Atley's Journal

Atley ate oatmeal and dried cranberries for breakfast.  For lunch she ate bites of tilapia, ate whole wheat elbow noodles, a couple of green beans, and ate applesauce. In the first picture you can see Atley is pretty delighted with the sudden turn of events!  Haha!  She'd been watching Hudson stack these up and he said, "setting this up for my Mommy!"  However, as soon as he grew bored with it and wandered off, Atley moved in to tip it over!!  Ha!  This picture represents one of the harder "rules" at Gary's house that is not easy for this age group to grasp!  When you move away from a toy, then someone else can play with it.  They usually think all the toys are their's regardless; and especially so if they've invested some effort into it like Hudson did with his little stack in the picture.  In this case, Atley moved in for the destruction, completed the task and moved on before anyone (primarily Hudson) saw what had happened!  :) ...

Atley ate most of toasted whole wheat bagel and ate a large serving of peaches for breakfast.  For lunch she ate hamburger/sausage pizza on whole wheat crust, with olives, peppers, tomato sauce, and pineapple. These 4 children in the picture below (Atley, Hudson, Avi, and Nora) were all playing at the legos table at the same time.  I always think it's sweet when this age group can play side-by-side and not be grabbing toys from the other children's hands!!  They are in the early stages of learning some social skills - which I think is one of the major benefits of a Childcare setting.  Atley really enjoys the other kids and watches them a LOT!!  She's always watching and absorbing. This cracked me up when Atley was on one of the toy shelves, or at least trying to get on the shelf.  What is she after?  She was there, just like you see in the picture, for a long time.  When she got out there was nothing on the shelf and nothing in her hands! ...

Atley ate some whole wheat toast and a big serving of grapes for breakfast.  Momma Megan said she ate a lot of breakfast at home as well.  She generally eats way more in the morning here than at lunch time and today was no different.  She had a few nibbles of lunch: Pork roast, whole grain tortillas, vegetables (carrots, potatoes, and brussel sprouts), and fruit salad. Hudson made it back from their Denver trip and all 6 kids are here today.  So it was busy with lots of activity here this morning.  I think Atley likes it that way!  Or the quiet way too!  She is such a trooper and just goes with what is presented!  She was in the igloo playing and Reid was peeking in at her in this first picture.  (Which was making her laugh.)  :) Here's a picture of the kids with one of their favorite outside activities in the morning; searching for dropped apples.  Like I've mentioned before I keep the neighbor's tree trimmed to limit the amo...

Atley ate whole wheat english muffin and dried plums for breakfast.  For lunch she had bites of chicken stir fry, ate brown rice, ate bites of stir fry vegetables, and maybe a bite of oranges. I took this first picture yesterday afternoon...besides being a cute picture of Atley there is a cute story behind what she's doing here.  She is ringing the "door bell" with her right hand.  The bell ringer is mounted on the inside and Atley was originally bent down with her ear pushed against the inside speaker and was ringing it over and over and over.  She obviously was enjoying the sound of it...and it is kind of soft and mellow. This is the first thing Atley played with this morning: the toaster.  She was putting the bread in it and I was helping her push it down.  She was laughing every time the toast went flying out of the toaster.  And I managed to get a picture of the toast in mid-air so you could see!  :) I love this picture of Nora "fee...

Atley ate some cheerios and most of banana for breakfast.  For lunch she ate some taco salad hamburger, bites of olives, no lettuce, bites of tomatoes, ate pita bread, and ate some cantaloupe.  She drinks LOTS - some children need/require more liquid - she's one of them!  :)  I realize it's summer, but 8 ounces at almost every meal is still a lot!  Well done Atley!  :) Atley was here for 30 minutes before anyone else arrived and I love watching to see what they play with first.  These first 2 pictures represent what she did the majority of that 30 minutes.  She searched for those frogs she likes!  There are probably about 10 of them and she found them all. I also had some of my children's music playing and some kids started singing a song.  Atley giggled and pointed at the music.  She immediately knew and recognized it was children singing.  Speaking of singing, in the next picture Atley was watching Sophie pretend to s...

Atley ate whole wheat english muffin and a bite or two of oranges for breakfast.  For lunch she ate bites of ground beef, most of whole wheat elbow noodles, ate peas, and applesauce. Atley makes me laugh when we're having Story Time.  So far she really isn't too interested in sitting on the couch while I read stories and that is totally fine of course.  However, she will frequently get her own books (and today was one of those days) and start reading while I'm reading.  LOUD!!  Ha! That cracks me up!  I find myself reading louder and louder and louder.  I told Lauralea if all 6 kids used volume like she does it would be pretty loud in here!  :) Here's a picture of Atley playing with the frogs this morning shortly after she arrived.  She was here for 55 minutes before anyone else arrived and she played with these frogs for a long time.  And this wasn't the first time this week.  These frogs have obviously been one of her favorite...

Atley ate bites of breakfast: french toast and strawberries.  For lunch she may have had a couple bites of Paleo Stew with burger, carrots, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussel sprouts, she ate her crackers, and a bite or two of tropical fruit. Reid brought a couple of his toys with him and that's ok as long as he lets the little ones play with them too!  And he did.  Here's a picture of Atley playing with his fidget spinner.  Reid was spinning it and said,  "It's hard to do on a windy day!"  Ha!  Well it's not windy today and we're inside the house!!  This one lights up when it starts spinning.  In the next 2 pictures Atley was so impressed watching Reid jump off the igloo.  She'd go to the igloo every time to watch him go flying. This next picture made me laugh!  Avi was playing with one of our little mirrors and was holding it up to Atley's face.  Kind of distorts things a little right!?! We played o...

Atley ate waffle and grapes for breakfast.  For lunch she ate baked chicken, whole grain tortillas, bite (maybe more, but I saw just one) of roasted cabbage, and ate baked cinnamon apples.  When I'm putting food on the tray for a meal Atley is usually watching me from the gate and as soon as I pick up the tray she sprints for the lunch room gate.  "I know what this means!!"  Ha! Mommy said Atley kind of seemed to be a bit off this morning so I gave her extra attention and then we ended up playing peek-a-boo around the igloo shortly after she arrived.  I took these pictures because she was having so much fun with it and laughing hard.  What a cutie!  Love the dimple.  She seemed to be just fine and had a very typical morning. It's actually pretty quiet around here today.  Hudson is in Denver by now, Sophie is not here until Friday, and Reid will be here on Thursday.  So it's just the 3 youngest ones.  I'm not sure what Atley ...

Hi Everyone! Just want to let you all know that my laptop is in the shop and they are backed up with repairs for several days.  So there will be no Blogs this week and I will let you all know as soon as I get it back!   Gary

Atley had several bites of oatmeal and two or three bites of baked cinnamon apples for breakfast.  For lunch she had a couple bites of hamburger stew (ground beef with green beans, carrots, potatoes, and brussel sprouts), ate whole wheat dinner roll, and maybe a bite or taste of apricots.  When she was done with breakfast she started singing and it was easy to identify the "Baa Baa Black Sheep" tune and "ABC" tune as well.  :) So what is Atley reaching for in the first picture?  Well I'm glad you asked!  The answer is in the 2nd picture and here's the story.  Whenever I'm fixing someone's hair I usually have them sitting on the changing table and I always say (if they need to hold their head still) "look at the ....." whatever animal is on the calendar with the wildlife babies.  As soon as I was done with her hair this morning she went right over to the wall and started reaching!  :)  Probably because I kept pointing and saying, "Atl...

Atley ate toasted rye bread and a bite or two of dried plums for breakfast.  For lunch she had a bite or two of pulled pork sandwich, ate peas, and a bite or two of cantaloupe. Here's Atley taking advantage of Hudson laying out a blanket for his doll.  Ha!  She kind of likes to tease Bubba and rarely misses an opportunity to do so!!  :)  And that is why I have duplicates of all my toys for this age group.  "Ok Atley, here's another doll blanket and you can lay one out for you." Hudson said, "I need that blanket!!" Reid is here today so there was more activity than the past 3 days.  (combined!  Haha!!)  He will be here on Thursdays and Fridays for the summer and then off to PreSchool in September.  Atley was seemingly amused watching Reid play and wrestle Hudson, but he's so big that I monitor that very closely.  Here's what it looks like: We played outside with the bubbles and they were all having lots of fun with them. ...

Atley ate whole wheat toast and a bite of mango for breakfast.  For lunch she ate hamburger with marinara sauce and whole wheat spaghetti noodles, taste of squash, and bites of fruit salad. We rarely look at anything on the computer as a group, but there is one web site that I like for the kids and that is explore.org.  It features many web cams set up around the country and other parts of the world as well.  My favorite at this time of year is the big brown bears feeding on salmon at a place called Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska.  We looked at them for a few minutes and the kids loved it; especially Hudson and Avilene.  (Ok, I admit, I probably loved it the most!  Haha!)  There were several times this morning you could spot 10 - 12 fish trying to jump up the falls at the same time. After Atley arrived this morning and waved at Mommy she immediately went to the book rack, sat down with a book, and started looking at it while "singing/...

Atley ate whole wheat bagel and grapes for breakfast.  For lunch she ate shrimp, brown rice, maybe a bite of stir fry vegetables, and a bite or two of mixed berries. I have a story from this morning when we were outside, but it's slightly gross for you more sensitive ones!  :)  It's one of those "you had to be there" stories, but I'll try to set it up!  We were on the patio and there was a moth on the concrete floor.  So I grabbed the camera because the kids were starting to gather around it and I wanted a photo of them examining the bug.  I was ready to snap the picture and just then Atley marched through the middle of the circle and squished the moth.  She didn't have clue it was there, but stomped directly on it.  Oh man, for some reason that hit my funny bone!  Ok, so much for our bug lesson of the morning!  :)  The kids just wandered off while I scooped up the mess. As I've mentioned several times Atley is fitting in so wel...

Atley ate bran cereal and raisins for breakfast.  For lunch we had chicken salad (lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, olives) with the chicken and olives on the side.  She ate her chicken, pita bread, bites of salad mixture, ate olives, and two servings of pears. Megan and I were talking about "ABC's" this morning and I can't remember if you told me you sing the ABC song with her or not (we do), but she was definitely singing it this morning.  Loudly!  Haha! Speaking of loud, Atley was making some of her sounds this morning and Hudson said, "pipe down."  LOL!  Oh man that was funny!  (And, in case you are wondering, he did NOT get that phrase from Daycare!!)  :) Sophie and Reid are gone today so here are the 4 kids playing on the mattress at the same time.  This was their first activity after all of them arrived.  Close together and getting reacquainted after the weekend!  Ha!  Atley is a very comfortable part of our Daycare now a...

Atley ate malt-o-meal cereal and dried plums for breakfast.  For lunch we had roasted "beef kabobs" with zucchini, red peppers, and pineapple.  She ate the meat, bites of vegetables, and half of pineapple.  She also ate whole wheat elbow noodles.  I've mentioned this before, but when I'm cleaning up after a meal and come through the gate she'll run for the couch and sit at "my" spot.  Our little routine girl!!  :) I just want to make note of the fact that we're playing outside every morning and enjoying the fresh air before it gets too hot in the afternoon.  When the afternoon temperature in the shade is close to 100 degrees like it's been this week I've just been keeping the kids indoors.  We had lots of fun chasing bubbles this morning.  Reid was ready to go in by lunch time and said, "I'm burning up!" Ha! Reid and Atley were the first two arrivals at Little Treasures this morning and he was putting his blanket over her he...

Atley ate waffle and most of fruit salad for breakfast.  For lunch she had a couple bites of shepard's pie: hamburger, potatoes, green beans, and carrots.  She ate toasted rye bread, and a bite of cherries. All 6 children are here today so it's been a busy morning.  (During the summer Reid will be here on Thursdays and Fridays.)  Atley loves all the activity and just stays busy doing her own thing and occasionally joining the group for things like jumping on the mattress or playing on the climbers outside.  I took this first picture when she was climbing on the steps to the balance beam.  She almost stood up, but decided not too.  :)  Later, the kids were playing a Toddler version of "hide-n-seek." I don't think Atley had a clue what they were doing, BUT no one else did either.  Haha!!  Sophie was telling everyone where to "hide" and then she'd count a few numbers and "look" for them. Lauralea stopped by here about 10:30 and the ki...