3 June 2016:

Field Trip! My favorite day of the week, it requires a bit more planning, but I love going to new places and I especially love seeing how much the girls enjoy going out and about as well.

First things first: chores. They only had to brush their teeth and make their beds. I then gave them some direction on what to pack for lunch.

Me: Pack a fruit
Girls: *hemmed and hawed over apples or strawberries*
Me: *while waiting for them to decide, looks in fridge and sees juice boxes (Score!) and plops them in the lunch box*
Girls: *chose apples and packed one in for me as well*
Me: Grab some chips or crackers or something along those lines
Girls: *grabbed both animal crackers and puffed cheetos*
Me: *decided it wasn't worth fighting and let them pack both, because, hey, field trip*
Me: Okay, you two can grab a treat for later.
Girls: Yayyyy!
A.: Can I have a cookie?
Me: Yes
M.: Can I have some starbursts?
Me: Sure
Girls: *Hurriedly put them in the bag while I grabbed myself a little package of skittles*
Me: Now, what sandwiches do you want?
A.: PB&J
M.: Turkey and cheese
Me: Alright, you want me to help you or you got it?
Girls in unison: I got it.
Me: K *makes my own PB&J and sees girls start to put unpackaged sandwiches in lunch box and stops said potential catastrophe; Ziploc bags were doled out*

While I grabbed some ice packs, I had the girls fill up their water bottles and grab their activity bags and any supplies they wanted to bring. M. packed a Taylor Swift book and A. brought a plethora of books along with her own little purse. I'm not sure what the contents were, but since she was happy, I was happy. We strapped in their car seats, got settled in and were off.

Our destination:
 

I hadn't been there in years. I didn't manage to get any photos of the inside of the building because we were all too interested in looking at the animals. This place is basically a small zoo, filled with a lot of Kansas wildlife and also inhabited by some animals that are a long way from home. The later included such things as a "small" four foot caiman, a red tailed boa, and a couple of parrots, among others.

The girls and I were having a pretty quiet look around the place until another group of kids came in. It was a class of middle schoolers on their own field trip. Now, I'm a kid at heart (sometimes, but sometimes I feel like my spirit is trapped in a slightly younger body than it should be inhabiting, but hey, I'll take the few extra years of youth), but I never really fit in with the kids who were my same age when I was much younger. I was quiet and reserved while my peers were much more extraverted than I could ever hope to be. They liked to talk to one another; a lot of talking from a lot of people equates to a lot of noise. At this time A. and M. and I decided it would be best to go outside and eat lunch:


We were not alone for long... about ten minutes into our picnic the students came rushing out to eat  right by us. Paradise was lost, but one of the teachers pointed out how well M. and A. were behaving and told the other kids to follow in their example. Sadly, they didn't, however I love complements so I felt pacified. But the complements didn't stop there; I decided that I didn't want to eat all of my Skittles so I split the little bag into thirds and gave the girls their shares to which A. said I was one of the nicest baby sitters they've ever had, and M. promptly agreed. This is a huge benefit of helping raise kids or simply raising kids, they can make you feel like a superhero when they are the really awesome ones.

After lunch we applied some sun screen and bug repellant and went on a walk around the park:


I had the girls "scavenger hunt"; M. has really sensitive skin and I'm not great at identifying poisonous leaves so I just had them point out things that they found rather then pick them up. (No one got sunburnt or bitten by bugs or even itchy! I'd call that a success!) After a while the girls wanted to count snails, we found 3.
 

Sadly, the shady path ended and the short walk turned into 1 3/4 miles long! The girls were tired, yet they still wanted to climb up rocks, but I decided that rather than have them take over a "boulder" that another little kid was crawling up (they'd climbed this same rock about 10 times before lunch) that I would take them someplace new.

I took them to Sunflower Outdoor and Bike Shop on Mass:


A. really liked the kayaks.

After a while I decided it was time to head home, but I needed to grab some blueberries for muffins I make for the Lawrence Farmer's Market. The girls helped me search the isles:


We found them, dropped them off at my house and then went back to theirs. For the remainder of the afternoon we read "Hoot" and then had a meeting and discussed what we'd like to do next week.

Then I was off. I baked my goodies for the Market and told Zach I had some crafts I wanted to do with him:


(Paintings #3, & Luminaries #2 under Crafts).
We both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. And while I was washing my face, Zach surprised me and lit all of the candles we had in our room. I had never witnessed this before and it was absolutely beautiful! I was so relaxed and so calm and Zach let me get under the covers before he blew them all out. I quickly and peacefully drifted off to sleep. Well done, Zach, well done.

Here we go!

I'm a couple days late on this post, but that's life. The day of choice that I'm focusing on is this last Wednesday (June 1, 2016).

I nanny two girls (who I shall refer to as M. (~9 yoa ) and A. (~7 yoa)) 4 days a week. Days 1 & 3 are called "Activity Days" which are pretty laid back and 'normal'. We

• handle any chores that must be dealt with immediately 
• play outside
• read independently
• have lunch 
• do an activity together (which is normally a craft, but they also enjoy board games and the like)
• read a couple chapters of a book I bring them (the last two weeks' selection has been "Hoot")
• watch an hour of TV (if they behave; which they always have thus far)
• do another activity
• clean up

And then I head home for the day.

Day 2 is known as "Theme Day" which is where I take a book and a movie and we read the book together then we watch a movie and the activities of the day are focused around the book and movie of choice.

And on Day 4 I take them out on little "Field Trips". They are fond of the library and anywhere with a jungle gym... they also simply enjoy packing up their activity bags (see how we made them on my crafts page under #1) and riding in my car.

Wednesday was a Theme Day. The theme? Cinderella. The best part? They hadn't seen Disney's new live action one yet! Needless to say, they were excited. But before we really dug into theme day I thought it best to prepare lunch. We made Mac and Cheese (see #1 on my recipe page for ingredients and instructions), and it turned out fabulous:
 
In all of my excitement about lunch I completely forgot to take a picture before serving up the tasty dish. This is probably the easiest thing to make, with the best results.
While the mac was baking we read our book and then decided it would be fun to dress up for the day...
 

That's right! I planned for this! I am a Disney princess after all. I wish I could have gotten a full picture that included my perfect blue shoes. I felt marvelous and M. & A. were very sweet and told me I was pretty... which made my heart swell a bit too much to comfortably fit into this dress (I'm just thrilled that I managed to stuff myself into a dress that I got for a 7th grade dance, and really, I was squashed into this thing; I felt like a hot dog that was about to burst out of its casing).

We then popped in the movie and proceeded to watch it... with A. asking me how it would turn out about every 10 minutes, but hey, that's what kids do. And I'm just happy that she would accept my answer of, "Just watch the movie" each time and not press further.

After the movie and lunch I decided it was best to get back into our normal clothes; FREEDOM! AIR! THAT'S WHERE MY DIAPHRAGM WENT! Did I mention I was so happy? I was so happy.

The day before I had promised the girls that we would make chocolate chip cookies today (this recipe I am keeping to myself because it is mine! I am the cookie queen! Just kidding, it's #2, but really, I am the cookie queen). However, I discovered that we didn't have butter flavored crisco in the house so I decided that we would make chocolate pudding instead (#3). We used my grandma's recipe, it is the best pudding ever, and the girls agreed it was fabulous. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a picture because pudding is something that you don't wait to eat, you just eat!

After this and a round of  pass the pigs I introduced M. & A. to the art of Mod Podge Luminaries (#2 crafts). This was the result:


Left to right, A., Me, M. And these things are beautiful all lit up!

Then I read them some more of "Hoot", we are reaching the end and I've promised them a "Hoot" theme day as well (I'm excited to have pancakes for lunch), and picked up our craft supplies. In the last 10 minutes of my day I noticed that the girls' rooms could use some tiding up and since it was Cinderella day I told them they had 10 minutes to tidy up their rooms as best they could and whoever did the best would win. I was seriously impressed by how well they did, and upon further inspection I decided to call it a tie.

After I left I headed to Zach's house to go to a Royal's game with him and his mom. I packed all the necessary supplies:

 

I didn't get bit or sunburnt; this is miraculous because I am I walking buffet for any bug and I have severely sensitive skin.

I'd only ever been to 2 Royals games before this one. The first one I went to I was 8 and I brought a mitt, didn't catch anything. The second one I went to I went with Zach and didn't bring a glove and wound up getting the worst sun burn of my life... I pealed like a banana. But:

I managed to snag a foul ball hit by Alcides Escobar, which is actually kinda funny because his jersey number is 2, and this was the second game I went to... weird.

This Wednesday Zach asked me if I wanted to bring a glove, I told him no because past rule dictated that when I bring a glove I don't catch a ball, and when I am unprepared... well you saw what happens. He couldn't discount that logic, and since sports tend to be superstitious at times who were we to go against the grain? So on we went, Zach and Kate with gloves and me without.

While the three of us were getting settled into our seats Kate mentioned that we were in possible foul ball territory (just before the foul pole off 3rd base) and no less than 30 seconds later, with the second batter of the game, a ball came flying at us. Zach was hopeful... he stood up, stretched out his mitt (his whole body in fact) jumped, almost fell backwards onto other chairs much to my horror, but he stuck his landing. The snap of the ball hitting the glove was unmistakeable, but it bounced out, and Zach thought he had lost it to a fan behind us. But, by some miracle, the ball had bounced forward right into the valley of someone's back and the seat in front of us. They didn't even notice the gift that was behind them and Zach seized this opportunity.


We're just lucky I guess.



While there, I decided that because this was the third game I had been to in 14 years it wouldn't be horrendously irresponsible (though, in retrospect, totally senseless, but so worth it) to pay for horrendously overpriced baseball food. I got a pretzel with cheese, $9.25, and a coke, $6, followed by a frozen lemonade, $6, and then Dippin' Dots, $5.



I could have gone to Cheesecake Factory with Zach for less money! I am completely appalled by the prices and that I allowed myself to eat this much... that being said these are some of my favorite foods. And a hungry Sidney is one of the worst things any person could possibly encounter, so I figured, for the sake of humanity, it was worth paying close to $30 for food.

And the Royals won! Third time is the charm after all! It was a wonderful day and one certainly for the books.