Preschooler Busy Bags

A long, long, time ago, in a galaxy far away I was a member of this cool website called Swap Bot.  When I left my husband I completely forgot about it.  I had no access to my former email and with all the things going on, it just slipped away.  I came across it recently again and decided I'd give it another try.  I signed up for a Preschool Busy Bag swap.

Busy bags are basically ziplock bags of fun for your child, that have everything in the bag to do the activity.  Prior to the swap, I had never heard of these and had to google them. They looked like so much fun, I decided to join the swap. I go volunteer at Mr E's school and I always bring a bag of fun stuff for Miss Molly.  I thought busy bags would be extra fun for her to play with while I'm doing projects or copies for the teachers.

Our theme for the bags was "winter," but I found this wonderful little cupcake busy bag instructions at Money Saving Mom's blog.  To keep it winter, I tried to stick with "winter" colors like blues and whites and sparkly felt.

If you want to make your own, it costs little of nothing.  Hobby Lobby has felt sheets for 4 for $1, 4 is enough for one busy bag, plus raid your own pantry for a large ziplock and a couple of small ziplock bags for the sprinkles and big toppings.  I added a glue stick to each bag, but these can easily be done without glue sticks so you can use them over and over.  Then print off the instructions from the link above and create your own.

Busy as a bee and....working on some new stuff

I've been ditching my blog the last week. My work has been busy, busy. Apparently when school starts everybody under the sun wants an x-ray or a CT scan, lol.

I have some projects on the back burner. I've been ditching my school too since my work has kept me up late at night and I have had to catch up. If you don't turn something in once a month, you get on academic probation and I'm under the gun this week to turn in my test to avoid that. So....after I turn it in, I'll be working on a couple of halloween tutorials, finish the Pumpkin Spiders pattern for halloweenie overalls, and finally finish that darn nursing tutorial. My sewing machine was in storage while our house was for sale (so I can avoid the temptation, lol) and I haven't had a moment to go get it yet.

On the preschool homefront, Mr. E absolutely positively LOVES school now. He kisses mommy goodbye and runs off to play, and he's fine as long as he has this little Mommy Kiss card. No tears this week at all!! I'm so excited. He's been staying all day since last week and he even sleeps at naptime. He has two best friends and he lovest to eat lunch at school. He tells me every day he LOVES school and he loves his teacher, so I'm thinking about switching from 2 days to 3 days for him. I'm so proud of him, my sweet little boy is growing up.

a little preschool update

Well...preschool was a success today!! He cried when I left him and didn't want me to leave, and then I left and sat in the car for 10 minutes crying and asking myself why I was doing this to him. So I picked him up before lunch and when I arrived, he was playing with another little boy and didn't even notice me. And the teacher said he quit crying as soon as I left. And he even made me an art collage. Yippee!!

We haven't quite made it to a full day, we'll keep doing half days until he's ready, but I'm just thrilled we made progress.

I was really starting to doubt he was ready for this and was beginning to wonder if my sweet little 3 yr old was ever going to make it to school or end up a 30something mama's boy living in the basement.

Oh oh! I got the dreaded electric bill. It was $60 cheaper than last month. Um, how did that happen? I'm hoping with the new 4-ton'er I'll have a nice little surprise next month.

Mommy Kiss Card

My little boy, Mr. E, had his very first day of preschool on Tuesday. It did not go well. I don't know why I thought he could handle preschool 2 days a week all day long. Em only did half days clear up through kindergarten, but she was a different school, and I thought it would be better if they were together in the same school, and this school only offers full days of preschool.

So on Tuesday it did not go well. He wanted to be held the entire time I was there. He clung to me for dear life, so I stayed for about an hour and he started to have fun on the little playground. So I thought it was time for me to leave. My daughter was one who would cry with me there, but literally the moment I left, the tears would stop and she would skip off and play...I was hoping he would be the same. He wasn't. The teacher called me an hour later, he had cried himself to sleep. He wouldn't eat snack, he wouldn't play, nothing. So, I picked him up at 11:30 and we decided to see if he would transition slowly and I would pick him up at 11:30 before lunch for awhile. When we got home, he slept all day long. I felt terrible.


So we read some books on going to school, and we've talked about it for the past couple days. He says he misses Mommy, so I tried to think of something he could take to feel close to Mommy, and I came up with a Mommy Kisses Card. I put on some lipstick and kissed one of my famous tags (lol) and wrote it was Mr. E's Mommy Kiss card and I told him when he was at school tomorrow, if he got lonely for mommy, he just needed to pull out his kiss card from his pocket and hold it and think mommy will pick him up soon. So he's very excited about this and says he is ready to go to school now. I'm still not sure what to do. We're going to try for a couple more weeks, but if it's nonstop crying, we'll just try again next year.

My 100th Post!! And it's about that stupid a/c

Woohoo!! Party time!! It's my 100th post and it's about that damn air conditioner. This will be my last post on that stupid thing.

So we were gone all weekend long, dh met me and the kids right after the a/c was installed Friday and we didn't get hom until Sunday night. And then dh realizes, the night before Em's first day of school, they didn't light the pilot light for the gas hot water heater and furnace after they installed the a/c, so he goes to do it and turns the gas on and suddenly the entire house suddenly smells of gas so much I get a headache. I freaked out and took the kids and the dog outside, because there's no sense in all of us blowing up.

So...after it won't light TWICE, he finally notices the giant pipe of gas that is not hooked up to anything is essentiallly pouring out of it. I'm surprised honestly he didn't blow himself up. He turns it off and we call the a/c people at 10 o'clock at night. They said they were sending someone right then, but at 1 AM when still no one is here, we go to bed. And they finally call at 8 AM this morning, didn't bother to let us know last night while we sat up and waited and waited and waited. Isn't that just great?

So I had to boil water on the stove so Em could take a hot bath before bed. And today was her first day of 3rd grade. She goes to a very small school, there's about 100 kids in the whole school. We've had a little problew with the clique of girls in her class. There is a ringleader who drives me insane. Last year in 2nd grade, she told my child that she doesn't eat for 2 weeks a time, and so my child thought she should try that too. Then later in the year, she felt she was so popular that she was going to require appointments for the other girls to play with her. My child told me this and said Friday was her day. I'm sure the teachers are thrilled when I tell them these things. Needless to say, I've been seriously considered pulling her out due to this little ringleader and clique, but she loves it there and the academics are so wonderful, you can work as far ahead and you want, so Em was doing a lot of third and fourth grade work last year in 2nd grade. But today there were 2 new girls in the class, so I'm hoping there will be better girls to play with.

Tomorrow is Mr. E's first day of preschool. I'm hoping he'll do okay, he is a bit scared about it. He somehow lucked out and got the only preschool classroom that is literally next door to Em's classroom. The rest of the preschool is in a completely other building. He says he's going to go talk to his sister, so I'm not sure how well this will be, lol.