Ben, aka Spidey, Bryce, aka Mr. Mummy, and pretty little Miss Madi, aka the Good Witch! Jeni, myself and a small handful of other Moms at Rhein Main AB, Germany were bummed that there wasn't a local preschool for our little tykes. So, we banded together and made our own! The base 'Family Support Center' supported us and were kind enough to let us use their 'Our House' (an apartment used for Family Support things in our housing area which made it VERY convenient!) twice a week for 2 hours a morning to 'teach' our kids. We had a letter and number each week, we did activity pages, an art activity, play time, snack time, story time. It seriously was a REAL preschool! Jeni, we had so much fun doing this with our kids, didn't we? I loved teaching weeks when I got to teach with you! Jeni and I both LOVE Halloween so we planned to teach the week of our Halloween party. We took goody bags in, decorated cupcakes, had the kids dress up, Jeni read a Halloween story to them. And even Madi got to join in on the action!
Aww, look at all the little stinkers! This was our preschool group one year. See, told you it was a small group! A super fun gang though! And look at Bryce huggin' on Miss Madi! He sure was protective over her and loved her to pieces every time he saw her! Remember how it used to make us go 'Awwww', Jeni?!?
The little goody bags I made back then for the kiddos to take home from preschool with them that day! Some for the neighbors we shared a stairwell on base with, too!
The class took a trip to a local farm to pick our own pumpkins. I remember it being COLD that day even though it was sunny. Brrr! Ben is on the far left and Bryce is smack dab in the middle
A dentist field trip we took. Bryce is in the chair getting ready to have his tiny teeth looked at while Ben looks on.
Ben's turn!
Look at those 3 little hams! Bryce, Miss Madi and Ben. They came over for a playdate. My goodness it's hard to believe Madi was this small then! She's a big school goin' girly now!
Bryce, Connor and Ben. Connor was also in preschool with our boys and it was like the 'Three Musketeers'. Our boys all got along so well and really loved each other. Michelle is Connor's Mommy. They live in Texas now. Want to know how small of a world it really is though??? Her Mother in Law (who is a sweet, sweet, sweet lady with a doggy Bryce LOVES!) happens to live in the subdivision I live in! How cool is that?!?
Remember my 'Puddle Play' post a couple days back? This was one of Bryce's puddle play days in Germany (which we seemed to have a lot of there!). Jeni, he was in the shoppette parking lot. Probably on the way to preschool or your house girl! If you haven't been to Rhein Main or a base in Germany, the oh so lovely buildings you see in the background were our houses. They were apartment style. Each building had about 6 stairwells and each stairwell had anywhere from 8-10 or so apartments in them. Busy, busy, busy and noisy but always someone to play with or have coffee or late night wine sipping with while hubby was away or working those crazy shifts! Kinda like a real life 'Army Wives' (a show both Jeni and I are addicted to on Lifetime, Sunday nights!)
7 comments:
Look how small they are. That one where Madi is a baby she must have only been about 8 months. That was the best pre-school for 2 years. We all did really good with that. Holy smokes seeing the old neighborhood...such a funny looking place but the greatest. Except the part with 2 small kids, a deployed husband and the community laundry being 3 flight down from me. Ben has that pictrue of him, Bryce and Connor framed and still on his dresser. Thanks I love seeing the pics...you sure did make me smile :)
I know what you mean about ups and downs there, for sure! The laundry thing KILLED me (with Jason's crazy schedule & tdys). All those steps down to run an empty hot load b/c Bryce got irritated skin from other folks' detergents, then up to wait for them to finish, then down again to start ours, then up to wait, then down to switch to dryers, then up to wait, then down to restart dryers b/c they stunk and never worked in just one cycle, then up to wait, then down to make a few trips back up b/c we had 4 washer and 4 dryers and with this many up and down trips you really had to plan your days around it! And, we had one set of CRAZY neighbors (they'll go nameless!!!) that would go door to door if you even ran over your laundry time by 5 mins...god forbid you got a stateside phone call you wanted to take really quickly or had to go to the bathroom or deal with a child crying about something...Oh boy! My neighbors all laughed at me because I had to make MANY stops on the perches outside their doors on the way back up most times b/c I would get dizzy and things would start to go black (side effect of my mega low 'counts' with my UC in bad flares as it was most of our assignment there). So, in conclusion...I agree with you Jeni~ laundry time SUCKED big time!!! xo ;)
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How cool that you and you family lived in Germany! Great Halloween pics! Hope you're having a good weekend!
-Carrie
Those look like some fun times and fun memories!!
Wow, how amazing to have lived in a different country, and what a great experience! But it IS hard to live far away from family. (It about killed us to live in Maryland for the first four years of our marriage.) Isn't it almost sad to see how quickly your kids have grown? It could get me blubbering like a baby if I think too much about it!
I so much enjoy your blog! :) Have a great night!
How great that your formed your own little preschool for the kids!!
It must have been tough living over there....very different than life here....we just had a schoolmate of my sons return from Germany....they were sent for a year due to his fathers job. They were very happy to be back!
The kids look adorable in their costumes!
Lisa
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