Getting Older

Things I wish someone had told me as I have aged:

1.  Bras will no longer be pretty lacy things that are fun, they will be white with no frills and work like a dog.  

2.   High Heels will be for " those young girls" - comfortable shoes with support are needed.

3.  A quiet night at home really is better than sex... most nights. 

4.  Feminine Hygene products are not only used once a month but during cold and allergy season.  Seriously... this one has to be the WORST!  ACHHHOOO... not again......

Dad and Me Pumpkin Painting

Tonight the dads and kids all returned to our room to paint pumpkins. I have never done this activity and was a little apprehensive BUT ! It turned out wonderful! The picture to the right is how the night ended. And no, I haven't made my way downstairs yet to begin cleanup. Seems our 3D art shelf was not a bit excited about the weight of the pumpkins. This mishap has left me a bit " less excited" myself. See.. someone has to clean up this mess before the children return in the morning... yeah.. me. But so I don't leave you with that yucky feeling - let me show you some fun we had tonight.







As the dads came in I realized pretty quick that the room was going to be FULL! It was Ok. We moved and adjusted as we needed to. Earlier in the day the kids had picked out their perfect pumpkin from the group. We supplied the pumpkins and it was interesting to hear them decide which pumpkin they wanted and why. Of course the boys always want the BIGGEST.. why is that? After picking which one we weighed each pumpkin and then we lined them up on the table in sequential order. Lots of learning going on.

Yes, that is a pickle nose. Randy decided that adding a few vegetables to the mix might be interesting. And it was....

Nothing sweeter...

It was a great night. I am already looking forward to next year.

Read to Me

Debbie: So how is Justin?  Is he having a hard time with you still here?

Danielle: He is ok. He stays busy.

Debbie: Really , with what?

Danielle : He wants me to join the " read to me" club when I get there.

Debbie: What is that?

Danielle:   He goes once a week and reads to kindergardeners.

So, why couldn't we have had this conversation a LONG time ago. A twenty three year old man that takes time out to go read to kindergardeners HAS to be a GOOD GUY right?  He will make a very good daddy for my future grandbabies.  

Bathing with Sunglasses On

 I am FINALLY home .  I have been in my own bed 2 out of the last 7 days.  It all sounds like fun and games but it really isn't . I like to be home .   I do enjoy small little trips here and there but not out for this length of time and all for business.

This all started when Randy and I went to Hot Springs for the Arkansas Early Childhood Association.  We went. We sang. We networked. We learned.   We listened. We left.   We did spend an extra day there for just hubby and wifey bonding and that was nice.

I was home for ONE day and then headed  back to central Arkansas for an Arkansas Early Childhood Commission.  I was appointed by a state representative and I still am not sure what all I do.   I attend meetings and listen.  We have regulatory control over the licensing division.  This I do know. They put me up in a nice hotel suite, cater lunch and I get to hear all the new and exciting things going on in Arkansas for children.

Wednesday I head out to Ferndale 4H Center for a  2 day mentoring conference. I will be mentoring a program in Farmington this year and this was the orientation to kick it all off.  LOTS of listening. LOTS of things that didnt pertain to family childcare.   One fun thing we did do was visit a couple " quality" sites .  "excuse me mam... that baby over there is falling out of her crib"  " Umm.... does the kleenex box on top of a toilet paper holder mean you are all out?"  YIKES!  Ok, now I must admit.  If someone called me and told me that 50 people wanted to tour my place and 10 of those are "experts" on "quality approval" I would think twice about saying " Sure, come on in!"  No one is perfect....( But if I knew we were coming I would be so close to it I could taste it!)

I get home. 

Randy acts like a 3 year old running with his arms in the air saying  " We missed you!!!!!"  It feels good to be missed.  

I am SO tired. I went to take a hot bath in my own bathtub.

I start to soak and reach to run my fingers through my hair only to realize that I had my sunglasses  on top of my head.  

I must be tired.

Chalk Board Fun

Today one of the boys wrote " is " on the chalk board. Then, a couple others got interested and started writing. I looked and they were writing all the words that we use in our morning message. I am SO proud. You know the old saying... " look MA no HAnds!" So... " Look MA, no worksheets!" YAHOO!!!!!!!

Hot Springs Weekend

I think I just need to rename my blog to " Random" instead of " Memorymakers" . It seems lately unless it is a blog of our day in preschool that I try to cram so much in one little entry.  I guess that is how my life rolls lately.  Kinda reminds my of my jeans.... yeah. Think about that one.  :)

Randy and I left out Thursday evening for a trip to Hot Springs for the Arkansas Early Childhood Associations Annual meeting.  We were asked to entertain before a key note.  The goal was to get everyone a little loosened up and ready to sit for 2 hours and listen to research on what makes a quality childcare setting.  As usual ,  the day before every single song that we practiced Randy forgot the words. This isnt unusual and he does always pull through. He works best under pressure.  Considering we weren't singing for children and 1000 collegues, I was a little nervous.   Also, as always-  We we left Siloam about 2 hours later than we planned.  How does that always happen? Anywho the concert went great.  We sold some CD's and got a couple more bookings and I am sure paved the way for more great motel 6 journey all over Arkansas.   Randy had a new joke that I am still thinking about. His old joke was our cd's are 10.00 or 3 gallons of gas. Now that gas has went down he changed it.  Our Cd's are 10.00 or 3 cans of hair spray...  hmm....

This was my business trip so I made the hotel reservations. Embassy Suites here we come.  Yep , you got it. If you kept up with our summer gigs you know the Motel 6 was the hotel of choice.  Not this weekend.  We walked in and Randy said.. wow... this is nice. This the what we always stayed on before but I think the run of skanky hotels over the summer made him forget.  I wanted to say " yeah it is but you get to sleep on the floor" .. but I didnt.   I mean how cool is this.? I am IN MY ROOM on the internet and not outside in the parking lot risking my life just hoping to catch a signal.  ugh..Do I really only have 8 months until the next Motel 6 summer?

One night I feel asleep and the song "Open Arms" by journey was on. Do you have a song that can just transport you to a different place in time. This one does it for me every time.  Not that I long for that time / person anymore at all but obviously it/he had a huge impact on my life.   When I hear this song I think of Wayne Shrader.  He was my 10th grade boyfriend . He wore a pink polo ( I am sure he wore other shirts but this is the one I remember )  and he always ALWAYS wore polo colgne.   To this day when I smell that distinctive smell I look around.   To make a long story short I broke up with Wayne at school one day. He went home and took an overdose of medication.  I had not idea and called to check on him and his mother gave me full barrels about how it was all MY FAULT that he was in the hospital. Now, that I am older and more mature, I realize that more than likely there was more going on that our little spat.  But I do believe that situation turned me into a people pleaser- an EXTREME people pleaser.   I know with my children as teenagers there was always that underlying -----  how far would they go with disappointment and sadness therefore I always made it my job to make everyone happy.   Welcome to Debbie's fairytale... ugh.  Enough to make you throw up.  I wonder where Wayne is today and if his mom knows what she did to me?

OK. Randy is back.. I will finish this it home...

Random- ness learning

It seems each day that passes we are getting a little more in our routine so it doesnt feel so rushed. Those great days give me the opportunity to "add" something to our learning environment. Today I added a couple new things. This is a mini scrapbook . I laminated small pictures of the kids ( walmart Kodak machine under ID's ) and laminated their name.

I used velcro dots to make an intereactive book for name recognition. I got this great idea from another smart teacher friend of mine - Linda! Thanks Linda.

We used the gourds that we did watercolor paintings of to explore with scales today.

If you have wondered how Clara is doing since her campfire incident - Here she is! She is back at school and doing pretty much all we do. Since she has skin grafts above her hand she is limited in the water table but other than that she is great. Oh yeah, in case you wondered she said she " LOVES SPAGHETTI"

Another thing I did today was introduce mini clip boards. Each child has their own board and it "lives" in their cubby. We talked about how the clip board could be used in each center. In housekeeping it could be used for a waitress to take orders or a doctor to write notes. In science you can draw what is on the table. They children LOVED these little boards. They were writing all over the place. Here is Mykah copying names off cubbies.

Katie in the dress up room.

Rosie taking notes with Adam. He is the princess construction guy.

All in all it was as great day. I LOVE to see them get excited about learning. This is a huge reminder to me that their environment needs to change often to keep them motivated.

Yeah for a good day - EVEN with the rain.

We're goin on a squirrel hunt....

Today we read the wonderful book Squirrels by Brian Wildsmith.

It was a little "wordy" for my smaller children but we got to

explore new words like drey and look at the magnificent

illustrations. The pictures look watercolored. One of my little

"on the ball" boys even commented that someone painted

the pictures.



Following our story we immediately geared up for a walk outside. We went on a squirrel hunt.

I sit on my porch and watch squirrels play all day. Sometimes even taunting me as they come

close to gnaw my roof. Today.. did we find one? No.

We looked and looked.

We even took our binoculars and didnt see a squirrel one.

In honor of my failure as a teacher and a girl raised in the delta ( yes, I have eaten fried squirrel before) I promptly came in and made the situation worse by giving them a coloring sheet. Yes, it was a black line and totally against my way of teaching. I blame this one on the squirrels.

To commemorate the day - here is one of my favorite songs.

Fire Safety Week

Ok, first - I need some instruction on how to make my blog look all pretty and put captions under the picture and all. This is so frustrating. This week has been fire safety/ prevention week. We have had a ton of FIRE SAFE FUN all week and learned some very important things.

We went on a trip to the fire station. The sad part about that trip was we went expecting to see the BIG RED FIRE TRUCK that we talked about all week and all we got to see was the little red ambulance. The BIG RED FIRE truck was at a meeting across town with the captains. I wonder, did they stop and consider that all a group of 4 and 5 year olds really want to see is the Big Red Fire truck anyway... ugh.... BUT! we made the best of it. After all, they risk their life for me. I will let them slide, this time.

We did numerous fire drills. We even learned that if your shoes are off when the alarm goes off , you go to your safe place without them.

We read books about fire fighter.

We pretended to be fire fighters.

We had lunch with a fire fighter . Thank you Katies' dad!

Elliot even cut pieces of small brown construction paper out and glued to make his own fireman. I was IMPRESSED!

We learned to stop , drop and roll.

We learned to crawl UNDER smoke.

Several of the children learned their address this week for safety


Randy did a great culminating activity!

We have been doing fire prevention all week. FIRE safety.... I hear Bianca yell FIRE FIRE!!! They have been playing fire man and Randy is upstairs with them, so I think nothing of it. Moments later several of them come back with roasted marshmellows that have been cooked over an open flame from the gas stove... SERIOUSLY......... I went up there. "Mr Randy.. is this safe? Should we melt marshmellows over the gas stove?" His response. I told them not to do it without their moms.. Somedays I just want to quit. Ok.. NO sappy responses about how cute it is that he made them roasted marshmellows. Those things are only cute if it isnt at your house and it isnt FIRE SAFETY WEEK FOR GRACIOUS SAKE! And he wasn't teaching fire safety so no grandios ideas - he just saw the bag and thought - this would be fun!

grrrrr......

Deep and Wide

This morning in church Steve challenged us to go " deep and wide".   We even got to sing the song with hand motions and all. For some, that may have seemed a bit odd in church, but music with hand motions are rampant with our preschoolers. Studies show that adding motions helps the little guys remember the words and keeps them engaged.  It must be true because here I sit at 6:00 am and the first thing that comes to mind is  'Deep and Wide."

Last night we had a Street Party.  We have so many new neighbors and I thought it might be a good idea to get to know everyone a little better. Since I have SO much extra time in my schedule, I made up these cutesy little flier/ invitations and took them door to door.   Last night at 6:00 one by one they all made their way down the side walk to our yard.  First comes my BFF and her family.  We talk about the wedding they went to this weekend.  She said the mother of the bride was wasted.  Hmm.. I think I will skip that part come December.   She talks about going to see " Fire Proof" and how much they enjoyed it.  She is a school teacher and her hubby does taxes.   Then comes the preacher and his family.  I was anxious.  When you have a preacher in the crowd, should you announce " There is a preacher here, watch your mouth!".  I didn't.  I mean, I don't use bad language and last I checked I wasn't the speech police. It was kind of entertaining all night to watch other people " open mouth insert foot."   His little two year old is the cutest!  Let's see, then our next door neighbors came.  Their son brought his guitar and we jammed a little.   Later in the evening our other next door neighbors came. They are so nice .  They are Mexican and El Salvadorian and  she is quite funny.   It was great to  get to know them a little better.  Then comes the couple the walks the wienie dogs.  She goes to Curves with Cindy and I and we didn't even know she lived two doors down .  HOW EMBARRASSING....Throughout the night other neighbors stopped by just to say hi.  A group of kids ( teenagers) down the street heard we were having a party and stopped by to eat.  That was interesting.  Cindy, being a high school teacher jumped right in there to make them feel comfortable.  They even took plates home- for family.

It was really a good night.   

I am glad we had a fall street party.  

I think starting "Deep and wide" in your own neighborhood is a great idea. You don't have to tackle the world to make a difference.  Start with your neighbors.  

I read an article about booing this week and thought what a cool idea!  You can start to get to know your neighbors like this.

A quickie

What a fun day !

A REASON TO LAUGH

As I went back and read my last couple posts I realized how dramatic and pitiful my life sounded when it is everything but.  

I dealt with today the normal way.  eatting.

Then, I went and got all my hair chopped off.  

At the BEAUTY SCHOOL!!!!!!!!! There will be a blog to follow later on that.

It was like I was on a journey to punish myself all night. 

I even laughed that I might go table dancing. Of course, that would be punishing everyone else.. and... the table.

I came home and there stands Randy with all our equipment in the middle of the livingroom and he is practicing one of our new songs , playing the guitar and humming on a kazoo.  We have a show in Jacksonville this weekend.  

I realize

I think tonight I didnt lose a daughter, I gained a new son.

A friend reminded me that Danielle was only doing what her mom has taught her- to stay two steps ahead.

I have a wonderful life and I just added another person that I can share that with ( who can also share all Danielle's bills with me! )

So, as an ending to my day that I seemed to want to make bad....  here is a gentle reminder of what Randy and I will be doing this weekend at the Jacksonville WingDing Festival.  If the thought of us doing this in front of thousands of people doesn't make you laugh.... then you are worse off than I am!

Front Porch Welcoming Fall.

Another with the lights on.

Today we made "leaf people".

Another Leaf friend.

The living room . First year ever I have bought a white pumpkin. I LOVE IT !

Mr and Mrs Justin Self

Legally Married 10/ 01/ 08
Celebration with family and friends 12/18/08