Thursday, June 19, 2008

Summer, Summer!

It's SUNNY today! :) That makes for a very happy Nichole. It's really nice to start getting out a little bit more with all of the kids I take care of. For those of you who have lost count, there are 4 families I regularly nanny for - totaling 6 kids...7 in January! (That leaves out all of the other weekend and fill-in babysitting.) And of course, if you are freaking out, I usually have 1 or 2 at a time...but sometimes up to 4, which is actually a LOT of fun.

Anyways, I went to the "Starbucks Park" today or, as Veronica calls it, the "Spiderweb Park." It's actually the Powell Barnett Park, but who wants to call it that? That's no fun! It was pretty great hanging out there, playing on toys, having a picnic, and watching all of the kids interact. Veronica can now climb to the top of the "spiderweb" and Madeline made friends with a cute little girl who kept stealing her hat. My favorite quote from the trip was from a little boy on the "spiderweb" playing with his friend. He kept jumping up and down making the whole thing jiggle and his friend wasn't too thrilled and thought he might fall. So the little jumper kid said, "You can't fall! You have stronger feet than me AND you have a ninja turtle costume!" It should be noted that this child was not wearing the costume at the time, which to me, made it all the funnier. And the cute moment of the day goes to Madeline who fell asleep in the stroller on the way home. :) Way to go, Maddy! That's what I like to see!

I don't really have much else to tell you about. I'm just happy it's sunny! If anyone wants to bring their kiddos over for a play date....or if anyone with out kids just wants to come hang out with me and my wee ones...let me know! There are tons of parks around here and as it warms up, we'll be hitting up all of the ones with "water features." And PS when did everything at parks start becoming all professional sounding? Water features, play structures, seriously!? What ever happened to "big toys" and other such silly, simple names? But enough of that, you should come play with us!

Hope you all get to enjoy the sun today!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Coming back...

I've been wanting to come back to the blog for a bit now, but it seems like as time goes by, it gets a little more built up. What are you supposed to write about after so long? So naturally, I felt like the perfect new entry after months should be about hooping.


A few weeks ago, I was at Golden Gardens (or something like that...??) in Ballard for a BBQ with friends to celebrate Kaija's Birthday (Happy Birthday!!). There was a large group of middle-aged adults near us with the biggest hula hoops I have ever seen in my life! My initial response was: "Seriously!? Is this some kind of club!? Weird people in Seattle..." Well, as you all know, I should be counted as one of the weirdos and so, of course, by the end of the night, I too was hooping!

As it would turn out, it was some woman's birthday party (Happy Birthday....lady?) and hula hoops were the party favors! She brought everything to make them. Unlike the picture above, they all had really cool colors and decorations. Ok, pretty much they used electrical tape, but they looked sweet! Monica, clearly braver than I am, just went over and asked about what was going on and before we knew it, she came back with a hula hoop! I think about 5 of us ended up with them. So nice of the other party to share!

A few things you should all know:
1. There is a website. Of course. Why wouldn't there be!? It will teach you how to make your own hula hoop and anything else you want to know about hooping. You can even start your own club! :)
2. You, too, can hula hoop! I have never in my life been able to keep a hula hoop up - unless you count that quick second from the time I let it go and it falls to the ground. These hoops - super easy! As it would turn out, weighting them with water instead of stupid little beads to make fun noises for the kiddies helps keep it up. Alright!
3. Hooping can hurt. Now I've actually seen work out hula hoops before. I also thought those were ridiculous. Now I see where it kind of makes sense. I should start giving people a little bit more benefit of the doubt apparently. Anyways, I'm thinking, "Alright, so the heavier it is, the better the work out is going to be." I'm not really planning to work out with this thing, but why not burn a few extra calories in play, right? Well I still don't really know what the best weight for the hula hoops is, but I do know that I filled mine almost as full as it could be with water! And oh man, I had bruises the next day! A little cushioning around my hoop would have definitely been a good thing.
4. Hula Hooping - not just for standing around. Not only did we see who could last the longest, but we also had races. That's right! We hooped AND we ran!

In the end, hula hooping is kind of fun! And next time I'm at the beach watching people be ridiculous, I hopefully am not going to be such a negative nancy judgmental face! ...unless you are the guy who is scary and pretending (or maybe not pretending) to cast spells in our fire..then I'll go ahead and get someone to kick you out of my fire area again...but that's a story for another time. :)