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.

Has it really been 3 months?

Wow! Time flies when you're always on the go, go, go! I can't even remember what's been happening over the past 3 months.

School has started up which means I have a full house pretty much every day now which is nice. The older three all seem to be doing well in school! Lexi's about to send us to the looney bin if she doesn't learn to control her mouth. She definitely says what's on her mind, but she needs to learn to censor herself most of the time. She gets her bottom braces on next week and has been doing a great job of brushing and taking care of them. Kiegan's grades have really been improving which is awesome! His teacher this year is so unbelieveably fantastic that I wish he could just have her every year. The school is looking into purchasing an auditory learning aid for Kiegan to use. It's a device that will help him to block out extra noise in the classroom so he can focus on what Mrs. Robey is teaching. We still go to Blm. 3-4 nights ever week - he has started on the 4th grade reading level so as soon as he gets through that and the 5th grade reading level, we will hopefully be done. It really wears on me being gone so many evenings. I don't know how parents do it that have multiple kids in multiple activities! My house is so unorganized and my countertops look horrendous and I'm falling behind in everything that it drives me bonkers. It probably doesn't help that I always have a house full of kids every day either. Oh well - that's life, right??

And Maddie - oh Miss Maddie - she runs this place! Hard to believe that she will be 2 years old in a couple of months. She tries to repeat most of what we say and sometimes it comes out so funny! She's also quite the dancer which is hilarious. I'm having a heck of a time finding diapers for her though. She's in size 7's which is the biggest they make diaper-wise and I have to order them off the internet b/c stores don't ever carry that size and it takes a week for them to be delivered so I really have to be on the ball about her diaper inventory! BUT even the size 7's are stretched to the max on her so I think I need to buckle down and work with her even more on potty training. She still goes every morning and when she wakes up from her naps, but it would sure be nice for her to go more often than that! Clothes are another story.....she's in 4T's and at first I thought that 3T stretchy pants would be ok and then get 4T in jeans, but that's not so much the case. I think she needs 4T stretchy pants and NO jeans or pants of any kind that snap/buckle at the waist. She's just too big!!

What else....oh yeah - we have a couple of new family members: Joe & Lola our goats! They are SO cool! I love them.....Joe isn't exactly the most friendly, but Lola likes it when you pet her. Travis is talking about getting some more and also a donkey b/c you have to have a donkey when you have goats to keep the coyotes away! It's gonna be Sancken Petting Zoo over here!

We went camping last weekend for probably the last time this camping season. It was ok....it was a large group of us and Friday night all of the adults decided it was a good idea to party all hours of the night between our camper and Pfaff's camper - the two campers that have little ones sleeping! I was NOT a happy Momma. Now I don't have a probably with having a good time, but when Maddie's with me I just can't bring myself to do it. All I think about is how awful I'll feel the next day and how useless I'll be to her AND I think about how much crap I have on my to-do list for that next day and I know none of it will get done if I've drank too much the night before! They all partied it up Saturday night too (minus Travis who was in bed by 8:30), but this time they did it away from our campers. They're all good people and I know they were just having a good time and like Travis says I should probably just toughen up and come out for awhile, but I tend to just avoid it all together (I'm an avoider by nature anyway!).

Halloween is this weekend! We get all the kids this year for trick-or-treating so that should be fun. Maddie is a spider witch or something like that (basically a costume I bought on clearance), Lexi is a ghost, Kiegan is Darth Maul (Star Wars of course!) and Patrick is Popeye (ironic, right?!). The store have the BEST candy this time of year and it is so not good for me to have around the house b/c I snack on it constantly! I tried a Take 5 candy bar - possibly my new favorite......

Kiegan's birthday is coming up here in a couple of weeks - 11 years! A commercial came on for a new Star Wars Wii game so that's what we will probably get for him. Those games are expensive, but the boys play the heck out of them! Next up will be Christmas for all of them - I love to shop for them, but it adds up for sure. Travis already gave me my birthday gift - a chest freezer. I love this thing! Now I don't have to haul myself ALL the way out to the shed to the standup freezer where I can't see what's all in it. This one has dividers in it and sliding racks - it is all so nicely organized! I could just stare at it I think....I'm definitely a wanna-be organized mom.

I'm sure tons more has happened since July, but that's just too much for my old brain to think about. I'll go through and see what pictures I have to put on here in another post....

Things are getting exciting!!

Another fun camping weekend has come to an end! Travis, Kiegan, Maddie & I went back to Hickory Hills for some family time. We left Friday as soon as my last daycare child left and the last few items were put in the camper. It's sooo nice that this place is such a close drive! We just relaxed Friday night and went to bed at a decent time. Saturday it rained off and on, but we were able to get out and about around the campground. We were up at the pool as soon as it opened at 10:00. I had bought a pair of arm floaties for Maddie and also a swimsuit that had float thingies built into the front & back of it. We decided to try the swimsuit thingy first and although it definitely kept her afloat, it rubbed her chin raw and it was difficult to hold her very well! Later on Saturday night, after the rain passed we went back up to the pool again this time with just her regular swimsuit on and the arm floaties. It was amazing watching her in the pool! While Travis & Kiegan horsed around in the pool, Maddie and I hung out in the shallower end and she was a fish! As soon as the floaties were put on her and she was plopped in the water, she took off! I never even had to hold her - she was leaning back and floating, kicking her legs, splashing, leaning forward and floating. It was awesome! And the whole time she never stopped smiling and laughing. So we ended up closing the pool down. Sunday morning we packed up and came home right after breakfast which is so perfect b/c it still leaves plenty of time for me to get my Walmart shopping done and stuff ready for my daycare week. Plus Travis was excited to go check out our new golf cart! I don't have any pictures of it to put on here, but it's a nice one and will be nice to take camping with us so we can buzz around the campground.



I had noticed over the weekend that Maddie kept coming up to me and wanting her diaper changed as soon as she would poop. So I sort of took that as a sign that maybe potty training was just around the corner! Later in the day Sunday, she went over to her "poop corner" and squatted but hopped right back up and came over to me pointing at her diaper. I asked her if she was done pooping and she shook her head no so I wasn't real sure what she was wanting! I asked her if she wanted to sit on the potty and she immediately took off towards the bathroom so of course I raced in there with her, put the potty seat on the toilet, pulled down her shorts, ripped off her diaper and plopped her up on the potty. Sure enough I suddenly heard a bunch of "plop, plop, plops" - I couldn't believe it!! I kept telling her "good girl!" and when she was done she screamed! LOL It was a pretty exciting moment!! I was trying not to get too excited b/c she is only 18 months after all and that is pretty early to be potty training, but yesterday during quiet time she wanted to go on the potty and after sitting there for awhile she pee'd! WOO HOO! Even MORE exciting!! And then last night after we got home from Blm. she wanted to sit on the potty and she pee'd AGAIN! So maybe she has thrown herself into this potty training business?? There's definitely no rhyme or reason to when she wants to go, but if she wants to sit on the potty then by all means let's go for it! Goodness knows she sees a lot of potty business going on with all of the daycare children so it might make sense for her to pick up on it somewhat quickly.



In other family news - I was talking with the girl that Kiegan works with in Blm. to see if she still thought he would be done with the program by the time school started. He's been talking about playing basketball this school year and he also wants to join Tae Kwon Do which we think is a great idea! But as long as he's going to Blm., those extra things can't happen. Megan, the girl he works with, wanted to talk with Basha (who owns the Speech & Learning Connections place) about Kiegan b/c he is the first person she's had go through this particular reading program and she wasn't as familiar with it as Basha is. Kiegan is on Level 3 in the reading program and Megan thought that maybe the Level 4 and Level 5 would be above his reading level and he would have to come back in later school years to do those levels. Come to find out, Level 3 is a 3rd grade reading level meaning the Level 4 is 4th grade and Level 5 is 5th grade soooo considering that he's going into 5th grade means that he really needs to do the Level 4 and 5 as well. It wasn't at all what we were hoping to hear b/c it means that he will probably be going for up to another year depending on how quickly he progresses through the levels. BUT it's what he needs and it's obviously working so hard to complain too much! Kiegan was just disappointed about not being able to play basketball or do the Tae Kwon Do (which he was looking forward to the most). I think for the next month to month and a half he's going four days out of the week which the more often we go, the quicker he'll progress and get through the levels.



I received a warning phone call last week that the DCFS "witch" was going to be coming to my house this week. So I had to race around the house to make sure everything was in order and paperwork was ready for her to look at. This lady is new and from what I've heard is MUCH worse than the lady who retired and use to make the home visits. So that makes me nervous - I'm sure I'll get written up for all sorts of stupid stuff. I already know one of the dings I'll get is that my CPR & First Aid certification is expired and is not getting renewed till Thursday night. So she'll write me up for that like she did a friend of mine whose certification is also expired and is not getting renewed till Thursday. YIPPEE!! I'm sure I'll be plenty stressed by the time she leaves. I HATE being treated/talked to like I don't know what I'm doing.



Oh a happier note! I have a date Friday night with a good friend of mine!! Her two little ones come to my daycare and Travis & I are good friends with them. So we decided that we needed to go have a nice dinner, do a little shopping and hit up Coldstone Creamery before coming home without having little people tugging and pulling on us. We are both looking forward to it so much! In general, this week will be a busy one with Kiegan going to Blm. three days (my mom will be taking him two of the three days b/c I won't be able to), I have a training to go to Wednesday night, CPR & First Aid re-certification Thursday night, date night with my friend Friday night, Aunt Peggy's wedding on Saturday and then Sunday will be spent getting the house back in order and ready for the new week! Oh and Kiegan wants to get his school supplies this weekend - woo hoo! I LOVE shopping for school supplies!!



So busy week ahead, but also lots of exciting things going on!