Fire Department Open House

 This morning I found my three year old with a stack of library books :)  He was reading the book we had read together the night before.  It has his name in the title.  The stack was there because the eight year old and I were going through the books we had currently checked out, figuring out what we were ready to return.  We have about half of our checked out books in this pile, ready to return... and it's almost taller than the three year old when he's sitting down.  Have I mentioned that we love books around here :)

 My kids are all readers, and so are my husband and I, though we don't get as much time as we would like to spend reading.  I wonder how I could get one of those jobs where you just sit around reading all day ... oh wait.  I kind of have one :)  Between the daycare, homeschool, and the ministries we're involved in (Sunday School prep work, stories for SPARKS and AWANA and children's church), plus the books I read for training credits in daycare, and the ones I read for fun, I guess I really do spend a good portion of every day reading.

But this post is supposed to be about the fire department open house, so I better get on with it.  How cute is this little fireman?

Or this one?  The fire department provided lunch - grilled burgers and dogs, and potato chips.

 They had their fancy new ladder truck out.  The kids got to take rides in this one or one of the older ones.  And they gave demonstrations on how the ladder works.

 The three year old thought the ladder was pretty cool.

 It can reach higher than any building we have in town.  Pretty impressive.  I would hate to guess how much they must have paid for this one.

 The baby kept trying to crawl away.  He just wanted to get down and go-go-go.

 I love how the hat was down so far on his face.  He never tried to take it off.  He did keep knocking it off though - trying to go places the hat wouldn't fit.  And it was windy too so that didn't help...cold and windy.  Felt like snow all day, but we didn't get any.

 I took the three year old and baby on the older fire truck, and the eight year old rode the fancy ladder truck.  We didn't really have a choice.  We just waited in one big line and were put into whichever truck had room.  The eight year old really wanted to ride without the rest of us, so we piled into the one that didn't have room for him.  He was excited.  He really wanted to ride in the newer truck.

 I love the baby's eyes in this one.  It was a fun ride. 

 I was really proud of the three year old.  He's afraid of so many things, especially things that are unfamiliar to him.  He told me he wasn't going to ride the fire truck, but I made him get on it anyway.  I was surprised he would sit in his own seat and not cry or be upset at all.  The siren didn't even bother him.  He really seemed to enjoy the ride.  The baby did too.  But we had waited so long to get to ride, and then right as we were pulling into the fire station, the baby laid down on my lap and fell asleep - literally less than a minute before we were done.

A nice bonus was that our driver was my husband's cousin, so we had a nice visit.  My husband was hunting, so he wasn't with us today.  Unfortunately he didn't see any elk.  Better luck next time ... I hope.

Boys Are Fun

 This week the baby has really gotten into playing outside on his own.  Well, not really on his own, but when the door is open, he rushes to it, scoots down the three steps and plays, plays, plays, whether anyone is with him or not.  He wants to do everything the bigger kids are doing.  So the eight year old put him on a tricycle, and he loved it.  He can barely touch the ground - and only with one foot, but he loved it.

 I walked into the living room the other day to find the three year old diligently studying the latest toy catalog.  He had his little folding table and chairs out that day, and he must have sat there looking through one page at a time for almost an hour.  Reminded me of being a kid, making my Christmas wish list from the Sears and JCPenney catalogs.

 The baby has really gotten better at listening to stories.  (Yeah. Just after I posted about him not sitting still long enough for them - ha.  Proving me wrong :)  Anyway, he's figured out that everyone will drop whatever they're doing if he brings them a book.  He especially loves pointing at the pictures as we read to him.

 The eight year old loves reading to him - and to all the daycare kids too.  He is a great helper.

 Yesterday, the three year old was starving at lunchtime - or at least he thought he was.  He sat there and watched his lunch baking.

 At one point yesterday, I looked up and saw this game going on.  It went like this: "Ring around the rosie, Pockets full of posy, CRASHES, CRASHES, we all fall down!"  I think that's more fitting than ashes, don't you?

 As for his outfit, he had put on every one of the dress up vests he could find - sticking his head through the arm hole.  Then he couldn't get them off and had to have me help him.  I counted eight vests :)

 Last night the boys were all gathered around the folding table, drumming and pounding and having all sorts of fun making noise.

 The baby is really good at imitating what everyone else is doing.

So much fun!

My Latest Scheme to Get Organized

 It seems like a never-ending battle for me to get organized.  I'm busy.  Very busy.  See my planner?  This is just Monday - Wednesday this week.  The long list on Monday is the "To-Do Sometime This Week" list.  It worked well last week.  But this week there is just too much.  I was getting lost in reading through the list for what to do next.  I was also losing the things I had scheduled that I needed to remember at a certain time.  So I used a pink highlighter on those to make them stand out.

So I decided color coding was in order.  It made the planner more colorful, but not necessarily more helpful.

 It occurred to me that I had six divisions, or colors.  I thought of folding a paper in thirds that would stay clipped in my planner for that week.  Each folded section - back and front - could be a different category.  As I finish items I could color them in, then it would be easy to see what still needed to be done, or what I might not care if I ever did. :)  Sometimes that happens.

 So I transferred everything onto the folded paper - Orange for Errands, Yellow - cleaning, Pink - Sewing ...

 On the other side, Green - office work/reading/studying/preparation, etc, Purple - Things I needed to be on the computer to do, Blue - Phone Calls.  So far the plan seems to be working really well.  I can see what I need to do, and it's easy to see what categories need more attention.  I can also be more focused and do all of one thing at a time.  Say I'm on the computer - I can whip out a few of those tasks while I have the computer handy anyway.  The only problem I'm having is that I'm adding to-do's faster than I'm able to mark off the things that I've finished.  Go figure.  (I don't add things that I do every day - laundry, dishes, changing a million diapers, etc.)  This is just the things I'm hoping to also accomplish within the next week or so on top of my every day duties.

And by the way, even though I'm constantly looking for a better way to get organized, I will say that I feel like I'm pretty on top of it at the moment.  I enjoy being super-busy.  I find it motivating, and I get more done (lol. duh.  I have to.)  Anyway, I think I'm doing a pretty good job juggling everything, and life is interesting.  And I'm definitely NOT controlled by my schedule or plans.  I make time for what's important (ie - cuddling babies :) and reading 16 books to them so they don't have to go to bed yet, and let the rest go if I have to.  Life is good. :)

 Speaking of reading, I received a package of books today on loan from the group that keeps track of daycare training hours (STARS).  I'm always trying to add as many hours as possible (that's why I attend all the training conferences I can) and they have a lending library we can use.  We get credits in different areas for each book.  You can order up to four at a time and they ship them media rate from their office in Cheyenne.  There's no fee.  You just pay for media rate shipping on the way back.  It usually takes awhile to get them, so I went ahead and ordered them thinking I might have them late next week.  They came two days later - wow.  So, when I got them today, I had to figure out a way to get them scheduled in. :)  (I'm beginning to think I ought to do some reading on OCD.  Maybe it's me lol).

 See what I mean?  I calculated the number of chapters and how long it would take to finish each book, then added post-it notes to track my progress.  I figured I could have them done and returned in time for the due date if I just get through three chapters per day.

So that's now on my to-do list :)  By the way these books stack up to about 5 inches thick.  That bottom book is 8 1/2 x 11 and thick... and it only has 6 chapters in it.  I doubt I'll get much done other than reading over the next 12 days :)

Speaking of reading, I've just recently finished a couple other books I used to get STARS credits.  This one - Growing Up Brave - I read because our own 3 year old is afraid of so many things.  It is a good book, but  much more helpful with older children than younger.  They need to be able to make up their own Bravery Ladder tasks, and care to fix the problem.  Our son is more interested in panicking and getting away from the situation than in learning to overcome his fear.  I did learn a lot of useful things about how parents can make things worse, so hopefully we can avoid that side of it at least.

And this book - Mind in the Making is an excellent book.  It is extremely detailed though and hard to get through.  But it is definitely worth reading.  I had been working on it tiny bit by tiny bit since May.  Ugh.  But well worth the effort.

Anyway, enough rambling.  We'll see if this schedule idea sticks or not.  I think it will be helpful, and it's very motivating to do all the coloring.  I know.  I sound like a kindergartener.  But after all, I do spend my whole day playing in the daycare.  It's not an accident I chose this profession... *wink*

Enjoyin' My Boys

 We're enjoying the last few days of decent weather before winter.  The boys are outside most of the day ... well, the eight year old would be, but I do make him get his schoolwork done first :)

 The older boys introduced the baby to the sandbox.  He loves it :)  We keep him on the outside of it though.  What a mess it would be with him inside it.  He'd probably eat it.

 He loves cars - makes all the car noises when he drives them too.

 He's getting where he wants to be read to now.  The three year old picked this book about concrete mixers when we were at the library.  It's his favorite subject since Daddy drives one.  We started reading and the baby came running.

He actually listened pretty well... and snuggled us too.  Now tell me, what career could be as rewarding as doing this all day?  :)

It almost put him to sleep.  Hmm.  Maybe that's why he doesn't like to read.  Makes him sleepy ;)  He brought me a picture book today with construction vehicles in it.  When we got to the page with a mixer on it, I told him Daddy drives a mixer.  Now every time we turn to that page, he says "Daddy!"

Our fun week - fall crafts, football, orchestra & a conference

 Brothers :)  Aren't they sweet?  (I mean at this particular moment in time - ha.  There are plenty of times when the three year old is *not* so sweet to his baby brother.)

Actually he usually is pretty sweet.  It's just that he a give-a-lot-of-hugs kind of guy and the baby is more of a get-out-of-my-face kind of guy :)  These guys are as opposite as can be.  The three year old is shy, afraid of everything (I only wish I was exaggerating) and pretty low key.  He loves to be read to and to snuggle.  The baby on the other hand is all energy.  He prefers his space (though he likes cuddling with mama) and he doesn't like the three year old constantly trying to hug him.  He won't sit still for a whole book and he's very outgoing.  Nothing low key about this one :) 

 On Thursday we did a daycare activity with all the kids.  I'm thinking of starting a blog just for the daycare stuff, but I need to talk to parents first, so until then, you just get pictures of my children doing the activities.  Anyway, it was a simple fine-motor-skills activity, where they glued a bunch of yellow, orange and red pieces of construction paper onto a printed page with a tree on it.  They loved it.  The three year old really hated getting glue on his fingers and didn't add many more scraps to his tree.

 He did some more coloring though.  The little case of crayons on the side are his own.  Each child has a little travel soap box of crayons (got the crayons for a penny at back to school sales), and each case is labeled with a child's name.  I got tired of them all fighting over the crayons, and inevitably I would have one kid who broke or bit the tips off the crayons, and it wasn't fair to the rest of them to have to have broken crayons.  This way, the only person's crayons they mess up are their own.  And actually, since I've gone to this system where they have ownership over their crayons, I haven't had any of the kids try to destroy them.

 Here are a few of the finished papers.

 Another craft we did this week was to make headband bunny ears.  We are going through the alphabet, and this was just a project I thought up on the spur of the moment.  I got to thinking I could do a different headband for each letter, so we're going to have to go back and do A.  I'm thinking A is for Antlers.  It is hunting season here after all ;)

 You might have noticed the bunny ears picture was taken while my child was in a bucket.  I think I ought to buy enough buckets for everyone to have one.  Seriously.  I wouldn't need any other toys at all.  The baby likes to craw into them when they're laying on their sides, the other kids pack them around, crawl in and on them... The possibilities are endless :)

 We had a treat on Friday getting to see our daughter sing in chapel at college again.  It's a little easier to pick her out in this one.  She is in the back row - the short girl between the two tall girls :)

 Another picture of it.  These are pictures I took with my camera of the computer screen, so they're not real clear.  I watch the chapel service every morning on live streaming.  If you're interested, the website is ambassadors.edu and the chapel service begins at 9 am eastern on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
 

 Friday was quite a busy day.  The big county rivalry football game was in our town.  These two towns are arch rivals.  They even have a trophy for the winner of the county game.  There are only the two school districts in the entire county, so these two teams are it.  But can you see that trophy by the water cooler?  These guys take their rivalry very seriously.  The trophy was on our bench because we won it last year.

 Did I mention it was freezing cold and windy?  Yep.  Just another day in Wyoming :)

 The final score was 53-24 in our favor!

 Right after that, the eight year old and I headed over to a concert at the high school auditorium.  Our local fine arts counsel does a wonderful job of bringing quality entertainment to our little town in the middle of nowhere.  Friday, we had the Glenn Miller Orchestra.  It was beyond amazing :)  If you ever get a chance to see them, don't pass it up.  You can check their schedule here.

 (Not a great picture, but we were in the back row - the eight year old's request - and couldn't use a flash).  During the intermission, the eight year old insisted that we buy a CD :)  So we went to the table to get one, and one of the band members manning the table asked the eight year old about the shirt he was wearing.  It was a ragged old football jersey... (yeah, who shows up to a concert in an old football jersey?  But that was what he had on for the football game.  I was not at all happy, because I had seen him in a nice dress shirt before we left and didn't realize that he had changed.) Anyway, the band member asked if it was Julius Pepper's old Carolina Panthers jersey.  It was.  The shirt is so old and ragged that the Panthers logo is worn off.  We were impressed.  Turns out the guy is a huge Bears fan and loves Julius Peppers...  It also turned out that he was one of two band members with the same first name as our eight year old, so they made a cool connection.  He and the other band member at the table signed our CD.  The eight year old was impressed :)  It was late when we got home - close to 10 pm and the eight year old was completely worn out.  It was a good day.

 The next morning, I got up at 5 am, showered, and hit the road for a training conference in Riverton.  The sun was coming up as I was headed into South Pass.  It was beautiful.

 What wasn't so beautiful were the road conditions.  I hit snow at the Louis Lake turn off.  Yes people, snow.   And it got worse as I drove on.

 I did make it safely to the conference and had a great day.  The classes were fun, lunch was great, and I made some new friends.  It was a good day. 

The only bad thing was that I left before the kids were up, and when I got home at 10 pm, the baby was in bed already, and the three year old crashed right after I got home.  They had been watching a movie with Dad, which always means blankets and pillows out all over the living room :)  Too cute.  They told me the baby looked for me all day, and crawled around the house yelling "Mama!" trying to find me.  Poor kid ;)  Poor Mama ;)