Red and White day

I know I'm a little late with this post, but better late than never right??

The Friday before Canada Day the kids celebrated by wearing all red and white. They dolled themselves up and put on their best outfits! We celebrated with red and white foods like pizza, strawberries, vanilla cupcakes and some watermelon.We got totally in the Canada day spirit with some super awesome tottoos for the boys and nail designs for the girls! The kids had a blast and so did we. To finish off our fabulous Friday we headed outside just before the rain started and tried out our "frozen chalk". It's pretty much a mixture of cornstarch water and food colouring. I will go more into detail in another post, and I will be sure to do step by step pictures along with recipe. Hope you all enjoyed your Canada day!!

Teacup Cupcakes for our Teddy Bear Picnic

Last week the kids had a theme day. We have a several of them every month. Last week's theme day was "Teddy bear Picnic". All of the kids brought in their teddy bears, and we ate lunch outside and called it a picnic. The kids had a blast, as did the adults!!

For this special occasion I decided to bake some special treats. I made teacup cupcakes. Basically I took ice cream cones and cut the bottom off, and then i used melted chocolate and "glued" them to a digestive cookie. I thin cut some sour peach rings in half and glued them to the side of the cones. I baked zebra cupcakes (chocolate and vanilla all in one cupcake) and the crumbled the bottom part of the cupcakes into the cone and used icing to stick the top of the cupcake to the top of the cone. I put them in the fridge over night and them brought them to work the next day to let the kids decorate.

We used pink strawberry frosting and lots of sprinkles. The finishing touch was lots and lots of gummy bears. Needless to say the kids snacked more on the candy, than use it to decorate. Regardless of the gummy bears being in their tummy or on the cupcake, the kids had a blast and I did too!!

Try out my "teacup cupcakes" and let me know how yours turned out! They are super simple and super fun. Happy baking!! :)

Making Rainbows On A Rainy Day!!

On Thursday it was a bit of a rainy day. Rain, hyper children, and indoors don't usually mesh well, so we decided to do a rain themed craft. The children really enjoy anything that involved glue and different colours. We decided that a rainbow would best fit our theme. We gathered some cotton balls, paper plates, construction paper ( Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple), glue, and scissors.

1. Start by cutting the paper plates in half to make our base for the clouds.
2. Pull cotton balls apart slightly so they are puffy and look like clouds.
3. cut construction paper into 1-1 1/2 inch strips for you rainbow rays
4. Set materials out and let the kids create.

The children really enjoyed sticking the cotton balls on the paper plates. They found it impressive how much it actually looked like clouds. The children weren't familiar with R.O.Y.G.B.V ( order of colours in a rainbow) so we taught them a song to help them remember as they glued the construction paper.

RED, it's the colour of an apple

ORANGE, it's the colour of an orange

YELLOW, it's the colour of a lemon, and the sun...sun...sun

GREEN, it's the colour of the trees and lots of things that grow

And then theres BLUE for the sky

And PURPLE that's a colour that's fun...fun...fun

Now when we put those colours side by side, now what do you think we've done?

We've made a rainbow, and it's a very beautiful one!

The song was a huge hit, and so was the craft. Below are some pictures of the children making their rainbows. Try it out with your kids, and let me know how they turned out!

Yet Another..... Awkward Moment!

Working with kids is quite the challenge just when they are in a somewhat decent mood, but when they are in an outrageously bad mood, which borderlines on the edge of completely certifiably insane... Well that's not just a challenge, but a complete competition of will power and patience!

Today at work one of the little girls was being a bit of a diva. Shoving, pushing screaming, and purposely obstructing traffic.. and by traffic I mean standing on the stairs to the slide. Any ways we asked her to move, she wouldn't, we tried to bribe her to move, she wouldn't, finally we tried to pick her up and move her.... She tried all she could to defy the laws of gravity at that very moment, and pulled the move I like to call "Dead Weight". After her attempts of screaming and shouting didn't work, she took of her glasses and tried to break them, which resulted in us taking the glasses and her demand for them back. At that point my boss had taken her inside due to the fact that everyone on the street heard the little girls screams!

I waited 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes... no sign of them. After 30 minutes my boss came out and asked me to take over. When I stepped inside I was in shock to see a bare bum facing me... She has stripped in protest of our decision to move her. I tried everything to get her to put her clothes on, but nothing worked. Finally after I took a few "Stay cal" kind of breaths, I turned to her and said "What is it that is making you upset?" she turned to me and said "You took my glasses".

So after almost an hour of screaming, biting, kicking, punching, pinching, and tantrums, she finally put her clothes back on. These are the days that make me realize I may be older, and stronger, but my negotiation skills just aren't what they use to be!


Today's awkward moment:

That awkward moment when a child protests your decisions by stripping naked until you finally give in to their demands, and give them what they have asked for!

Grown up phrases

When you were a kid older people would always make references that you never really understood, and then they would say "You're too young to remember" or "That was before your time". While I was growing up I never really thought about change, or even that I would one day be able to turn to a child and say " You are too young to know about it".

The other day at work my boss and I were discussing how independent and smart one of the girls is. Her name is Hayden and she is 5 years old going on 30. She loves helping us with the kids. She talks to them, plays with them, stops them from making bad decisions, cleans up after them, and even tell us that she worries about them. We have tried to tell her many times not to worry about the kids. That it's our job to do so, and she needs to be a kid, but no matter how many times we say it she still does it. She has a natural instinct to help and care for the younger kids. 

With that said I gave her the nick name "Matilda". Like the movie that came out in 1996 about a young girl who's parents left her home alone all of the time, and she was left to fend for herself. She turned out to be a smart little girl with a wonderful and caring personality, and she was very independent. Hence the reason I gave the nick name. One after noon Hayden asked me why I called her Matilda. I tried to explain to her that there was a movie and she reminded me of the girl in the movie. She replied with "Oh I don't know that movie" and in turn I replied "The movie is from when I was a kid. You're too young to know of it". After that came out of my mouth I turned in shock with wide eyes and said to my boss " I never though I would ever say that in my whole entire life!" We both laughed so hard and I made a comment about how I must be old.

I catch my self all too often these days, saying little comments that I use to hear from adults when I was a kid. I guess it can only mean one thing. I'm all grown up! So this is what being an adult feels like.... 

Yet another awkward moment...

Today at work the kids were completely, utterly, out of this world CRAZY!! They were super noisy, running around every where, throwing toys, and talking gibberish..... At lunch time we had what we like to call a "Dip Day" meaning as a side to our meal, we have veggies and dip. It's one of the more popular lunch items. To get to the point of this whole post, one of the little boys, who is very much a comic relief for us adults, decided he would scream "SUGAR TIME!!!" in the middle of lunch. This got the rest of the kids laughing, and hyper. They all chanted in a not so harmonious way "Sugar! Sugar! Sugar!". When all this had finally settled down, the one boy who had started it all picked up his dip covered carrot, shoved it up his nostril, and said "Look I'm a snow man". I'm not sure if at this point I had become delusional, or If his charm and charismatic personality had something to do with it, but I laughed and laughed until I had to leave the room to catch my breath.

Today's awkward moment:

That awkward moment when a child sticks a carrot up his nose, and pretends to be a snow man. Making you laugh so hard you need to leave the room to catch your breath, when really you should be telling him not to play with his food, and shoving things up his nose is dangerous.

That awkward moment when....

That awkward moment when you freak out and scream "get it off!! Get it off!! It's biting me" you flail your arms in the air become completely hysterical. Then you finally muster up enough courage to fight off your attacker, and realize that its only the spur off of a prickly bush in the field you just walked through... Story of my life!!