Arggggggghhh Pirate Day

Summer is almost here. My oldest charge is out of school already and my youngest will be finished next week.
They have busy summers ahead but I do remember the days not so long ago when our summers were filled with fun and outings and theme days.
My 10 year old still talks about our theme days we did the summer she was 4. We had some good friends who shared these adventures with us.
One of our favorites was Pirate Day. We gave the kids scarves for their heads, we made eye patches out of black fun foam and string, we used charcoal to give them beards and made paper loops we used for gold ear rings. We set up a board between two chairs and walked the plank and we had a treasure hunt. On our treasure hunt we hid little trinkets and on each trinket we put one letter of each child's name. Then we gave them their treasure map which was their name. They all had 4 and 5 letters in their names so to make it even we put 2 letters on one of the objects of the child with the 5 letters in their name.
It was so much fun and such a happy memory for all of us.
This year most of our quality time will be in the car to and from camps but I love my kids and we have some of our best chats in the car when we are driving. I am so lucky that I can continue to be with them for the 15th summer.
This is the last week for the INA membership giveaway, so don't forget to enter for your chance to win, and I love it when you post comments on my blog so if you have more ideas for a Pirate day, please share them here!

INA Membership Give Away

Since returning from the INA Conference in Dallas 3 weeks ago, my good friend Alice and I have been brainstorming about how to get the message out to nannies that we can't simply sit around lamenting about the lack of respect our profession gets. We have to be actively working to improve the image of the nanny profession and one of the most important ways to do that is to be actively involved in a professional nanny organization.

We both knew and loved the late Harriette Grant. Harriette was a Co Founder of the first and longest running support group in the United States. Association of DC Area Nannies (ADCAN). She was a founding member of INA, a board member of INA and the first INA Nanny of the Year in 1990 We will be posting her story on her June 3rd Birthday and in honor of her upcoming birthday Alice and I decided we would work in conjunction to give away an INA Membership on our blogs.

Alice has 2 blogs. Her first blog is http://www.nannyadventures.com/. This is a blog about her adventures as a nanny, helpful tools for parents and nannies as well as other items of interest.
She was also inspired by Dr. Lynne Kenney at the INA Conference to brand herself. She is launching her new blog, The Financial Nanny that is focused on helping nannies (and others) save money and invest wisely with the start of this contest.

My first blog is about nannies in transitition and how to deal with the emotions of leaving a nanny positions and other changes that happen when you stay with a family for a few years. It is called Nanny Transititions. My second blog is just for fun and it highlights my creative side as The Creative Nanny.

Starting on Friday, May 15 and running through Monday June 1, we will offer you the opportunity to win a one year INA Nanny membership (Valued at $95) If you are already an INA member we will pay your membership for the following year.

You can gain entries by doing any or all of the following.

1. Sign up to follow either blog. (Each blog counts for 1 entry so if you sign up for all 4 you will get 4 entries). Please leave a comment at each blog stating that you signed up to follow or already do.
http://www.nannytransitions.com/
http://www.creativenanny.blogspot.com/
http://www.nannyadventures.com/
http://www.thefinancialnanny.com/



2. Talk about this give away and post a link to our blogs on your blog, post about it to a yahoogroup, or post about it on a message board like Nannynetwork, or Nannyisland
Twitter it, or put it on Facebook.

Send us a copy or a link and each one will count as an entry.
Send it to nannytransitions@aol.com (put INA Giveaway in subject)

3. In addition to that you will get double entries for posting on any of our blogs :

a. Why you want to be a member of a professional organization, or
b. What it means to you to be a member of a professional nanny group


The winner will be chosen from random.org and announced on all four blogs on Tuesday June 2, 2009. Good luck!

For more information on the INA please visit their website, their blog, their facebook fan page or twitter.

Inside contents of Birthday Party Favors

I finally remembered to take the pics of what went inside the birthday treat bags. I bought the bottles at usplastics.com
They were cheap even with shipping and here's a tip, you have to buy the lids separately but it's still a great deal and they ship within a week.
I just used Jergens (love that smell) and Suave shower gel and a small funnel to fill the bottles. I made my labels with 5164 labels I bought on Ebay from the bargainlabelking (He is very fast) and used graphics from pccrafter.com.
I did these with Printmaster and ran through back to back on my Xyron.