Parade Booty

We got a ton of stuff from the parade but when I saw Karlise's post, I thought to myself "there is no way I'm counting all those beads", lol. However, today I was bored so I did count them. Here's what we got:

98 bead necklaces
4 mini Frisbees
1 spider ring
1 Navy pencil
2 Navy can koozie's
2 packages of flower seeds
2 mini maracas
1 mini beach ball
1 foam light bulb that Joshua bit the end off of
1 foam progressive insurance car
2 bracelets
2 Chick-fil-A coupons for a free kids size icedream
2 American flags
2 Dixie flags
6 bottles of water (thank you God since I forgot our cooler!)
1 ton of candy (even though we were constantly telling them we didn't want it)
1 newspaper
1 ton of advertisements
1 comic book (Don said it wasn't really an appropriate comic book for kids)

I think that's it. I'm pretty sure we still have stuff in the basket of our double camping chair but I think its mostly the advertisements.

Fireworks!

This was the first year we went to see the fireworks at the mall. My aunt went last year so she was kind of in charge of picking the spot to see them. She also got there earlier than us and saved us parking spots. However, as we were driving in, I saw where they were going to set them off. It was in the woods across from Macy's. I told the rest of the people and I decided I would drive in that area to see if I could find parking spots. I found a ton of parking spots together near the Cheesecake Factory and thought it would be a perfect spot to see the fireworks since there weren't any trees in the way. My Aunt and everyone else didn't want to move though so we ended up in the Toys r Us parking lot. Of course when the fireworks started, there were trees in the way, lol. It wasn't the best spot to see them but we could see most of them fine. I didn't say a thing but you can bet in my mind I was screaming "I told you so!". I thought getting out of there was going to be horrible and it probably would have been if we took the main road around the mall but Don is a pretty smart guy. We crossed over from TRU to the mall side and drive along the road hugging the mall. There was no traffic and we drove all the way over to Sears with absolutely no problems.

Happy B-day U.S.A.!!!

We are making the 4th of July parade a tradition. The kids were excited to go but Shawn acted bored the whole time. He did say he had a good time after we left though.

We were rushing around this morning and ended up leaving later than we wanted. I packed us a cooler with drinks and snacks and left it on the kitchen counter. Even worse than that, we weren't thinking (because we were in a hurry) and went down Lumsden instead of Rt. 60. Of course the road was closed off at Parsons so we ended up parking at Westminster and walking. That's both kids, a canopy tent, a double seated camping chair, 2 single camping chairs, and the diaper bag. We made it all the way up to All Persons Specialty Care and found us a spot. We noticed as we were walking up Parsons that there were cars driving on the opposite side of the street and we could have kicked ourselves. Oh well, lesson learned for next year, lol.

We did have one minor incident before the parade started...Joshua got attacked by some fire ants :( Luckily, it happened right before the parade started so the parade took his mind off the ant bites. Here are a few pictures of the parade:

What else you ask?

Since Andrea asked...We have to repair our fence (there are a few boards that need to be replaced and make sure there are no nails or staples sticking out), child proof the kitchen (right now we have it gated off but I'll be using the eat in kitchen part for meals), replace the kitchen gate (one of my kids broke it), I need to get a fire inspection done, and then a final house inspection.

The biggest part for me now is actually setting up the daycare room. It’s the biggest challenge because I need to buy some things for storage and we don’t really have the money right now. I’m hoping that I can stretch the $1,000 grant I’ll be getting from the YMCA to cover everything I want to get. Luckily, there isn’t too much in the toy area that I’ll need right away but I’ll need some cots, a child sized table and chairs, some small bookcases similar to these to store the toys, a bookcase or book rack to store the books, something like this to store diaper bags/diapers/wipes, a rug for the living room because that’s where they are going to be napping. I'll want to paint it of course.

I have to figure out how to get some shade in the back yard. We can always use the tent we use for the craft fairs but Don won’t want to keep it up overnight so I’m looking for something more permanent. Shade is required to get licensed. I may need to get a few more outdoor toys. I have to have 12 outside activities. So far I have 2 slides, a sandbox (that isn’t set up yet but at least I have one), a playhouse (that should count for at least 2 activities), a wagon, a ride on toy, and some balls. I'd like to get an easel for painting and I like this one but don't want to spend that much on it, lol. I have to call the woman in charge of the grant to let her know I'm done with my 30 hr. child care class and passed all the exams so we can move forward on the whole grant thing. Once I get the grant money spent, I'll be hitting the yard sales!

I passed!

So glad that's over with! The last test I took (Monday night) was tough. It was on rules & regulations but it had questions on first aid kits and other stuff. I guess that's covered in the rules and regs but not in our study guide, lol. I was sweating that one out for sure. Next up...5 hr. Early Literacy Training.

It's hard to believe that it's July already. Where did the time go? I don't really remember too much of June, lol. We are going to the 4th of July parade on Friday. The kids are excited about it. I'll have to do some pre-planning so we can have snacks to bring with us. My parents are supposed to come over our house late afternoon and then we'll head over to the pool for a little while (that's if it's not raining). Plans are to cook out on the grill for dinner then head up to the mall later for some fireworks. Shawn is really excited about that. Not sure how Joshua will do but I'm sure he won't be sleeping if we didn't go. There are plenty of people in our neighborhood that set fireworks off so whether or not we go to the mall, Joshua is sure to be awake.

If I only knew this before...

we saw Speed Racer. I found a cool new website through the Frog Pond. It's called Kids-in-Mind. It rates the different movies that are out by sexual content, violence, and profanity. There will be no more surprise middle fingers in the movies we see, lol. They will go into detail for each movie so you can see if it's something you would want your kid to see. I've already bookmarked this site. Enjoy.

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