The Annie Nanny Diary: Part 1

So as the year comes to a close (hard to imagine only one month left!) I wanted to do a round-up of what I have been doing with Kate for the past 8 months. For those of you who do not know, I nanny a 10 month old baby-Kathryn. She is adorable and her laugh and smile makes all the other frustrations in my life melt away.

Our overall goal is for Kate to become:

1. Most importantly-healthy and happy
2. Well-rounded
3. Bright
4. Bilingual (Chinese and English)

Our average daily schedule

9:00 am Kate wakes up
9:30 am Breakfast-either Banana, Blueberry, Apple and Sweet Potato or Peach Yo Baby Yogurt
10:00 am MWF Music and Dancing time! We usually listen to Comcast channel 928. If you have a chance check it out ( I love the Barenaked Ladies kids songs!)
10:45 am Reading (Kate loves turning pages)
11:15 am If it is a nice day we go on a walk, if not, we either tear up old catalogs and play with toys or do an art project
12:00 pm Kate eats, I do chores
12:30 pm Nap time for Kate, Homework for Annie
1:15 pm Chinese/English lessons (songs I have learned, numbers, ABCs etc.)
1:45 pm Diaper change, exercise (aka Kate crawls up the stairs as I spot her)
2:00 pm Bye-Bye!

As for our art projects we have done hand and footprints, painted pumpkins, made her mommy some birthday flowers out of tissue paper and tomorrow we are going to make turkey place cards for their Thanksgiving dinner.

Part 2 will include pictures of all these art projects. My last post of the year will be Christmas theme so stayed tuned. Also, I know I do not update this very often, but between working full time and going to school full time while keeping up with the dogs and the house, my free time is limited : ) I am looking forward to the holidays for some time off and perspective.

Engagement Pictures!

A little over a week ago Daniel and I ventured to the Arboretum and my mom was nice enough to trek along to take some photos. We wanted to send a few engagement announcements out to some of our family members. I thought that the fall leaves would provide a good background for a picture to include in the announcement and thanks to some cool cards my mom and I found at Impress at University Village they should turn out great!


♥

why I am going into childhood education...

Thanks to Twitter and my friends at @KING5Seattle there was an incredible hour-long segment about research being done at the University of Washington I-labs about the minds of babies and their ability to learn.

This is exactly why I do what I do and am working for my Certificate for Early Childhood Education. So interesting and I highly recommend it! (Not only for educators but any one who plans to have children...) Click Here to Watch!

In the video, Dr. Patricia Kuhl explains the findings of her and her two partners Dr. Gopnik and Dr. Meltzoff. I cannot wait to go to the library with Kate on Monday and pick this up. You should too!

Goin' to the Chapel...

As strange as it still sounds to say...I am ENGAGED! Daniel and I have marked our commitment to each other and I could not be happier! The funny part is, the reason I feel strange is that I guess I already felt engaged : ) Dan and I have talked for a while about this and I suppose it was already concrete in our minds and hearts, but now it is for everyone else!

I want to wait until I am done with my undergrad degree before planning the wedding (not that I already haven't started the planning process) so I am looking at September 2012 as a wedding time. Plus, I want everything to be just right so I am sure it will take some time to perfect. I hope you all are ready for this blog to turn into wedding central more and more as I think of things.

The ring we picked out together is perfect for me and just how I want my wedding; small, sweet, classic and me :)

The Cutest Girl Alive

Baby Kate was my model the other day before she went on yet another trip! I don't see Kate from September 22nd to October 5th, so I knew I needed something to last me : ) I brought Daniel's big, fancy camera with me and this was the very first shot I got...
Nothing makes my heart warmer than seeing her smile. I just thought I would spread the warmth...

School, school, school

Up until my Junior year at college at University of San Francisco, I loved school. I know it sounds strange, but I actually like having a strict schedule of when to get things done, making list, and yes, even doing homework! School has definitely had its ups and downs (cough cough Junior year of high school) for me, but it has mostly been ups with the occasional drama no teenage girl can escape.

Having recognized in high school that I had a fair amount of anxiety, most of the time and not properly treating it, it became out of hand when I was living in San Francisco during my Junior year. Although I had Daniel there with me, I felt out of control most of the time, and my school work suffered a little also. With Dan done with school and ready to either go to Grad School or work, we move back to my hometown of Seattle so I could treat my anxiety problems and we could begin a life together.

I figured transferring to Seattle University (another Jesuit institution) would be a piece of cake. Applying and getting in was not so difficult, but once I was accepted it was all downhill from there. First of all, I lost a bunch of credits because I either had to take a particular course at Seattle U, or they were not confident in what the course was and syllabus' from those courses were needed to determine if it could fulfill something or not. Second, I hate Quarter Schedules!! You do not go deep enough into any topic for the classes to be interesting, and each quiz and test count for more than in Semester courses. The only upside I can see is if you HATE a class but have to take it, because it will be over pretty quickly. Third, although I had moved back to Seattle, that did not solve my anxiety issues, because I still wasn't getting it properly treated. The result of untreated anxiety, in my case, results in creating a very small world for yourself in which there are as little triggers as possible, and new areas of my life that had not been influenced so much by the anxiety were suffering, some parts indefinitely. I closed myself off from all friends and began to experience social anxiety, something totally new. Anyways, long story short, I had to stop going to school and get my life in order.

I am happy to say that the Evidence Based Treatment Center of Seattle has really begun to give me my life back! Not only are the staff there extremely knowledgeable and kind, but I have seen a big difference just within the first 6 months of weekly exposures and new medication. The personal side of my life has become so much better and since taking time off from school and working full-time I now know what I want to do with my life. I work as a nanny for the first half of the day, to the most adorable baby I know, Kate, then in the afternoons I work at my grade school in the Extended Care program. I love my jobs and that now I know I want to get my Certificate in Early Childhood Education. But before I can do that, I knew I had to address my Bachelor's Degree.

I never in a million years would have guessed that I would not finish my degree at USF in the four years. Not only am I behind my classmates now, but I didn't really know where to finish my degree. I know SU was NOT going to work for me and I don't care for schools as large as the University of Washington so I was a little lost. I had researched City University, but something just didn't quite click. I had always assumed online programs were kind of bogus...but I was wrong. Washington State University has an online program for people in just my position, or in a variety of others (married with kids, legal guardian for younger siblings, full time workers, etc). You receive the same education you would in Pullman or their other campuses but with non-specific class time contribution, homework assignments able to be done and different paces, and of course exams. It really does take a lot of planning and scheduling, but for me that is a dream. I love figuring out the puzzle of when things need to get done, and if possible, if I can do it in the most-efficient and proper way possible.

So with a year of online school while I continue to work full-time will definitely be a challenge but I am hopeful and excited. After the Bachelor's is out of the way, then onto Early Childhood Education I go! Wish me luck!

Stamping fun with baby Kate!

So I have been searching and searching the internet ever since I started nannying baby Kate. She is just now 7 months old and as I do realize that is still young, I know she is smart and we learn all day long (colors, fruits, animals etc) I figure even if she does not understand shapes...let alone words : ) it cannot help to start early. Almost every answer I found about what to do with a baby, proudly, I had already done with Kate!

After an attempt to make Kate's handprints and footprints a few months ago, with an all food-based paint, and failing dismally, I have been looking for a way to capture her growth through art work. I found washable, non-toxic, kid-safe ink pads at Impress in the University Village and got so excited! Today I set down large sheets of paper today on the floor, changed Kate into a onsie and we got our art on! Kate was so much more cooperative this morning than the last time we tried to do a project and I think she really had a good time! Her mom came down and snapped some shots, but before she could get off the phone with work, I got a few of my own on my phone. The only downside to the ink was it left us a little purple. haha Enjoy...