Skating at Skatetown . . . oh no wait a minute . . . Funky's

The week of Spring Break, our center had a lot of extra kids that are normally attending public schools, but their parents needed care for them during the spring break week. Ryan was included in this total. This more than doubled the size of Ms. Rabia's class for the week. As a result, she decided to do some fun stuff for the kids on a couple of the days. Funky's Skate Zone hosted a Christian skate on Tuesday of that week. Funky's is a roller skating rink in Harrisonburg. When I was a kid, it was called Skatetown and I have a hard time calling anything other than that. With our center being a faith based center, this Christian Skate was a great idea! Each child brought a dollar for their skate rental and packed their lunch for the day. With the whole teaching kids thing I do during the day, I was not able to go on the fieldtrip, but managed to steal some pictures from Rabia of Ryan having the best time!! He continues to ask, regularly, "Can we go skating today/tomorrow?" He loved it!! I love the picture of him hiking his pants up. I can only imagine he and Caleb are saying "Man these are old skates!!!"--I think I wore the exact same ones when I skated there as a kid:)

FUN DAY!!!!

Today was such a great day! My co-worker, Treasa (Lydia and Emily's preschool teacher), and I have been doing a nutrition unit with our preschool students and decided to take the kids to a grocery store to tie everything together. One of our "mothers" is the deli manager at the Food Lion just down the street from our center. She agreed to give our kids a tour of the store. This was something so neat for the kids as well as Treasa and myself. Ms. Sarah (our "mother") gave each of the kids a nametag upon arrival and a hairnet to allow them to go into the deli. In the deli, they met Mr. Tom who gave each of them a piece of American Cheese. We then went through the dairy department and into the back room where we went inside a storage refrigerator and freezer and saw the box bailer bail some boxes. Then, it was on to the meat department and to produce. In the produce department back room we were able to go into the produce cooler and see some different fruits and vegetables. We finished off the tour by spraying off the produce on the produce department floor area with the hose--each child got to spray a little bit. We said our thank you and good-bye to everyone as each child received a Food Lion bag filled with crayons, pencil, balloon, color page and a banana. It was such a neat day for all of us! I had a particular attachement to this fieldtrip because I worked at this Food Lion when I was in High School and College. They have had a huge renovation since I worked there, but for as many things as I saw changed, that many were the same. Thank you so much Sarah and the staff at Food Lion!

Ryan starts T-ball!

We signed Ryan up for T-ball this year and he started his practices tonight. The games will start towards the end of April. The McGaheysville t-ball league has 4, 5 and 6 year olds on the teams. We decided to wait until he was in Kindergarten before we signed him up. Mike signed up for Assistant Coaching (when he is able to be there) and started that tonight as well. They both had so much fun!! Ryan practiced a little defense, hitting and running the bases. On our walk home he kept saying "Mommy, I had a really lot of fun!" Lydia and Emily enjoyed being there as well watching "the teams." There were a couple of kids that were on his team that he knew from school. It was great! We are so excited about him playing and are hoping this is the beginning of his professional sports career:). We will keep you posted on his game schedule.

Twins Club Egg Hunt

Today was our ARCMOM (Augusta/
Rockingham Counties Mothers of Multiples) annual egg hunt day. The kids first egg hunt of the season. We dug out our baskets from the closet and headed to Purcell Park. Once there we decided it was too wet from last night's rain so we headed over to ARCMOM's meeting place, the March of Dimes House. After two rounds of the kids racing around to find the plastic colored eggs filled with candy, stickers, tatoos and plastic rings; they were all satisfied with their findings. The little kids were more interested in the eggs than what was inside and got caught up in looking at the first egg they picked up and not hunting for anymore:). The ARCMOM egg hunt is always a fun event.

Visiting Sean

I have a friend, Cori, who has a little boy who is from September to November younger than Lydia and Emily. We have been trying to get together for a play date since the kids were about 7 and 10 months old (the last time we were together). This past Friday was my day off so we made plans to get together Friday morning. After putting Ryan on the school bus, Lydia, Emily and I headed for Cori's house in Stanley. The drive is about 35 - 40 minutes from our house. Cori, her husband Jason and their kids, Sean and 11 month old Maryn live in a beautiful log cabin on top of a mountain surrounded by very tall trees. They had so many leaves in their yard and Lydia and Emily thought they were so great! While the kids had fun playing, Cori and I had so much fun catching up! The time flew by! Before we knew it, it was time for lunch. We had some soup and sandwiches, cleaned up and it was time to head home for naps. It was such a fun day! We definitely need to get together again--without so much time passing by--our house next time

Go Fly A Kite

Yesterday was such a beautiful 2nd day of Spring! Ryan's class has been talking about the wind in March. They have been trying to fly kites on windier days. I happened to find kites that were a $1.00! Of course, we were not expecting much, but we pulled them out yesterday. Ryan started off having a hard time getting his off the ground, but after a while he got the hang of it--if his kite was not too high in the air. :) Lydia and Emily each had their own kite and had a really great time seeing them fly through the air, but they dove down to the ground quite often. Mike's parents had given him an old kite he had many years ago and was still being stored at their house. He brought that out and flew it as well. The kids had such a great time with their kites! We are hoping the $1.00 kites last a little longer so we can fly them again on another windy day!

Snow Day! March 2, 2009

The schools were closed and my center was closed due to the snow we received last night. Mike was off work today so he was able to have fun with us today too.

Today we had the most snow we have had all winter! Of course, with the winter that we have had, it does not take much to make more snow than we've already had:). We took our sleds over to Mike's Grandparents (Nanny and Pap) house. They have a great hill and the kids loved sledding down it over and over again. They had such a great time!! The wind was crazy on "Pap's Mountain," so staying out for hours was not really in the cards. Continued to have to go inside to warm up. By the time Lydia decided to join in the fun and sled with Ryan and Emily, the battery on my camera died:). (Ryan was coughing in the last picture).