Brr...It's cold outside!

We liked practicing putting mittens and hats on this week. Which is good for when we can actually go outside and play after this insane cold weather is over. 

Today we explored warm and cold water. I put ice cubes on a cookie sheet and then let them drop it into the warm water. We also took snow and shoveled it into the water and watched it disappear. They were a little confused on that one. They really liked the frozen sponges and started saying "brrr"  when they touched it. We talked about cold and hot, we spent most of the morning playing with the water.

During our art time we have been practicing patting down our materials onto their papers using glue. They enjoyed ripping and patting down the torn pieces but when it came to the cotton balls they weren't really into the cotton sticking to their fingers. 

James was very proud of his snowman! 

Our Cutest Moments:

Honey Garlic Shrimp Stir-Fry

Ingredients

For the sauce:

• 1 Cup Honey, any kind will do. I use the cheap stuff!
• ¼ Cup Soy Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
• 3 Cloves Garlic, sliced thinly
• 1 squeeze Fresh Lime Juice
• Fresh Ground Black Pepper

For the stir-fry:

• 12 oz Shrimp, I used frozen but if you have fresh will be even better!
• 1½ Cup Broccoli Florets, blanched
• 1 ea Zucchini, medium size
• 2-3 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil
• 1 Tablespoon Butter
• 1-2 Tablespoon Cornstarch Slurry (mix a few spoonfuls of cornstarch with cold water and mix until cornstarch is dissolved)
• Cut Lime, for garnish

Instructions

1. 1. Making stir-fry is an extremely fast process, so make sure you have all your ingredients ready and prepped. Make the sauce ahead of time by adding the oil to a sauce pan over medium low heat and cook the garlic until translucent but not brown. Add the remaining ingredients and let simmer for around 5 minutes. KEEP YOUR EYE ON THIS. It WILL boil over. If it starts looking like it might boil over, just take the pot off the pan and let the bubbles dissipate. If you have too, lower the heat as well. Set this too the side after the 5 minutes.
2. 
   
3. 2. Cut the zucchini into 1 inch pieces. Make sure your shrimp are fully peeled and cleaned. Dry them on some paper towels. Get a medium sized wok or frying pan on medium high heat. Make sure the pan is nice and hot. Add about a tablespoon of vegetable oil to the pan and carefully place the zucchini in the oil. Let it get seared on all sides until cooked about half way through. Take out of the pan and set aside.
4. Add the butter and about ½ Tablespoon of oil to the pan. Mixing oil with the butter will allow the butter not to burn. Add the shrimp to the pan, do not move too much to allow the shrimp to sear.
5. When shrimp is half way cooked add the zucchini back to the pan as well as the blanched broccoli. Toss together in the pan for a few minutes until the shrimp and zucchini are cooked through and the broccoli is re-heated.
6. 
   
7. 3. Add ½ of the sauce let simmer together for just a minute or two and add the cornstarch slurry until there is a medium thick glaze over everything. Stir everything and serve over brown rice.

Happy 2015

Well we started this year off with painting on foil with the 2 year old's yesterday. Lets just say it was really fun but really messy. Miss Beth and I will be doing this activity come summer time outside so we can just wash everyone off with a hose, we did however have to give Theo and Kai a sponge bath in the sink!

Just a little clip that describes our naptime most days...

We took a field trip to the bathrooms. We have been talking a lot about the potty, I have been teaching the baby bears the potty sign during their diaper changes. We got to touch the toilet paper and not spin the toilet paper, sit on the potty and even got to wash our hands at the sinks! That was the most fun part for them because we do love making bubbles with soap. 

My New Years Night, Greer and I painted with water colors. That's right I even do art activities while I babysit, Always looking for families to care for! 

Our Cutest Moments:

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! I would just like to say thank you for thinking of me during the Christmas season. I love all my gifts, some were very thoughtful! And thanks for getting me extra dollar tree gift cards you know the toddlers love our fun sensory bins!

My parents loved the Vitamix I bought for them. The good thing is I can come over and make smoothies anytime. I made an orange cranberry one that turned out pretty good.

Ingredients

1. 1/2 c orange juice or 1 orange, juiced
2. 1/2 c cranberry juice
3. 1/2 c cranberries, fresh or frozen
4. 1/4 c old-fashioned oats
5. 3 tsp honey
6. 1 c milk

Instructions

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Serve Immediately! 

Rainy Day Fun!

This is our first time doing this with our younger toddlers. Lola remembered because she loved trying to paint every inch of the foil while I was cleaning up! I taught them to paint their bellies with the lotion, they even painted my whole arm. As you can see they are loving rubbing the lotion onto their friends bellies. We will always take a donation of a bottle of lotion. I just used what I had on stock.

Our Snowflakes, yes I also did one! 

Anytime anyone has their shoes off in the baby bears room the toddlers automatically think that the shoes are theirs and try and wear them. I caught these two wanting to wear my boots. They thought they were pretty cool in them!

Our Cutest Moments:

Our Christmas Party

We had a good Friday celebrating a few Christmas type activities with the baby bears. We tasted candy canes as I was sitting with them showing them how to lick them, as soon as they bit down on them I took those pieces away. We probably licked them for a good five minutes. Alice was the only one who cried when I took hers away. Who knew they all liked peppermint?

James brought us in some delicious mini cupcakes for our afternoon snack. They all had about 2 cupcakes as James was sneaky and took a 3rd one while I was cleaning up! 

We had to burn off all our energy by playing in the gym and going outside for a little bit. I had them all in snow pants since they were in thin layers today. I am getting faster now at putting them in their snow gear. Today it only took me 10 minutes instead of usually 20 minutes!

The best part of the day for the toddlers was playing with glow sticks. Who knew it was going to be such a huge hit after nap time today. We watched Kipper's Snow Fun on my laptop during this time. 

Our sensory activity was finger painting with cool whip, as you can tell from the photo you won't see many of the toddlers. For some reason or another the baby bears were not interested and had more fun running around the room during that time in just their diapers. I'm glad the 2's enjoyed painting!

Our Cutest Moments:

Having fun with clean play dough...

I love this recipe for play dough that I found on Pinterest.  It's 1 box of cornstarch and a bottle of any kind of conditioner you have on hand. Today I made candy cane dough for them to explore, we had a few tasters but after the first lick they did not try and eat it again. It was everywhere in the classroom today but it cleaned right off the carpet and made the room smell heavenly. Tomorrow we will have our Christmas party and get to finger paint with cool whip. 

We used birthday candles to poke into the dough. We sang happy birthday to Jesus that's when they decided to try and take a bite of the dough. 

If you can't tell by now, I'm addicted to make cute hand and footprint Christmas crafts. The hand print wreaths were a last minute thing I did during their naps today since they all took nice long ones. 

Our Cutest Moments:

(Be sure to check out our cutest moments in our classroom, I've updated them!)