Babysitting

As I am waiting to get licensed from the state for day care, I have been babysitting my friend's 1 year old. What a learning experience!! I do love it, but there are days that I ask myself "Why do I want more kids?" "Why do I want to be a licensed day care provider?" And then I take a deep breath and remember how much I love these girls! Here are a few pictures of Olivia and Lilly playing.

Here the girls are rocking on their toys while I try to make lunch. It kept them occupied for a brief moment...

Olivia stacking the buckets. I have to dig out my child development stuff from CMU, but I am one proud Mama of this little girl. She does great stacking the buckets on her own, but when she struggles with what should come next I can tell her "find the BIG blue bucket" and she does. She is already working on size differences and her colors! You go girl!

Lilly getting a break from Olivia and playing with a toy on her own.

Olivia hanging out in the tunnel.

Lilly is trying to push the popcorn popper, while sitting down.

I started babysitting Lilly just two days a week. This happened for two weeks. Then Lilly's mom got a second part time job, and Lilly started coming four days a week. We just finished week two of having her here four days. I have to say we are all adjusting well. Lilly is getting used to being here more often (she was in day care when she was an infant, but it's been awhile since that has happened for her), but we still struggle with naptimes. Olivia is also going through a lot of adjusting. She is adjusting to sharing her Mom, her toys, her space. We have good days, and we have bad days. On our good days, Olivia is very helpful with Lilly. She does her own thing and lets Lilly play on her own (for the most part). On our bad days, we have tempertantrums because Lilly is holding one of her toys. When Olivia gets the toy back, she sets it down and moves on. She doesn't even play with it. On our bad days, Olivia hits. Never hard, never leaving a mark, but she does raise her hand to Lilly. On our bad days, Olivia is a typical two year old who is learning to share (mom, toys, etc), learning how to act around other kids, learning what is expected of her. This phase too shall pass and we know it will get easier. In the meantime, I constantly pray. :)

A Little Updating

We decided it was time to do a little updating in our house. Since I am trying to get licensed by the state to do childcare in my home, the toy room was at the top of our list. Here are some before and after pictures of our projects.

Our toy room, looking towards the west wall.

Standing at the back of the toy room looking back towards the enterance.

The wall opposite the enterance. Not only was this Olivia's toy room, it was also our "office".

Our new toy room!! Standing at the back wall, looking back towards the enterance. We painted the room purple and lime green. It is so bright and cheerful! I love the lime green wall across from the windows, it reflects all of the natural light that comes in and keeps the room bright.

The wall next to the enterance. The piano was moved down and the office was moved upstairs.

Standing in the enterance looking back at the west wall.

A view of the wall with the windows.

We painted chalkboard paint on the wall between the two windows. Olivia loves this!!

This is an empty bedroom upstairs that has been used for an exercise room (yeah, that was effective!) and we even tried to use it for a studio for Chris's business.

The door to the hallway.

This window overlooks our roof and is on the east wall.

We painted the room hunter green. It looks really great with the carpet because it pulls the specs of the green out of the carpet. This picture was taken along the back wall, same view as the first picture.

The view behind the desk.

The doorway to the hall.

This is the window that overlooks our roof on the east wall.

In November, we had family come up just before Thanksgiving. Well what better time to remodel your bathroom!? Chris really couldn't stand the way this bathroom looked. I tried finding our before pictures, but couldn't. This room had yellow walls on the upper half, a wide sunflower border, and green wallpaper on the lower half. The counter was a lovely shade of mustard yellow. Well we stripped the wallpaper and painted the bathroom a light shade of brown (not as light as khaki). Chris's big project was the countertop. Our "easy" fix was to tile right over the lovely mustard yellow countertop. However, it didn't quite work that way. The countertop had to be pulled off the sink base. At least the sink base was already roughed up, so that made tiling a lot easier.

The finished bathroom countertop. Great work Chris! Little does he know, someday when we redo the upstairs bathroom I'd love to do this up there.

A Conversation with Olivia

On Thursday, I brought home a few mini chocolate donuts from my Grandma's house. Hoping Olivia wouldn't notice them, I casually tossed the baggie onto the kitchen counter. Olivia did notice...

Olivia: Chocolate donuts peez.
Me: We have chocolate donuts? Where? I don't see any chocolate donuts.
Olivia: Right there! (Pointing to the kitchen counter where I threw them, behind a box
of baggies.)
Me: You think you need a chocolate donut for snack?
Olivia: Yes peez.
Me: Well we better ask Papa and see if you have been good today.

So Olivia takes off, looking for Papa and shouting out his name, sounding something like this,
"Papa! Chocolate donuts peez! Papa!"

She finally finds him, and I encourage her to ask Papa if she can have a donut for a snack.

Olivia: Papa,
Papa: Yes, Olivia?
Olivia: Chocolate donuts peez.
Papa: You want chocolate donuts?
Olivia: Yes peez.
Papa: Why do you want chocolate donuts?
Olivia: They taste good.

Chris and I proceed to smile and giggle. How do you argue with "They taste good" when you know it to be so true!?

Dull winter

I've been racking my brain to figure out something new to post on the blog...well not much new is going on. It has been a dreary winter, so we haven't played outside. We've gone back to a few of our favorite spots to play (the Children's Museum and Play World), but I'm sure you don't want to see more pictures of that. We've just been playing at home or with friends. I guess I have to look for more Kodak moments in our day. :) Olivia has been leading us in grace whenever we eat, so I do want to catch that on video and post for all of you to see. I think it is rather adorable. And don't worry, I'll post the translation since you may not understand everything she is saying. We have been pretty busy though, for those of you who may not have heard, I am working on my paperwork to become licensed to do home day care. So I am getting my packet in order and we're moving some things around in the house to make room for the day care. We just painted one of the rooms upstairs and moved the computer out of the toy room and into an official office. Next, we're going to paint the toy room and make a few modifications. Hopefully that will be done soon. All of the are good changes and I am excited about it. I guess that brings you up to speed on the Fleck Family. Hopefully, we'll have more Kodak moments in our day so I can post some new pictures. Take care and God Bless.

An explanation...

Back in December, I ran into a college friend of mine at my mom's work Christmas party. She was giving me a hard time that I hadn't updated our blog since Halloween. I gave her a nervous laugh and promised that I would remedy that over the weekend. Well that "weekend" turned into 3 weeks...Sorry Jackie! As with any family, we got caught up in the hub-bub of the holidays, parties, birthdays, and other obligations. It's not that nothing was going on, I was just too tired to do any writing by the time I had the time. So I've done a massive update as to what had been going on over the past 2 months. I hope you enjoy the update.