Autumn Placemats

The children celebrated Autumn Leaves by making placemats with items we found outside on our nature walks last week.

We cut squares out of cardstock and used our beeswax crayons to make a pretty background. Then we used glue to stick our leaves, flowers, grass and other findings onto each one. Here is Brianna working hard :)

Little Kyla sticking her leaves and flowers on...

Riona was being very creative with her layout ;)...

Lilah was fasinated with how the things were getting stuck on the paper.

Ryder is a rock star and creative genius...

I later laminated each one and they took them home to use at meal times :) ... Happy Autumn!

Autumn Leaf Rubbings

This week's theme from my September Natural Childcare Guide we are celebrating Autumn Leaves, Separation - one of our activities was to collect leaves on our nature walk and come back and do leaf rubbings. Each year the children do this and they love it... its a great way to get into the season during the first month of school.

We used our special block beeswax crayons for this activity. The flat sides work great as opposed to regular stick crayons.

Brianna knew exactly what to do - I think she remembered from last year. Its really warming to do the same activities over again as the seasons change. They have become little seasonal traditions in our daycare.

Scott thought it was so neat to see the veins and details of the leaves show up on his paper.

Ryder loved how all of the different colors looked together. Kyla who is only 2 years old did an amazing job!

Lilah is the youngest in our group but she was still very interested in touching the pretty leaves and rubbing the crayons with help from Ms. Kristin and I.

Happy Autumn Days! Go on a walk with your little ones and see what you can find :)

Brian & Bree's Big Day :)

We had a family party to celebrate Brian's 37th birthday and Brianna's 3rd. It is so very cool that they have the same exact birth day... I love it!

Great Grandma Nohe (who is 95 or 96 I believe!), my mom, Brian, Bree and Me.

My cousin Tara and her beautiful new baby Maura... sweetness.

The birthday king and queen (yes she is wearing a Disney princess dress... no it was not my idea... but she was the birthday girl)

Brian's mom, Linda to the right with us again...

My aunt and godmother, Kathleen who I've called Ka-Ka ever since I could talk.

Brianna and her newest baby cousin Maura. Brianna LOVED the baby.... nope, I will NOT be having any more... I promise!

Me and the cute little girlies..

my little munchkin nephew, Colin... he likes to wear princess crowns at Aunt Eileen's house... its all good...

Make a wish!

I ordered a photo cake for the first time...

I tried DESPERATELY to get photos of my beautiful teen daughter, but she is VERY teenish lately and is hard to catch! I'm going to make it a point to get some pictures of her this weekend (without her knowing ;) ) ...

Brianna's 3rd Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday to My 'Baby'!

I can't believe my youngest is already three years old... where did all of the time go?

Brianna had such a great birthday with all of her friends at Little Acorn Learning

Catching Up...

Its so hard to find the time to update my blog with all of the photos we take. Here are a few randoms that haven't made it up in awhile...


A more recent one of me...

Watercolor stars we made... glue was still wet but eventually dried clear :)

Ms. Kristin and I with all of our little daycare children playing in the rain...

Brianna in her raincoat.

Making Play Dough!

Yesterday we made homemade play dough again with the children. It's probably one of our favorite things to do :)

Everyone took turns and had a job.

Scooping and stirring and pouring...

And kneading and pounding...

They all agreed on the color blue for this batch :)

So much fun :)

At the end of the day, everyone got to bring home their own special play dough they made..

We also made a little reading/quiet corner in our playroom - the kids just love sneaking in there and reading books together.