Vegas, DCFS and Infection.....OH MY!

Wow - it's April already?! And Easter is next weekend?!?! Can't believe how quickly 2012 is going by....

I think I mentioned a few posts ago that Travis' Christmas gift to me was a trip to Vegas in March. We flew out of Peoria on the morning of March 19th. I've only flown a few times and it doesn't really make me very nervous, except when it comes time to land. The last ten minutes or so as the planes descending and feeling rocky and then when it HITS the ground are my least favorite. But this was Travis' very first flight EVER! We made it past luggage check with no problems and grabbed a bite to eat at one of the little restaurants there. We had quite awhile to wait before our could board the plane, but the time went by really quickly! Because of Travis' size, he purposely booked us the emergency row seats so he could have more leg room and that meant we had "priority boarding" and were able to get on the plane right away. As soon as the plane started moving, I could tell Travis was nervous - he kept shifting around in his seat, his palms were sweaty and he kept looking at me. I tried not to giggle at him, but it was pretty funny b/c Travis doesn't get nervous. Ever.  The flight was pretty painless and the view out of the window was beautiful! They were selling tickets to Blue Man Group for a pretty good price on the plane, so we went ahead and bought some. The two-hour time difference definitely works in your favor when flying out to Vegas - pretty awesome to get back two hours of your day!  Now Peoria airport is pretty small and it's easy to get around, but the airport in Vegas is a totally different story!!  Holy cow....you have to walk forever and then go on escalators and then hop on a tram just to get to where your luggage is! And of course our luggage was on carasoul 10 (or whatever they call it) which was like 6.7 miles from where we exited the tram - or so it seemed. Then it was a waiting game to watch for your luggage to come around. Once we grabbed our two suitcases, we had to figure out what shuttle bus to hop on to get to Treasure Island, our hotel. We stood in line for almost two hours I think it was before we were on a shuttle, but once we got to our hotel - the week of fun began!!  Our hotel was nothing like either of us have ever seen before. I mean let's be honest - Vegas, in general, is nothing either of us farm folk have ever seen before! We didn't do a whole lot that first day - grabbed a bite to eat (The price of food out there is CRAZY - a beer costs $5? WOW!), gambled a little bit and then relaxed and went to bed early. We had a perfect biew of Trump Tower from our bedroom window - awesome! I am a BIG Donald Trump fan - don't necessarily agree with his political opinions, but he is possibly THE smartest business man there is. Tuesday morning, we got ready and decided to go for a walk. We found a McDonald's along the way and grabbed some breakfast (our cheapest meal the entire week!). Then we decided to check out a nearby hotel and guess what happened?  My ridiculously nice husband - who can't tell people "no" - got us sucked into a two-hour timeshare tour. What?! Well, it wasn't too terribly bad and we got free show tickets to Jubilee, free buffet for two and buy one, get one free buffet tickets. The Jubilee tickets were like $75 dollars or something like that a piece and the buffet was probably $25-ish per person. So we scored $150 in show tickets and $75 in buffet tickets for free by spending two hours touring a beautiful timeshare. Throughout the week, he almost got us sucked into the same thing a number of times!  After the timeshare ordeal, we grabbed some lunch at Toby Keith's restaurant. I had a fried bologna sandwich which was REALLY good! That night Travis was wanting to take a nap and I was like "No way!" so I decided we would go see Marriage Can Be Murder which was one of those dinner theater shows where the audience participates in solving the crime. Travis wasn't so sure about it, but he was a good sport. He even ended up being part of the show b/c the fella that welcomed all of us claimed that Travis was his long-lost twin brother (this guy was MUCH smaller than Travis which made it even funnier). Come to find out, he was the first murderer!!  So the "cop" had to interview Travis and find out how he knew the killer. It was SO much fun and Travis said he had a blast. In fact, I think at the end of the week, Travis said that was his most favorite show! When we got back to our hotel, the pirate show that happens every night outside our hotel was just beginning so we stayed and watched. It was pretty neat! We also bought tickets for the tour of Hoover Dam the next morning. It took up a good chunk of the day, but it was one of those things that I'm glad we did - probably wouldn't care to do it again, but it was still amazing to see! That night we used our free tickets to see Jubilee - we went to the 10:30 pm show which is the topless show. It was ok....we were both ready for it to end way before it actually did though. We did get prime time seating though! Originally, our seats were in the back but we got there pretty early and they moved us up right next to the stage which was pretty awesome - for Travis anyway. LOL I literally could have reached over and squeezed a boobie or two if I had the urge (which I obviously didn't). I also didn't honestly know where to look the whole time - half-naked women and feminine men dancing around in jock straps. It was somewhat uncomfortable for me! Oh well - it was free right?  Thursday we decided we would get our shopping done before doing anything else. Joanne told me about the M&M store and I knew we had to go there to find Maddie's souvenirs and boy did we ever! That store is AWESOME!  Four levels of M&M everything! I figured we'd pick just a couple things, but Daddio went crazy over his Princess - a backpack, jammies, towel and blanket. All in red M&Ms of course to match our red tractors - duh! We bought the older three two shirts each, Lexi a Las Vegas satchel purse thingy, and the boys a set of Vegas dice and Vegas BINGO set. That night we ate dinner at the buffet in our hotel and Travis discovered that the dessert table had unlimited sprinkles - boy was he excited!  He said "Sprinkles make everything taste good!" It was pretty hilarious....  That night we saw Blue Man Group which I LOVED!!!  It was so funny and just beyond entertaining - we both enjoyed the entire show. I mean they get the entire audience involved and they come walking up into the crowd and they walked directly in front of us in our row and pulled a girl down to the stage that was sitting behind us. SO fun!!!  We had to be up and ready Friday morning for the 6:00am shuttle, but our week was just what we both needed. We needed some time away from "life" to just relax and recharge. We're already talking about our next trip out there - Travis wants it to be a yearly vacation for us. Sounds good to me!!

Now while we were out there, Julie from DCFS called and left me a message that she needed to reschedule my home visit which was planned for the Tuesday after we came home. When I heard the message, my heart sank. I wasn't necessarily surprised b/c that's pretty much how this whole process has been going with them. To start off by being told that they didn't see a problem with me opening in January to them losing/misplacing my paperwork and so on and so on - this rescheduling wasn't a total shock. Thankfully, she just wanted to push it out to the next day!  So I busted my butt to make sure I had my house ready and any and all paperwork ready that she was going to ask to see. This particular rep had been to my house before when I had the daycare open and what I remembered of her was someone who had absolutely ZERO personality. She also did that visit during the time that I was taking Kiegan to Blm. 3-4 nights a week for his learning disability and I just will never forget her admitting that if one of her children had a learning issue and needed to be driven 45 minutes for help that she wouldn't be willing to do that for him/her. Will never forget that comment! So I wasn't exactly looking forward to seeing her again.  But I apparently caught her on a good day b/c she made the visit completely pain-free which I appreciated and I did my best to make sure that I had everything available to her that I knew she would need to see. As soon as she got back into the preschool room the first words out of her mouth were, "Wow! This is impressive!" I can't tell you what a relief it was to hear her say that!! She asked some general questions about how I planned to run my day, what curriculum I was using, etc. and before she left she said, "If I had preschool-aged kids of my own, I'd definitely send them here." Awesome!! That's quite the compliment from a DCFS rep, especially this one! So even though she was here for almost two hours, it went by very quickly and she told me to consider myself licensed and to start advertising. Yes m'am!! I was SO excited and relieved, needless to say. So I've been busy getting my enrollment packets put together and working on my advertising plan.  Things are officially moving forward!!

Now onto Travis and his fun week. Oh boy! On February 24th, he went and had a vasectomy which seemed to go ok - some pain and discomfort but that was to be expected. Sometime this past Tuesday though he was complaining of some pain in his groin - didn't think much of it really. Maybe he just pulled something? Wednesday we woke up and was definitely feeling some more pain, but went to work anyway. He called me mid-morning saying that the pain was so terrible that I needed to call the doctor's office in Blm. where the procedure was done to see if they could see him. They were able to get him in at 1:45.  I picked him up from work and we took off. He was hurting so bad that he could barely walk and had sweat just dripping off of him from the pain. I honestly didn't know if he was going to be able to get into the vehicle and when he finally got in, he had tears in his eyes b/c it was hurting that bad. Come to find out he somehow got some bacteria in him - assuming from when he had the vasectomy, but the nurse practicioner couldn't explain why it took 30+ days for it to surface. He verified that Travis was allergic to penicillan and then prescribed him a pain killer and a 21-day antibiotic. He informed Travis that if this doesn't fix things, Plan B was to remove the testicle. Not the best news to tell a man! An ultrasound was also scheduled for the next morning to verify that it was definitely an infection. He took the rest of the week off from work b/c he literally couldn't move due to the pain. Thursday morning, we headed out to the Pontiac hospital for the ultrasound and then took off to see our family doctor b/c of some lower leg pain that he had been having for the past couple months or so. Of course our family doctor wanted an xray of the leg, so back to the hospital we went for an xray (come to find out there was nothing seen in the xray - didn't make him happy)! Later in the day, the Blm. office called with the ultrasound results and his infection was worse than they thought - it was in the tube and in the sack. So they verified again that he was allergic to penicillan and called in a second antibiotic. I immediately took off to town to pick that up so Travis could start taking it right away. He popped one in right away without either of us thinking twice about what the medicine was. In the middle of the night, things went downhill all of a sudden - he was tossing, turning and scratching the heck out of his body and constantly wringing his hands. Neither of us slept much and went downstairs around 4:00am to see what was going on. He was broke out in a rash all over his body! I immediately knew he was reacting to that second antibiotic so I grabbed the bottle and read what it was - AMOXICILLAN - which is a Penicillan based antibiotic. Seriously?! The doctor's office verified that he was allergic to Penicillan before calling this in and Travis has been using the same pharmacy for YEARS and they have on file that he's allergic to Penicillan and yet they still filled that script?! NOT GOOD!!  So we had to wait until the office opened at 9:00am before calling and letting them know their mistake. Thankfully, my mom is friends with a nurse who she was able to call and find out how much Benadryl to give him in the meantime. I had intentions of letting that doctor's office know just how upset we were, but the nurse that answered the phone was so stinkin' nice that I couldn't be gruff with her! She talked to the doctor and he called in a different antibiotic and told us that Travis was to stop taking the other one (oh really?) and to keep taking the Benadryl. I also told the pharmacy to put a note on Travis' file about his allergy b/c they claimed there was nothing in it about it. Hard to believe....  So Travis ended up just getting more and more miserable - the rash was AWFUL. He scratched himself so completely raw that he had pus coming out and he scratched his skin off in some places. He couldn't sleep again Friday night and finally went to prompt care Saturday morning to get a shot of SOMETHING to counteract the reaction. They gave him a BIG shot of Prednisone and a prescription for Prednisone (6 pills day 1, 5 pills day 2 and so on) plus a list of over-the-counter meds to take plus a list of things to help tolerate the itching. So he now had a whole buffet of medicine bottles on the counter! But he couldn't wait to get some relief!!  The rest of the weekend was pretty miserable for him. He could tell the infection in his testicle was starting to get better - he was told it would take quite a few days before he would feel a difference. I rubbed his whole body down with Calamine Lotion to help with the itching, he took multiple showers to try to help relieve the itching, he rarely slept, rarely ate and simply didn't do a whole lot b/c he was so uncomfortable!  Now today - Monday - he did go back to work and he said by this afternoon the itching didn't seem to be quite as bad. Still awful - but not AS bad. He still has 2 1/2 weeks before he's done with ALL of his meds and a follow-up ultrasound on the 20th to make sure things are better down yonder.  He went to bed early tonight so hopefully that means he's tired enough that he'll be able to sleep in bed all night. He hasn't slept all night - or in our bed - since last Wednesday!  So since turning 32 in January, he's totally falling apart on me!!  On a positive, he did lose about 10 pounds and that has made him want to lose more weight - buy a treadmill, watch what he eats, etc. So hopefully he stays on that kick b/c I think he'd be REALLY surprised about how much better he'll feel (and how much less his knees and the rest of his body will hurt) if he were to lose weight. He weighs around 370 and could easily lose a good amount of weight with very little effort on his part. So thumbs up to that idea!

Sheesh!  It's after 11:00 - time for me to head to bed!

Something I am NOT good at.....

I think most of my adult years, I've been the type of person that doesn't like to be told how to do something, I don't really want advice unless I specifically ask for it, I don't like to answer to others for what I choose to do and I have the mentality of "If you want it done right, do it yourself."  Another big personality quirk of mine is that I do NOT like to wait on others. I have patience, but I do NOT have patience when I'm waiting on others so that I can move forward with something. That being said, the last handful of months have been so ridiculously stressful for me simply because I'm waiting on one person....my DCFS rep!!  People that have never worked with DCFS have absolutely no clue what a frustrating mess they are. I have been working on my preschool idea since last summer....working, planning, researching and the list goes on. I submitted all of my paperwork to them (and believe me when I saw it was a THICK packet!) towards the end of last year and waited....and waited...and waited to hear from them. I didn't want to call and be an annoyance because the last thing you want to do is be on their bad side, but I finally did and guess what?  They reassigned all the reps and my new one had to "search" for my file and finally found it saying that my previous rep just sort of set it off to the side and apparently forgot about it.  Awesome.  So she needed a few more things from me which I took care of within that week. More time passed, I wasn't hearing from her so I contacted her again and she said background checks all came back fine so now she was just waiting on my references to get their paperwork back to her and then she'd be able to schedule my home visit (which is the last step before licensing). I made sure she knew that I was really hoping to have open enrollment in mid-March - around the same time as the other two preschools in the area.  Well, I waited and waited and waited and finally contacted her AGAIN on Leap Day checking to see if maybe she needed me to give my references a swift kick in the butt to get their paperwork back to her....and guess what??  She forgot to even mail the paperwork to them!!!!  Are you kidding me?!  Can anything else happen to slow down this process any more?? I feel SO much guilt - every single day - for the fact that financially things are a struggle for us right now. I know it was my decision to totally switch my career path and I know it's never easy for anybody to do such a thing and I don't want to feel bad for following my dreams, but to have to wait on this one person to do their job so that I can move forward has only made things THAT much more difficult because it's completely out of my hands.  On a positive note, I have not felt rushed AT ALL to get the school room ready! I have lots of items crossed off of my to-do list (although I still seem to add to it daily).  My waiting list keeps growing which is the BEST (it just grew a little longer today in fact!) so that keeps me motivated.  Ok - so actually the idea, in general, of what I'm doing keeps me motivated because I LOVE IT!!  I LOVE where my life is headed!!  I just have to work through these bumps in the road....I have gobs and gobs of support and Travis assures me every time I start to apologize for our sudden struggles that he supports me 110% and that he has never once put blame on me for things.  Can't ask for anything better than that!

Quick Update

Not a whole lot has been happening around here! We were able to have our last Christmas with the Sancken side of the family this past Sunday. We were waiting for Grandma Sancken to feel better and she seems to be doing great for the most part.  Trevor and Nicole were also able to bring LJ (Little John), their newest addition for all to see! Of course I have a cold so I stayed far away from the little guy. I thought it was getting better, but now I keep coughing and coughing.  BUT I'd rather have this cough than the nasty flu stuff that seems to be hitting a lot of people!!

I still haven't heard from DCFS. I know she said it would likely be at the end of this month, but I'd just like to get it done and over with! I know the other preschools here in town have open enrollment in March so I'd REALLY like to be able to do the same to catch those families that are looking for a preschool. I did receive another email yesterday out of the blue from a family looking to enroll their little boy in the fall so there's another name added to my waiting list!  I did finish my curriculum for Year #1 and next will be writing my curriculum for Year #2. This way I won't use the exact same curriculum year after year and the kiddos that I'll have for two years in a row won't get bored with the same learnings plans as the previous year. But I have plenty of time to get that done! Now I'm down to just getting random things on my checklist done - classroom rules chart, updated fliers, enrollment packets put together, etc.  I also need to get moving and make a decision about what summer camps to do! I have a looong list of ideas (57 of them to be exact) and they are for ALL different ages. I know I want to try a culture study camp where we have passports and "visit" different countries to learn their culture, music, language, customs, etc. This one will probably be geared towards older kids (not preschool). I've already picked five countries and have written to their Embassies telling them what I'm doing and asking for any material/info they'd be willing to send me. (Lots of times they will send fun freebies such as maps, posters, flags, etc.) I just hope my summer plans come together like I'm hoping!

Next week will be a busy week for Travis! On Monday, he goes for a consultation about carpal tunnel surgery. He's been needing to do this for awhile. He'll have moments where he's holding something and it will just suddenly fall out of his hand because he loses all sensation. THEN on Friday he goes for a vasectomy. I'll admit that I'm taking it REALLY hard (not that anybody really can tell b/c I don't exactly walk around with my feelings on my shoulder). I know it's the right thing to do (I mean four kids IS enough, right?), but those of you that know me also know that I LOVE being pregnant and I would give birth a million times. For whatever crazy reason, I enjoy the entire process - crazy, I know!!  So I just keep telling myself that if we stop having kids now then we'll both be in our late 40's/early 50's when we're kid-free again and we'll still be young enough to enjoy life.  I don't know - it still stinks, but needs to be done.  :(  *sigh*

That's about it, folks! Not much going on around here!!

Bowling and Freshman Orientation (yikes!)

Well, we suddenly have a couple of bowlers in the family!  Patrick and Kiegan have joined a youth bowling league in Pontiac at Fiesta Lanes. It actually began back in the fall and only has about six weeks left, but they said that the boys could finish out these last weeks with the rest of the kids. I think they really enjoy it!  Neither one of them are the greatest (Kiegan more-so than Patrick, lol), but that's not to say with a lot of practice they couldn't turn this into something that they're both really good at! So our Saturday mornings will be spent at the alley.  I even talked to Patrick's mom about the league and she has agreed to let us have Patrick on Friday nights of the weekends that we usually don't have him so that he can do the league with Kiegan.  Patrick received a bowling ball from his ex-stepdad for his birthday and we told Kiegan that if this seems like something he truly enjoys and wants to keep doing then we'd get him a Packers bowling ball and bag. So we'll see how this goes!

Last night, we had *gulp* FRESHMAN ORIENTATION!!  I just can't believe that Lexi is going to be in high school....talk about making me feel OLD!  Joanne was able to stay with Maddie and pick Kiegan up from Taekwondo for us so that we could go to the orientation - just the three of us. I have to say that I am so impressed with our high school! They are totally up-to-speed with the level of technology that our country's at these days and I love that. The orientation itself lasted a little over an hour and included talks from the guidance counselors, teachers and Student Council President. They talked about the importance of course selection for college and how important it was to be an involved student which I loved. I want Lexi's high school years to be the complete OPPOSITE of what mine were. I would never want to relive my high school years ever again! I was so shy and not involved in a darn thing - not to mention that I don't ever remember being talked to about any plans for college with my guidance counselor.  I even graduated 9th in my class so I had the potential to be a great college student!  Lexi has her sights set on attending U of I and being a large animal vet so we've been reading through the material packet together and getting a high school "plan" put together of classes. I think she definitely picked up on the importance of her school work and grades and how that will make a difference on whether or not she's able to follow her dreams. She tested pretty low on the 8th grade placement test for English and Math and scored really well for Science, but because of the low English and Math test scores they are suggesting she take Gen. Science her Freshman Year. She did admit to me tonight that she didn't take the testing seriously and now regrets it since she knows that it caused her to be placed in lower academic classes.  Lesson learned for her I hope!  As of now, she is also looking at joining Student Council, FFA, FCCLA (leadership club) and Key Club. So she's sure to be a busy high-schooler!  I have my hopes high for her and took advantage of Maddie sleeping in this morning to write Lexi a letter (it ended up being three pages long - whoops!) just letting her know how proud I was of her, what our expectations are of her during her high school years and what some of my regrets are that I've always carried around with me since high school. I put it in an envelope and placed it on her bed. I know she's read it and I can tell it's put a pep in her step tonight (and up'd her level of cooperation too). I don't plan to actually bring up the letter to her unless she mentions it first. I just hope she puts it in a special spot and pulls it out to re-read whenever she needs a little pick-me-up! I see great things for this girl's future - I just want her to see that for herself too!

Finally on the radar!

Well, Miss DCFS finally contacted me last week! Wahoo!!  She said that they reassigned all the reps and the previous rep that was assigned to me seemed to just leave my file sitting and didn't even bother putting it into their system. So she was going to make sure that got done immediately. She still needs some things from me though: well water test completed (got the kit and plan to send it off this week), notes from our doctor stating the kids don't need TB or lead tests (already received those), I have to take a couple of online classes and send copies of the completion certificates (wouldn't you know our printer just crapped out on us so I have a new one ordered that will hopefully arrive this week), and she couldn't find on my high school transcripts what date I actually graduated (I called the high school and they said it's right at the top of the paper so I explained that to her and got that taken care of). It's all easy stuff, but just a matter of waiting for things to arrive so that I can photocopy and mail off to her. Of course she said she can't do her visit until these things are taken care of. Plus, she's waiting on the background checks for Travis, Lexi, my mom & I to come back so that the four of us can then go down to Bloomington for fingerprinting. It's really quite a process to become licensed!  But I'm glad to know that I finally seem to be on their radar. She did ask me what my timeline was for opening. I told her that my original plan was January 2nd (which obviously didn't happen) so I was shooting for February - she said not to hold my breath. :o( Sooooooo, that pretty much tells me that I won't be opening until summer. I could probably open from March to May, but three months just isn't enough for little ones (and parents) to see any improvements. Now my big decision is whether or not to do a daily summer program or just have some one-week "camps"? I have a big book all about summer camp themes so I think I'll look through that and see if I could make the camp idea work. I was also approached by a lady at church who works with the Fugate Woods Nature Preserve. She would like to have some preschool-aged sessions there in the woods all about taking care of nature, earth, ourselves, etc. I thought that was an excellent idea!! So lots of things to still think about, but it's all coming together finally (thank goodness b/c the checkbook is going to be in bad, bad shape by the time summer gets here).  In the meantime, I'm still spending most of my days in the preschool room getting things together. I absolutely love it though!  So much progress has been made....some of the pictures have an orange hue to them. Not sure why?

A lot of my ideas I get from www.teachpreschool.org - she teaches a small preschool class out of her home as well. She is brilliant!

I used the items in this pictures (hair gel from the Dollar Store, ziploc bags and gel food coloring) to make....

These sensory bags! Maddie LOVES her "colors" as she calls them. We've even had to take them out to eat with us before. She makes for a great tester of my ideas....this one was a big thumbs up!

Today, I used these items (tempera paint in different colors, empty small water bottles, makeup sponges and rubber bands) to make.....

These paint dabbers (similar to bingo dobbers)! This is MUCH cheaper than buying them in the store. I just mix paint with water to thin it out, take the lid off, use rubber bands to hold the makeup sponge onto the bottle opening, squeeze it a big to get the paint started and the kids just start dabbing away! Maddie also tested these for me and I'm glad she did b/c some of the colors needed some extra paint added to them to make them brighter, but she loved them!

Here is my home-made Circle Time chart! This chart saved me about $180 - there were 3 or 4 different ones at a school supply store that I loved, but I couldn't afford to buy them all. Instead, I picked from each of them what I loved best, bought a big square of flannel material and marked out the sections I wanted and used a permanent marker to draw/write it all out. I then printed off and laminated (with my new laminating machine which I LOVE) all the chart pieces I would need. So now we can talk about what "today" is (month, day, year), come yesterday vs. today vs. tomorrow (i.e. - Yesterday was Monday, Today is Tuesday, Tomorrow will be Wednesday), the weather and what clothing items we should wear based on the weather that day, the color/shape of the month and what letter of the alphabet we're focusing on that week (i.e. - All About Bb!), an area for practicing writing that letter and an open space to put up pictures of items that begin with that letter. This will be an important part of our every day!

A quick picture of all the laminated pieces we'll be using on our Circle Time chart. I plan to stick velcro hook "coins" on the back of each one so that they'll stick right to the flannel.

This is an awesome chart my mom gave me for Christmas! I'll take a picture of each child on the first day of school and put them at the bottom in the "At Home" area and every day as the children arrive for school they will find their name/picture and put it up in the "At School" area. This will help with name recognition as their name will be printed underneath their pictures! Fun!!

Our Math Bags! Every week the kiddo's will take home a little math bag and with their parent's help they will find five of any item around their home (i.e. - coins, rocks, lids, etc.) and bring them back on their next class day. We will then sort them into the blue baskets, count them and graph them!

Here is one side of our easle - I just put the magnetic paint on it today and plan to put the chalkboard paint on top of it tomorrow to make it a magnetic chalkboard!

Here is my supermodel showing the other side of the easel that will have dry-erase paint on it to make it a dry-erase board.  :)

A little welcome poster by the front door and then an attendance chart below. The children will put a little stick by there name at the end of every day and on the last day of class for the week, they can pick a little "prize" from our Treasure Chest!

Well, who is this cute little girl (with her goofy brother behind her)?

A picture of our Circle Time area! I had Travis cut all of my rug pieces in half so that they're not so big for their little fanny's and we can all fit in this area better.

Our cozy reading corner! I have so many great books and I plan to have books that pertain to our topic that week on the racks available for the children to read/look through.

Journals! The 3-day/week class will keep a daily journal so that we can see as the school year progresses how they are improving with the drawing/writing skills. I'm sure it'll be awesome to compare the first few days of school entries to those they do at the end of the school year!

My home-made graph! I bought one of those window shades that rolls up/down and drew some lines on it to make a re-usable graph. This way when we graph our weekly math bag items (or anything else), I don't have to make a new graph each time! I think I'm going to use some of the dry-erase paint on a bunch of notecards so that I can stick them on the graph and use them over and over again.

A box! YAY! Actually, this box has a coffee table in it (a cheap one of course) that Travis is going to put together and then cut (hopefully) two holes in the top of so that I can set a couple of white wash tubs into to use as my sensory table. Sensory tables are SUPER fun so I know this will be a popular spot!

So much fun stuff planned! I'll be sure to post more pictures or videos as the progress continues.  :)

It took me forever to get these pictures loaded so I think I'll head to bed now. The appraiser is coming tomorrow to appraise the house now that the addition is pretty much complete. Oh and tomorrow is Patrick's 10th birthday so an early Happy Birthday to him!!

Darn dentist!

Sooooo.....the kids and I got our teeth cleaned yesterday.  Kiegan - who in my opinion doesn't brush his teeth NEAR as well as I think he should - went first and came out with zero cavities. He was sort of bummed to learn that he still has two baby teeth (molars) to lose before he can get braces.  Yes, the ding-dong WANTS braces! I decided to go second to get it done and over with. Maddie wanted to watch so Lexi came back into the room with her and they sat in the chair next to me and watched.  Thankfully, I have zero cavities BUT I have stress fractures in my teeth from clinching them when I'm stressed out. You think I can sue those daycare parents that were so nasty to me and DCFS for causing me so much stress that I ended up cracking my teeth?!  No????  Darn......  So that's what I'm dealing with right now. BOO. Lexi had her teeth cleaned after me and she also had zero cavities, but her gums are pretty sensitive from having braces so she has to do warm salt water rinses and floss more to toughen her gums up.  Last but not least it was Maddie's turn! This was her second time getting her teeth cleaned and I wasn't real convinced that she'd be cooperative because...well....she was just being uncooperative that day as it was!  She surprised the heck out of all of us by hopping right up in that chair, holding her hand out to me to hold it and letting Nancee not only clean her teeth but polish them as well (something she didn't let happen the first time)! I was SO glad!! Nancee said that she probably had the most well polished teeth she's seen on any three-year old. I told her that I was pretty sure it was because the girl brushes her teeth multiple times a day. Maddie even let Dr. Handler come in and check things over without a fuss and walked out with a new Spongebob Squarepants toothbrush!  Overall, it was a cavity-free appointment but I'm the lucky winner of some fabulous stress fractures.  Yay. I haven't had any work done since 2005 so I'm bummed.  :o(  The funny thing is that now that I know I have cracked teeth, I'm extremely cautious about things. I think I slept with my mouth hanging open the entire night last night because I know for a fact that I have a habit of lying awake in bed, stressing about things and then falling asleep with my jaw clinched shut. So my throat was REALLY dry this morning!

I received yet another phone call tonight from a parent wanting to be put on my waiting list for fall classes. SO EXCITING!!  I also finally have quite a few of the items I needed to make a bunch of stuff for the preschool so I will be busy tomorrow! I was able to make my flannel board tonight so that's checked off the list. I also received a text message that the coffee table I ordered from Walmart is ready for pick-up. It was just over $20 and Travis is going to cut (hopefully) two holes in it for me to put a couple of buckets in to use as a sensory table. I was planning on bringing my sand/water table in to use, but it's SO big! This coffee table sits nice and low and is a good size for a couple of kids to play at. I have a LIST of different sensory tubs that I plan to use in it to go with our different themes/holidays. I'm sure it'll be a favorite play spot! I'm still waiting for my laminator to arrive - once I get a bunch of stuff laminated, I can put them up on the wall and the room will really start to come together. By the end of the day tomorrow, I'm hoping to have LOTS checked off my list! Cross your fingers that a certain little girl is cooperative!!

Till next time!  :o)

Inspired....

I love feeling inspired! Sometimes I'm inspired by certain things that I read, see or hear or simply by things that others do.

This past Sunday, I was inspired by Pastor Donna's sermon at church. She was talking about how God doesn't require us to pass some sort of "test" in order to be a follower - he simply wants us to be open-minded to what it is that he's preaching. We all make mistakes, we're all out there "searching" at one time or another in our lives and our job is to be the best person we can be! God doesn't expect perfection from us - he just expects us to give him our best. I feel like I need something to hang on a wall in every room of my house reminding me to "be the best person you can be". It's so easy to fall into that hole of negativity where I'm judging everything and everyone or letting the smallest things make me angry. I don't like being like that!  Tonight, for example, Travis gets home and asks me why I'm so grumpy. I just flat out told him that I didn't have a reason to be grumpy.  I just was! How silly is that? That's certainly not being the best person I can be. So I somehow need a constant reminder to be the best person I can be or basically to be more like my mom - she is always being the best person she could be, in my opinion!

Another moment of inspiration has to do with my preschool. I find myself getting very frustrated with the fact that I'm waiting on DCFS to give me the thumbs up. I also find myself still dwelling on the negative reactions I received from past daycare parents when I made my announcement (something I REALLY wish I could move past).  But when I stop and think about what it is that I'm building, the fantastic school that I'm going to be providing families, the fun learning that will be happening - I can't help but be inspired by myself! I also have to admit that receiving totally random phone calls or emails from people inquiring about my preschool is TOTALLY inspiring! That tells me that even though I'm unable to advertise right now, it's still getting talked about. That's definitely a good thing!! I've even started a waiting list for little ones that are not yet old enough to attend preschool but their parents want to make sure they get a spot for when they are - now that's a great feeling!!

Finally, I'm catching up on some blogs that I've lost track of for awhile. One in particular has always been enjoyable to read and I spent a good hour tonight just catching up on her life. She writes so effortlessly and with such ease that it makes reading her blog a true joy. I love how she can keep her blog entries focused on one main topic or at least make her seperate thoughts somehow tie back to that topic. Mine are always all over the place and more or less a re-cap of my day or the past few days. I suppose if I would write more regularly, then I'd be able to write about specific topics. This particular blog writer is also so very open and honest - she has no problems discussing her fears, her downfalls, things she wishes she were better at. I love that too. I struggle with those that are one way online (or on paper) and then act completely different in person or behind closed doors. Be true to yourself! Either people will love you or they won't - that's what I try to tell myself. I'm a natural people-pleaser so I struggle with being honest about my thoughts. I'm great at hiding what it is that I'm really thinking so that I don't get into an argument or tense conversation with someone. Plus Travis says that I talk too much and talk in circles when I'm trying to make my point! Darn him....so now I'm always paranoid about that too and try to talk less and in triangles when in an argument. LOL - that was a totally dumb joke. Sorry.

Anyway - here's to what will hopefully not be my one and only blog posting that actually focused on ONE topic! I'm heading over to Pinterest (just a warning: it's addicting!) to see what else I can be inspired by....

An early tour of the preschool room!

Not sure if this will even work - it's taken me half the day to figure out my new video camera and then the other half of the day to download this five minute video!  This is obviously an early tour of the preschool room since there's nothing up on the walls yet. Assuming this video works, I'll be sure to post more as the room comes along!

Happy Birthday, Travis!

Happy 32nd birthday to my hubby! Jeez he's getting old..... Yeah - I'm still older (and wiser), but he's creeping up in age too. No big plans tonight other than watching the Season Premier of ONE TREE HILL!!!! We've been waiting for MONTHS for this final season to start back up. Of course I'm gone most of the evening, but he knows better then to watch it without me. :)

Maddie has her 3-year check up today. I've been telling her about how we're going to go see Dr. Stalter so he can check her eyes, nose, ears, etc. She's not real excited about it though and keeps telling me that he's going to my owies. I really hope she cooperates when we get there! She's always been really, really cooperative for Doc, but now that we're at the "Independent 3's" stage I suppose she'll be a little booger about it. If I remember correctly, she was 35 pounds and 36 inches at her 2 year appt. last January and I KNOW she's grown quite a bit over the year so it'll be interesting to see how she measures up today!

We had her birthday party this past weekend and it was all PURPLE! The girl loves herself some purple.... She had her purple tutu on, we had a purple table cloth and purple plates and napkins. I baked up some white and chocolate cupcakes and tinted a container of frosting purple (plus I made a quick batch of rice krispie treats for people like myself that don't care much for cupcakes). It was great to see Grandma Sancken at the party too. She's definitely lost a lot of weight during her ordeal (but she did say that she put back on 20 pounds so that's encouraging!). Aunt Peggy and Kurt even made the celebration so we had a nice turn-out. Everybody got the memo on bringing purple-wrapped presents and she received a lot of great gifts! In fact, I spent Monday morning (before she got up) finding a way to fit all of her new stuff into her toy corner. One of her favorite gifts is her Fisher Price iXL that Grandma Joanne gave her. She plays her "puter" all the time and it's amazing to see little people get the hang of technology so quickly! She's always playing on my phone and knows how to turn it on and get to the games she wants. Same with the iPad - she doesn't need a bit of help on that either!

Last weekend, in general, was pretty busy from a baby shower to Maddie's birthday party to dinner with my friend, Katie, Saturday night. I love going out to dinner with friends minus little people. Don't get me wrong - I love my little person - it's just easier to relax and enjoy adult conversations without her. :) We ate at DeLong's so of course I had to get the fried pickles - I love those things!!

No big news on the preschool - I was told by another daycare provider that the DCFS chick told her they were not coming back to this area until winter was over because they didn't want to travel in the nasty weather. Ummmm.....unless I'm seeing something different out of my windows than she is - THERE IS NO SNOW!! In fact, I know she was in the area on Monday because she finally did a re-licensing visit for another daycare friend of mine who's been waiting since September. So I might try calling her yet again to see if I can convince her to come this way before the bad weather REALLY gets here. If this whole process keeps getting delayed, I don't know if it's going to make sense for me to open for just a few months or not? I don't know how many parents would be interested in sending their kids from February to May or March to May?? I could justify a January to May "school year" in my head, but beyond that I just don't know. Depending on how much longer this waiting game goes on, I might wait for my summer classes or I suppose I could still open and see how much interest there is. How frustrating! In the meantime, I'm trying to get different things checked off of my to-do list (which currently has 62 items left on it!). I started re-painting a big easel I got from a school in Blm. that was closing down. I just re-painted it all white and plan on painting one side of it with magnetic paint and then chalk paint on top of that (so that it's a magnetic chalk board) and then paint the other side with dry-erase paint (so that it's a dry-erase board). I also printed out all of my alphabet animals that I want to put around the classroom along with the alphabet letter they go with. I need to get them laminated (in fact, I have a big stack of things that I need laminated) and it's not exactly cheap so I broke down and bought myself a laminating machine and 200 laminating pouches to do it myself. It was a fraction of the cost of having a printing place do it for me and knowing that I'll probably be doing LOTS of laminating, I'm sure it will come in handy quite often. I've also decided to make my own Circle Time chart to talk about the date, days of the week, weather, etc. so I put all of that together and printed it all out (and of course that all needs to be laminated as well). I just need to get a big piece of flannel, mark it off for all the sections I need to make on it and put some wall grommets on it to hang it with. Hopefully it turns out ok! I'm trying to make a lot of the things myself to save on money. For example, this Circle Time chart - if I were to buy all of the charts I want it would cost me around $180 so I picked the sections that I wanted the most and am combining them into one home-made chart that will basically cost me paper, ink, flannel and my time. Much cheaper!

It's almost 8:30 and I haven't had any breakfast yet so I should probably get something to eat. I love when Maddie wakes up in the mornings - she sits at the top of the steps and hollers down at me, "Mom....MOM...." and when I finally peek around the corner, she says "Mom, you missed me." LOL She's right....I did miss her!

Welcome 2012!

I think that's only the second time so far that I've had to write (or type) 2012. Give it some time and I'm sure I'll slip and write 2011 at least once.....

Our New Year's Eve night out was a success! We headed over to our friends house around 6:30-6:45 I guess it was and just had a lot of fun chatting with everybody. We took our usual Busch Light, but my dear friend, Amanda, brought along some 100 proof Root Beer  Liquor for everyone to try and that stuff was DAMN GOOD! She filled a shorter glass about 1/4 of the way with the liquor and then filled it the rest of the way with Root Beer pop and it tasted just like those hard root beer candies!! My original plan was to just have one and get back to drinking my beer, but three glasses later it hit me and hit me HARD!! I was done...ready to go home....NOW. I was a pukey, hung-over mess most of Sunday morning but by late morning Travis made me a grilled cheese sandwich and I was pretty much good to go. I told him that even though that stuff was awesome I don't plan to ever drink it again! He said that I need to learn to pace myself, but I've NEVER been able to pace myself with any drink......ever. As long as one's in my hand, I'm constantly drinking it - that's why I use to be able to drink 12+ cans of Pepsi a day. If I have a drink I'm a'drinkin it! So we'll see....it'd be the perfect drink concoction to take camping with us so maybe by the time camping season hits again I'll be ready to give it another try. :o)

Overall, a lot has been accomplished this week! We got all three of Travis' pictures hung up in our living room plus some curtains put up as well. It's looking good! The preschool room is REALLY coming along now....it's pretty much ready for stuff to be hung on the walls. I used my video camera to do a little tour of the room and hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to figure out how to put that video into a blog. I really, really need to get crackin' on my to-do list of items that I would like to make (instead of buy) such as my Circle Time chart (I have a wish list of four separate charts that I found at Lakeshore Learning, but they would cost around $180 if I bought them all! So I'm trying to pick and choose the parts of each that I want the most and am hoping to combine them into one homemade chart - good luck to me!), flannel board, bingo dobbers, geoboards, sensory bags and boy does the list go on. Travis also put up one set of mini-blinds in the preschool room for me (Walmart only had one on hand - will pick up another set next time I'm there). My mom stopped by to help me empty out all of my craft tubs and figure out the best way to organize them all. I was becoming VERY overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I had and the extra help was needed!

Today, we took Maddie to The Children's Discovery Museum. What a fun place! At first she didn't know exacty what to do with all that was there, but once she got into it she was having a lot of fun. There's three floors of "stuff" for the kids to do, but I'd say her favorites were the floor piano, the painting area, the grocery store and the pizza kitchen. We were there for about two hours or so and then headed out for some lunch at DQ.

Oh my gosh - how could I forget this story?! Yesterday, Lexi had an ortho appt. at 4:30 and then we both had hair appts. at 5:30. Kiegan and Maddie went to hang out at my mom's (b/c her house is more fun than where we were going!). We were heading out to pick them up around 7:15 or so and as I'm walking off of my mom's porch (carrying Maddie), I guess I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk! It happened so fast, but at the same time it was like in slow motion b/c I remember doing what I could to make sure that I didn't land on Maddie and that she didn't slam her head on the concrete. Thankfully, she was fine but it scared her and I knew that I was hurt, but I just wanted to get back home. My right knee hurt really bad and I couldn't use my right hand so Kiegan had to buckle Maddie in and Lexi had to buckle ME in. When we finally got home (and it seemed like the longest ride home EVER), I went straight to the bathroom where I carefully took my jeans off (with one hand) and just tossed them in the garbage b/c the knee was torn out from my fall. Sure enough - my knee was a bloody mess! My right hand was even worse though and even right now I'm not so sure if my thumb is broken or sprained b/c it's about twice the size of my left thumb. My thumb nail also apparently bent backwards (you can see the line in my nailpolish where it bent) so my thumb friggin' KILLS and I've got blood and puss all underneath the nail. Plus my palm is all tore up too....I did quite the job on myself! Sleeping last night was interesting with trying to keep a blanket off my knee, but keep my leg covered at the same time b/c I was freezing. Plus I had to keep my right hand safe so that nobody/nothing would bump into it! Today, I can hardly bend my thumb (typing right now doesn't bother it a bit - I suppose b/c I use the side of my thumb?) and it's amazing how much I use my thumb for that I can't right now! Not to mention that I'm right-handed so doing things with my left-hand is SO HARD. My right arm muscles are also super sore today too. Boy, that fall quickly ruined a good day!

Tomorrow we're getting a new mattress delivered which will be GREAT! The one we're sleeping on now is broken on one side and I'm sooo tired of trying to balance myself on it (b/c of course that's MY side now even though I'm not the one who initially broke it). Maybe I'll finally get some good sleep! Even though the mattress does have one busted side on it, we're giving it to the boys to sleep on. Right now they each have their own futon which worked out fine at first, but apparently the mattresses on them are really thin so after awhile they started to be really uncomfortable b/c they can feel the bars through the mattress. So hopefully they can get some better sleep too until we break down and get them REAL beds.

We've got a busy weekend ahead including Maddie's birthday party on Sunday! Everything's going to be purple and I even found a picture of purple ice cream on Pinterest. I was hoping it'd tell me where I could find some purple ice cream b/c that would be totally cool, but so far I can't figure it out?

Until next time..............

One more Christmas checked off the list!

Ok so currently Travis is hiding on the stairs and whipping things at the boys in their bedroom, LOL. I could hear all sorts of commotion going on and I assumed Lexi and the boys were fighting so I went tearing around the corner to find Travis all hunched down and shoosh'ing me. Boys will be boys!

We were able to scratch another Christmas off our list so that just leaves one more! After Travis got off work, we all scarfed down our dinner and headed over to my mom's house to have Christmas with her and JD. The boys received more Lego's and gift cards to Game Stop and Walmart, Lexi received some jewelry and gift cards to Walmart and Maurices, Maddie received some clothes, a puzzle and a super fun and loud keyboard (yay for that one!) plus a few other items, Travis received some gift cards and I received a candle and an attendance chart for the preschool! We gave JD a couple of flannel shirts and my mom dual DVD players for her new vehicle. She said that's the one thing she didn't like about it - it didn't have a DVD player in it. So we took care of that!  They're pretty cool too b/c they can play the same movie or they can each play their own movie.  Fun stuff!!

I was able to get quite a bit done in the preschool room yesterday - I can't help but get excited every time I walk in there! I have quite a few tubs in the basement full of craft stuff that I have yet to haul up, but I did get all of my curriculum/preschool books out of the dining room and organized (and believe me when I say that I have a small library of them). I'm still trying to work out how I want the room to be set up - I have a reading corner figured out and a Circle Time cornered figured out....and that's it! LOL I can't quite figure out how I'm going to handle the Discovery Centers. I plan to have three to four different centers that the kids can visit so as of right now I plan to just have the "stuff" for each center ready to go and then when it comes time I'll set them up in different areas of the room. We'll see! I also need a water table built - I have the tubs, I just need the table built to set them down into. Still lots to do, but I got a good start on things!

Today was a different story b/c I didn't get a darn thing done in the preschool. Instead I ran to town to get a few groceries and then took down all of my Christmas decorations. Lots of trips to the basement! I also took a bunch of my daycare items down there to store until I have a garage sale (who knows when). Now our dining room only has dining room items in it! No more stacks of books, no more baby swing, bouncy seats, etc. Yay!!

Tomorrow's plan is to get Lexi to help me carry tubs up from the basement (which I know she'll just jump at the chance to do!) and work some more in the preschool. I really should finish up my curriculum planning - I've got September thru January done. I have two years of curriculum so as soon as I'm done getting Year One in order, I'll be starting over again to get Year Two planned out. I don't want to repeat the same curriculum year after year b/c I'll have some kiddo's for more than one year and don't want them to experience the same stuff year after year and I also don't want myself to get bored with what/how I'm teaching!

I'm really looking forward to the New Year's Eve party tomorrow night. Hopefully Travis will put his party pants on even though he's fighting a cold b/c this Momma's looking forward to a kid-free evening! I'm gonna have to work on my Cake Vodka concoctions to find just the right one that I want to drink at the P-A-R-T-Y. If I remember last year's party correctly, there was some unicycle riding in the house, Left-Right-Center played and some Karaoke too I think? So who knows that this year will bring!

Of course I can't end this post without mentioning that tomorrow is Maddie's THIRD birthday! She's received a few cards in the mail already and she's been carrying them around with her or in her purse. I went back to my blog entry in January of 2009 where I announced her entry into the world and it brought back all the memories of that day - Travis & I going in for a non-stress test, being told to take some laps around the hospital to try to get myself dialated to a four and coming back from those laps being dialated to a six, Moose arriving in three whopping pushes exactly four hours after my water was broke, and the doctor telling us to save ourselves a few thousand dollars and to do a home birth next time b/c it was so easy. But that's how I roll! Sometimes I think that I would LOVE to have another baby (not that Travis is on the same page of course), but other times I'm glad to be moving out of the baby/toddler stage.  So a big happy birthday tomorrow to Maddie!!

Productive day!

I love days that I get lots done! Maddie & I got up around 8:15 or so, ate breakfast, gave Bruiser a bath and went outside to do chores since Lexi's visiting her dad (his family is back in IL for the holidays) and Kiegan spent the night at my mom's. Talk about a little girl who is VERY serious about her choring! She's apparently watched Lexi & Kiegan do the chores more times than I realize. She went right on in and gave the rabbits each a scoop of food (I think she actually gave John an extra scoop which he won't mind b/c he likes to eat). The goats were SOOOOO loud, especially Miss Lucy! So we quickly broke up a flake of hay to give them. Of course the hose was frozen so we had to tromp all the way back into the house to fill up the water bucket. Maddie dipped the rabbits bowls into the bucket for me to fill them up and then I dumped the rest into the goat's water bowl. Of course the whole time we were out there, we were talking to the goats b/c that's what you have to do! Just ask my mom....

I've also hauled everything daycare related down to the basement and have started setting things up for the preschool. I really, really need the tables/chairs in the room so that I can decide exactly where I want things. Kiegan & I thought we could get the tables in the house ourselves, but that was quite the task! First, we had to move Travis' plow out of the way which weighed 500 pounds (or at least it felt like it did) and then it took everything we had to drag those tables out. We ended up just leaning them against the side of the house b/c there was no way we were going to get them up the steps and into the room. Of course when Travis got home, he was able to lift the tables right up and carry them on into the house. Dang he's strong! I thought I'd have a hard time getting toys packed away and down into the basement with Maddie in the same room, but I'd just get her busy doing something else (she's convinced that she has big muscles and big arms like Daddy) and I was good to go! I was able to wipe down and clean off all of the little chairs today too. Tomorrow I can hopefully get the tables wiped down and situated where I think I want them and then MAYBE start bringing up all my tubs of craft stuff and organizing my awesomely large cabinet. I'm worried that I don't have enough small organizing containers to put stuff into, but I guess we'll see! I also have tons of stuff to put up onto the walls too. A couple months back I started putting together a list of things that I needed to buy and/or make for the preschool. It's become ridiculously long - I'm hoping to tackle some of that list soon too! I'm hoping that I can make most of the stuff on the list myself to save on money - we'll see how crafty I can be!

For some reason I can't send pictures from my phone to my email anymore, but I think my new video camera can take pictures! So I might try to see how that works tomorrow and start posting some pictures of my progress. Pictures are more fun than words anyway, right?

Well, Travis looks like he's having a lot of fun helping Maddie pick up the huge mess of M&M's she just spilled all over. Of course Maddie's yelling at him, "NO! Mommy do it!!" She doesn't want anybody but me to do anything for her and it drives me crazy sometimes! There are moments that I'd like to sit for more than 5 minutes before someone hollers at me to get them something or do something for them. You'd think she'd get tired of me considering that she's stuck at home with me every day, but I guess not!

Christmas 2011

Christmas is over! I swear it seems to come & go so quickly....we actually still have two Christmas' to go to. One with the whole Sancken family (as soon as Grandma Barb is ready) and one with my mom and JD (which will hopefully be this Friday). We're anxious to give my mom her gift b/c we know it's a good one! Of course I can't say what it is on here b/c she might read this before Friday. :o)

All of us "big" kids were surprised when we had Christmas with Joanne and we all opened a gift that had an iPad 2 in it - YAHOO!!  I've been wanting one of those for a loooong time. I was also super excited to receive a video camera from her for my birthday/Christmas. I plan to video tape our preschool days and then put together a DVD for each family at the end of each school year. Now I just gotta figure out how to do that! The grandkids were surprised by Grandma with a trip to Disney as soon as school is out in May. They will have SO much fun and I'm so jealous!!

Travis surprised me with a trip to Vegas in March during the week of Spring Break! Of course I've known about it for a few weeks now b/c he just can't keep a secret from me (which is sweet). We are VERY excited for the trip!! We will be staying at Treasure Island which is on the strip and is also exactly three miles from Pawn Stars - so we will definitely be making a stop there. I think we're also going to go see the Hoover Dam. We're staying for five days so we'll have plenty of time to see/do a lot of different things. Can't wait!!

We gave Lexi, Kiegan and Patrick each their own Android Tablets which are a cheaper version of the iPad (and other gifts of course). Plus we're going to do a weekend away to Grand Bear Lodge here soon too. Maddie is the easiest to buy for b/c she's happy with most anything! It seems like the older the kids get, the more expensive their gifts get and the harder they are to please. :o)  But overall everyone had a great Christmas this year.

Now I just have to make myself take down ALL the decorations one of these days.  That's the worst part!

The countdown is now on to Maddie's third birthday on New Year's Eve - can't believe it of course! Most people assume she's four b/c she's so tall (as of September she had grown 3 inches since her two-year check-up in January). The girl LOVES purple so our plan is to have a birthday party in January for her all decked out in purple! I'm sure she'll love it.  :o)  We plan to spend most of New Year's Eve day with her and then heading over to Fairbury to ring in the new year with our camping group. I'm sure there will be a large number of adult beverages consumed!  Not necessarily by us (although we'll have our fair share), but those folks can put 'em away!!

Ok - it's off to bed for me (and a certain little girl who once again didn't nap today)....

Dare I say that I'm getting back into the blogging world?

Well, I've got some extra time on my hands now so I thought I'd get back into the world of blogging! I can't believe it's been over a year since the last post that I wrote. So much has happened since then!

The biggest news is that my daycare is officially CLOSED and I'm opening a home preschool as soon as DCFS gets their rear in gear. It's been quite an emotional process! I ran my daycare for almost four years and it's never been exactly what I've hoped it to be. I loved, loved, loved teaching the kids different things and doing crafts and such with them, but when you have a mixed age group it becomes darn near impossible to spend that learning time with the older ones. I considered running a daycare that had only preschool age kiddo's, but the problem with that is that most of the time those families have younger siblings too and don't want to send their children to two different daycares. Then I became friends with Joy Anderson who runs a preschool out of her home in Idaho and that's when I got the idea of opening my own home preschool! It was one of those moments where I was like "Duh - why didn't I think of this sooner?" The positives outweighed the negatives BIG TIME! 1 - My days would be DONE by 3:00. 2 - I would be doing what I love to do which is teach little ones the basics, do crafts and have nothing but fun while doing it. 3 - I'd be making good money. 4 - Maddie's at the perfect preschool age to be a part of it every day. And the list goes on!  As soon as I knew that I wanted to do this (and after Travis said he'd support me in it), I decided on the name "Country Charm Preschool", saw my laywer to become an LLC and created my website. I would include the link to my website, but DCFS made me password protect it b/c it was considered advertising and apparently I can't do that while my licensing is still in the works. More to come on that....

I purposely didn't tell many people about my plans b/c I did not want my daycare families to find out about it from word-of-mouth. I wanted them to hear it from me first. I used my week out at Eldora to write up the email that I would be sending out to all of them. I decided on doing it over email b/c that was the best way for me to tell them all at the same time. I figured it would be too difficult to try to "catch" all of my parents at pick-up time and then deal with parents coming in during the middle of a conversation and such. I sent out the email at the beginning of October which gave them all three whole months to find new daycare. I knew that I was risking my own income by giving them all so much time, but I wanted to be fair to them b/c I knew this would be a big and unexpected change for them. In my contract, when families leave I only require a two week notice so I felt I was going above and beyond by giving them so much time. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the back-lash that I received by a number of my families. Travis has received a number of phone calls from me very upset after reading awful emails that some families sent me! I had some families leave out of anger and not pay what they owe, I had some parents stop talking to me all together and like I said - I received some awful emails from people criticizing me very harshly. I won't go into any details on here on the things that were said to me. I'll just say that I've never been so hurt and upset. The worst is probably the fact that I lost a good friend over all of this due to a MAJOR misunderstanding that could have very, very easily been fixed. It just boggles my mind that I did so much for these families and cared/loved their children and instead of appreciating all that I've done, they've become downright mean b/c I'm temporarily inconveniencing them and making them find new daycare. It really put a sour taste in my mouth for people, in general. The lack of appreciation is very hurtful. Travis thinks I should have our lawyer send letters out to the families that still owe me, but I just want to move past it all. It's simply not worth it to me - getting the money won't make my hurt feelings go away. To top it off, as soon as I started advertising around town and had almost one full class filled, someone turned me in to DCFS! So the DCFS "witch" called, chewed me out and made me stop advertising immediately. She also informed me that they were months behind on licensing and I shouldn't hold my breath on opening January 3rd like I hoped. Yippee.  With all that being said though - it really warmed my heart to receive the small gifts of appreciation from the families that did stay with me until the end. It also meant a lot to me to see the tears and the sadness on each of those family's last day - that told me that what I did meant a lot to them!

So now it's basically a waiting game and I am NOT good at waiting on others! Our checkbook is sure taking a hit right now too which is just added stress, but we're doing what we can to make things work in the meantime. Nobody ever said that change was easy! But I just know it'll be worth it in the long run. Even though I'm not advertising, I'm still receiving random phone calls from people wanting to be put on my waiting list - if that doesn't motivate me to keep going, I don't know what will! Until things do get moving though, I've been enjoying my free days and using the time to set up the preschool room (pics to come soon) and finishing up my daily curriculum. The kids are going to have SO much fun - lots of hands-on learning, lots of books/reading, science work, math work, etc. I'm sure the first year will be a learning curve for me as well. As soon as I get the go-ahead from DCFS, I will post a link to my website for everyone to see. I'm pretty proud of what I'm doing and what's ahead for us! They say success is the best revenge and I'm determined to be successful and prove to all those that were so negative to me that I am doing a good thing!

Till next time....

Pictures from Eldora!

I forgot about our trip to Eldora in September! It was nice to get away from reality for a week and Maddie was able to go to her first race the night we got there.