Camp Catch-up

Lagging behind again, I'm afraid. Here's the recap for the last day of our Fall Camp:

We read a short book titled, "The Halloween Play". It was a great easy read that allowed all the kid's to participate! I am quite impressed with how well the kids did all week with listening to the stories. There were the occasional picture hogs who wanted to stand right in front of the page to see the photos and block the book from the others in the audience, but they were so darned cute and interested we couldn't get mad.

I decided in lieu of a craft we would have a coloring page that I assembled prior to the afternoon camp. I had photos of the kids throughout the week and I simply printed out a blank scarecrow page, cut out the face and placed the kid's photo behind the hole. Easy! Each kid got to color themselves as a scarecrow!

I also came up with a really cool rhyme in order that we may do a little skit. This took quite a bit of time to come up with and I was excited about sharing with the group. However, we had two moms sign up to attend the camp at the last minute and for only ONE DAY??? Because I didn't have their kids information to write in the skit, I decided to scrap the whole idea. Sad. :(

We let the kids run around outside in the awesome weather instead and we moms got a little break from the noise.

All in all, another GREAT camp experience!! I plan on hosting another one in February in our new house. (More on THAT later, so stay tuned!!)

Fall Camp: Days 2-4

I had great intentions of getting Day 2 up in a timely manner and then I remembered that I had BUNCO with the church mom's group!

Then we had a rough day yesterday and Dominic ended up napping through camp so we missed yesterdays activities. So this post will have days 2-4.

Day 2:
We read "Fall Mixed Up" and "Five Little Pumpkins". For our craft we painted pumpkins using the kid's fists and thumbs. So cute! We rotated the papers around the table so that each child has all the pumpkins on it! One of the kid's didn't want to get messy (say WHAT??) so there were only 4 little pumpkins on our paper.

Day 3:
Read "Thanksgiving Cats" and "The Great Turkey Race". Cute book!! In lieu of a craft the kids were to participate in our own relay race and contest.

Day 4 (today):
We read "The Night Before Thanksgiving" and "Green Soup". The first book was really cute!! For our craft we traced the kid's hands and foot to make a turkey placemat. I LOVE this!! We added googly eyes to the turkey and if I say so, it just made the turkey's look all the more adorable.

Tomorrow we will have the last day of camp. Bittersweet, as usual. We will take an official group camp photo to take home. We have two stories picked out to read and the craft is still up in the air, although it was originally supposed to be a scarecrow, which we may still do.

As usual, camp has been a lot of fun. The kids did really well with storytime and crafts. I think 2.5-3 years is the PERFECT age for our camp. We're really trying to help them learn to listen and sit attentively.

I'm already thinking about the next camp session to take place possibly in January. Themes are plentiful, but will most likely be international, sports or transportation. Which do you prefer???

Fall Camp: Day One

I was approached by my meetup playgroup about helping to put together a camp session for them. I met with AM and she and I came up with a week that would work for us both and went from there. We had our first day this afternoon and it was a lot of fun!
The theme is FALL.

First, we read "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert and then we made our own leaf man, complete with google eyes. Each day we'll make an animal out of them and hide them somewhere in the house.

Next, we read "Hallo-weiner". It's such a cute story. For our second craft we made a leaf sun catcher out of clear contact paper and tissue paper.

Dominic fell asleep as soon as we got home. Only the second time that he's fallen asleep spontaneously while watching TV. Silly boy...

It's no Blue Bell, but it'll do...

This past week we were BUSY!!

Since Dominic enjoyed camp so much, we decided to pony up and enroll him in another two week session, which started last Tuesday. This time around there were 12 kids in his group! I am assuming they have combined two groups since there are 2 counselors in there.

When we weren't at camp, we were at playgroups. Monday we hosted a playgroup at our house. Kids were invited to make homemade ice cream, which actually turned out to be quite delicious!

Fattening, but delicious! While we waited for the ice cream to freeze we moved out front and ran through the sprinkler!

Our new church friends joined us for this one. She is due with baby girl #3 anyday now. Note to self: I should check in on her since I didn't see them at church yesterday.

The next day we had AM and M over for some ice cream and playtime.

The next two days I was saddled down with creating the neighborhood playgroup's newsletter. Big doings!! This took approximately 3 days to get all together but the third day was simply copy-paste'ing.

Friday we had a full day all to ourselves. Until I remembered that I had to buy my hubby a birthday present! So it was off to the golf store to pick up a fashionable golfing outfit, complete with golfing belt. I never knew such a thing existed, but trust me it does.

Friday afternoon we were invited over to H and E's house for indoor play. It was just nice to get out of the house after the whole newsletter stress. I even managed to get a photo of myself with BOTH babies!! As I've said in previous posts, photos of me with the kids is rare as I'm usually the one taking the photo. I just love this one, too!!

Saturday Daddy turned "4-4" and Jillian turned 2 months old!

Parental observations from a former teacher...

As a former teacher with 10 years under my belt I have the unique opportunity to see my child through two sets of glasses: the rose-tinted mommy glasses and the eagle-eyed teacher glasses. While this can be great, it can also lead to stress that other moms are spared.

This month we branched out and enrolled D in a 4-day parent optional summer camp. Actually, we enrolled him back in April knowing that he'd probably want to get out of the house and have some "D-time" away from his sister. Since we've never left him under any else's care, except for the Grands, I stayed Tuesday with him just to see how he'd do (FANTASTIC!) and to see what activities they'd do. I am happy to say that I was very pleased with both.

The following day I let him go on his own, but Jillian and I stayed in the commons area. There, I was able to see and hear many observations I otherwise would have missed. Here's what was rambling inside my head:

1. I can teach my child to follow instructions but not all parents do. The result? My child ends up waiting for his turn while other kids take multiple turns.

2. I am my child's greatest advocate. This means I will be present for all his activities. In his group of 7 at camp I was the only parent who stayed and sadly, I ended up feeling like the crazy "that mom". (So what if I happened to be snapping pictures of my son eating a snack?)

3. Parents are VERY particular about their children. As a teacher I know that parents can certainly be a thorn in the side. Being a parent in that common area I overheard a mother planning a birthday party on the premises and was amazed at the extravagance of the event. Face painter? Multiple cakes? Extra staff on site? Personalized favors? All of these cost extra money and the mommy was more than happy to oblige. Then she said a key sentence and it all suddenly made sense: "All the other parties we go to have face painters."
We had D's party here at home and I assure you it was just as appreciated at much less cost. (My hubby may beg to differ about the cost.)

I also came to the realization that I will be the mom who is in the front row at concerts, recitals and awards assemblies with camera in hand, hollering out my child's name so that I can get a shot of him/her in the moment. And you know what?? I'm okay with that!
I mean, look at these faces:

Can you blame me??

Spring Camp: Day Five (and my 101st post!!)

Wow, didn't realize that I'd hit 100 posts! And I'm coming up on my 1 year anniversary of blogging. I should plan an update post just so we can see how far I've come in one year of my friendship odyssey.

Anyway, our last day of camp was yesterday and it was bittersweet. It is a lot of work to coordinate and plan a week-long camp, I won't lie. But it is so fulfilling when I see the little ones having a good time and giving the moms a chance to interact with other moms makes it all worthwhile.

Friday we had 4 campers and one had to leave early as he was not quite ready to listen to mommy. :(

We:
*Sang our welcome song.
*Read 10 Little Monkeys.
*Sang "The Itsy Bitsy Monkey".
*Read What do you say when a monkey acts this way?
*Sang "Five Little Monkeys".
*Our first craft required the kids to recall the last story we read. (They had to put three pictures from the story into the correct order. In reality this craft was still a little over their heads, but I did test it out on D beforehand orally and he aced it. I guess the photo part was too much.)
*Our second craft was to decorate a jointed, cardstock monkey with their name, stickers, glitter, colors, etc.
*Then I gave out their awards (everyone got an original one) and their bags with all of their crafts and songsheets from the week. I found the bags in the dollar spot at Target and thought they'd be PERFECT:


I didn't get many photos from Friday. It seemed to be a busy day even though there were only 3 of us there, ultimately. Here's a photo of most of the books we read this week. **Not all are represented.


I did put together a slideshow of the week and have them burned to discs ready to deliver this coming week. I did this for the first camp and got many thank yous and even one sweet compliment, "You made me cry!". Course I set it to music and that always makes the slideshow a bit more sentimental.

I have a really fun mommy playdate on Wednesday with my neighborhood group. We are attending a home tour/auction in the morning and it's a Derby theme! I bought a hat at Target this afternoon and still have to try it with my dress. I have to drag out my maternity dresses and see what I've got!

Spring Camp: Day Four

Technically, day four was yesterday but I was all alone all day yesterday and had little to no time to update. I am having a bout of pregnancy induced insomnia tonight so this will have to do.

Today we had 4 campers and D was the only boy. Lucky kid! Again, we had a great day.

Today we:
Sang the welcome song.
Read "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear".
Sang a song.
Read "At the Zoo", a cute little book I found at Half Price Books.
I sang a song all by myself, since no one has ever heard "The Animal Fair".
Did our craft. Created a circus train using a square paper plate, yarn and an animal cut-out. CUTE!
Had our snack.

Here are some photos from this afternoon:


Busy at work coloring his elephant.


So proud of his creation!!


All 4 circus cars.

Check back tomorrow for the last day of camp. So sad it's over. Since Miss Jillian is on her way in just 60 days now, I'm pretty certain we won't have another camp for at least another 6 months. And even THAT is iffy!

Spring Camp: Day Three

Another successful camp day under our belt! We had a minor hiccup in the schedule, though.

I was made aware that 3 of our 6 campers could not make the zoo field trip on Friday, so I made alternate plans for a field trip and polled the moms to see what day would work best for them. The consensus? Today!

So...today we had our field trip to a local farm where we were able to feed some animals, took a hayride around the farm, got to see some HUGE horses and had a picnic under a big shade tree. What a pleasure!

Here are some photos from today's big adventure:


"Mommy, see big wheel?"


What does that sign say???


Just a couple of ol' cowpokes!

Spring Camp: Day Two

Today was an awesome camp day! All 6 campers showed up, ready to go! They all wore their shirts and we took the cutest group photo outside beneath the big oak tree in the front yard. Miraculously we were able to catch some shots of all 6 kiddos looking in the same direction at the same time!!

Today we:

Sang our welcome song.
Read "Who's in the Jungle".
Danced to the song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
Read "Rumble in the Jungle".
Craft #1: make a lion face on a paper plate.
Craft #2: put the spots on the giraffe. (The kids LOVED this craft!!)
Took our photo.
Had our snack.

Here's a few photos of our day:


Working on our giraffe's.


Working on our lion faces.


The complete lion faces.

Check back tomorrow for Day 3!!

Spring Camp: Day One

Today was the first day of our Spring Camp. It was a short-handed beginning as only 3of the 6 enrolled campers were able to make it today. G is in school on Mondays so I knew he would be out, G has afternoon swim lessons on Monday so she was out and A had to stay home b/c they are having hardwoods installed and the job has taken longer than the quoted time.

That's okay, we had a great time, just the 3 (6) of us!

Today we:

Sang our welcome song.
Read Maisy Goes to the Farm.
Sang a finger play song.
Read Click Clack ABC.
Sang a sing-along song.
Did our crafts; shape animals and coloring book fun.
Had our snack; cereal bar and yogurt with fruit juice.


Eating a snack.


Our crafts abandoned as we take a snack break.


Check back tomorrow for another update of camp.

Lions, tigers and bears, oh my!!

Spring camp is right around the corner and as promised I've got the details right here!!

This week's theme will be Animals!! Dominic helped me pick it out and I'm super excited to get it going!! There's so much good stuff out there to help study animals. Here's our tentative schedule:

Monday- petting zoo animals
Read Click Clack Moo, Maisy Goes to the Farm
Create animals out of shape templates and create an Animal Cracker book

Tuesday- jungle animals
Read Rumble in the Jungle and Who’s In the Jungle?
Create lion masks from paper plates and Giraffe spots with Bingo markers

Wednesday- large mammals
Read Polar Bear What do you Hear?, The Zoo Book
Create zoo diorama with foam trays and yarn threaded through

Thursday- monkeys
Read My Heart is Like a Zoo, What do you say when a monkey acts this way?
Create monkey name hangers and sequence 3 pictures correctly

Friday- zoo field trip!!
Zoo scavenger hunt and awards ceremony
Graph of animals

I have been made aware of an animal class at the zoo that Friday morning that will be a hands-on activity with frogs. I will be emailing the mommas to see if they are interested. It'll be an extra $15 in addition to our tuition for camp. Should be fun, nonetheless!!

I made the t-shirts a few days ago. I am waiting to make the girls shirts. The Michael's by my house only had 4 lion iron-ons and I need 6 total. If I have to get a different animal then I'll do the 3 girls shirts the same and have the lion on the boys. So that's why I am waiting. I have to make a special trip to another Michael's sometime today, hopefully.

Here are the finished shirts:


I LOVE the color combo and how they came out!!

Bosses Day, Brownies and Boo!!

I've been so preoccupied with worrying about what we'd see (or not see) at the ultrasound this week that I have completely ceased to post about our friendship odyssey. So this one's a catch-up post!

Tuesday we had a neighborhood playdate scheduled at our local arboretum's pumpkin patch. We got there at 9am on the dot, despite the dizziness from my medicine beginning to settle in. We were to meet at the front gate and I was surprised to see no one waiting for me. I'm used to being the first one to events due to my punctuality issue, so I decided to wait for the late-comers to show up. To my great surprise, no one was there after another 15 minutes. Looks like we were on our own!

It worked out pretty well, anyhow. The patch was totally empty, except for 2 other children, and we were able to run from cluster to cluster taking pics. Here are some of my favorites:





Wednesday we took it easy at home. Since we were just hanging out I decided we should make some triple chunk brownies! We both got all gussied up in our aprons (D got a new apron at last week's Market in the Meadow Craft event). Isn't he the cutest little baker??



Friday Daddy had a Boss's Day celebration at work. Since this was actually last week we had already given him a little token of our appreciation. Here's our $7 version of the florist's $25 one.



We also Boo-ed our neighbor Friday. They are newlyweds and both work so they haven't gotten to participate in many of our social events yet. I thought it would be nice to let them know that they are being thought of by Boo-ing them. I found the little Boo bag in the Target dollar spot. I just put some of Daddy's leftover candy inside and hung the bag on their front door.



Today I'll be hand delivering the Fall Camp t-shirts and detailed itinerary to our little campers. Make sure to check back in a few weeks when we have our camp. It's happening November 8-12th.