keep the game on track or it would have taken quite a while for the kids to play alone (I honestly doubt they would have finished the game if we hadn't kept them on track). What I love about this game set the most is that we can play it again and again. It was definitely worth the money!

Popcorn drizzled with melted chocolate and filled with candy pieces (fresh from their trick or treats buckets) was their dessert.

There was some much needed cleaning to do after the party. The rooms were littered with candy wrappers. I did have to laugh because the oldest had a TV brought into his room for the night. The next morning the kids insisted on watching one last Halloween movie...and watched it on the smallest screen in the house.

We took time to get our ofrenda ready on Halloween night while we ate tamales (also our dinner for Dia de los Muertos on the 1st, but we just couldn't wait, so we had them both nights). We had one more picture to add to the alter this year and we added her favorite Mitch Miller albums to go along with it. The middle mini also froze a small bouquet of marigolds from his garden. The entire reason he wanted to grow a garden of marigolds stems from last Dia de los Muertos. We couldn't find marigolds anywhere in town and had to put carnations out instead. Apparently that affected him because as planning another garden of marigolds this year so we have some specifically for our ofrenda.

A kid in a mask. I wouldn't even question this if it wasn't Halloween.