I have had the opportunity to nanny 5 kids for five and a half days recently. I learned of this job probably 3 months ago and I've been excited and planning things since. I thought it was perfectly natural that a person would be excited. However a couple of days before I left to do it I found out from numerous people that I'm crazy to want to do this. I didn't understand why at first, but now as I've completed this job I know why. It's not the easiest thing in the world to corral and take charge of that many kids for that many days. However I would do it again in a heartbeat, in fact I have opportunities in September, October, and December to do the same thing (the one in October is 8 days!).
These first pictures are from Tuesday evening, when I arrived at the pool to meet the family.
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A and I were the only ones not at swim practice so we went to the playground near the pool while we waited for the other two kids to come from a concert.
This was his favorite picture, he considered it a silhouette picture even though it isn't.
He wanted this picture taken so the event of his hair standing up could be observed.
Bokeh <3
Yay for manual focus allowing streetlight bokeh!
The playground has these spinny flower shaped things that you sit in and spin to the point where you feel like you're going to throw up and/or fall out. I've always loved these but it's a completely different story when an energetic 6 year old is pushing you.
And the other kids arrived!
I think I have 20+ pictures of him in this pose, he was very proud of himself.
Where is he?
The theme for the week was surprises. They consistently asked what the surprise was before we had it. Hopefully they have learned the purpose of a surprise. :)
The first surprise was cinnamon rolls when the woke up! I figured we better start this time off right with a delicious and completely non-nutritious breakfast.
As you will see in other photos this kid will not let me take a real picture of him, he always makes faces when the camera is vaguely in his direction.
We went to the pool 3 times, the first on Wednesday. The water levels were high and the hot tub was hot, not the same story at the end of the week.
The big boys discovered that by sitting over the air ducts in the hot tub you can inflate your stretched out swim shirt. It didn't work for the little guys since their shirts are still newish but it was fun to see them floating in the hot tub.
He got in my face so I took a picture of him. He does not consider this one of his finer pictures.
Delicious plums and bokeh.
As a surprise I brought oreos for us to share if everyone ate their fruit/veggies. Needless to say everyone at all of their healthy stuff during my stay.
This was in the evening before bed. They know how to stall me. :)
Besides bokeh shots I'm obsessed with photos like these, with the toy or such held out and in focus with the person out of focus. <3
Again with the silly faces, it must run in the family or something.
The next day was Independence Day! Unfortunately I developed my sister's stomach bug and I was not feeling so great for most of the day but by the time I needed to start cooking I was feeling much better.
These pictures were taken in the morning while I laid around in bed. This little guy joined me.
He is not afraid of the camera at all. He ended up wandering around with it multiple times taking videos.
In the afternoon I went and joined the boys in their room while they played with legos.
Remember how I love these shots?
Their beautiful and slightly beat up piano. It's very interesting to play but it sure is nice for photographing.
That day consisted of lots of math, evidenced here. I finished triangles and circles and decided circles are for me and triangles can go die somewhere.
Math brought to you by Spotify and Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding.
Before dinner the little guys went outside for some bubble time.
This was my first fourth of July away from home so I got to do all the cooking. Because they don't own a working grill we did these chicken shish kabobs from Costco on the George Foreman. They were delicious. However cleaning the massive amount of grease off of the Foreman was not as great. I think I was scrubbing it for at least 20 minutes before it all came off.
We had a deformed Marie Callender's razzleberry pie for dessert. It smelled up the entire house deliciously for hours. :)
We also had garlic and lemon green beans. My absolute favorites for any holiday/special occasion.
After dinner we went out and took pictures in the backyard of them in their fourth of July getup. She was my light tester.
Another child joined us to test the light.
And yet another!
I love this guy with his backwards hat. He looks so tough even though he's mostly a sweetheart.
This picture perfectly sums up his personality. Always loud and silly.
I couldn't have a serious picture until they all made faces and yelled at each other. Just the way it works.
A real photo of them all smiling!
We tried for like 10 minutes to achieve this picture. It failed miserably.
S
A
He never smiles like this without much cajoling.
B
R
E
Their neighborhood is the absolute best for bokeh.
Getting ready for dessert at 8:30.
It wasn't beautiful but it was delicious.
Everyone got their own pile of pop-its and pull thingys.
There's a gap in pictures here. On Friday we had a boring day of just going to the pool, although we did watch Your's, Mine, and Ours. Another one of my goals of the week was to expose the kids to classic movies. We watched Snow White and the Three Stooges, Your's, Mine, and Ours, and part of McLintock (A John Wayne movie, the only clean western I could find). On Saturday we watched waaaayyy too much tv but between the mindless watching we had a shaving cream fight. It was amazing and I have been requested to do it again the next time I stay for a while.
On Sunday I got to go to church although I ended up not getting to go to the service. I was pulled into the children's ministry which is slightly ironic. I guess I wasn't meant to have a break from kids. :) But that's just fine for me! The rest of Sunday afternoon was pretty boring until about 4:30.
At 4:30 I started setting up for our Chopped competition (like the Food Network show). I heard about another family doing this on a blog and thought it would be so much fun for the kids to do! I decided not to go too crazy with the ingredients since I was going to have to be one of the people eating them! Because we only had 3 contestants there were only 2 rounds. The first round had the surprise ingredients of 2 eggs and 1 slice of Kraft cheese. The hard part here was that it had to be a dinner dish, not breakfast for dinner. The second round had 10 multigrain crackers and 1 large orange and it had to be a dessert. They were allowed to use any ingredients from the pantry and fridge excepting a few I set aside as they were my lunch for the next day or were needed for dinner.
The kids knew of my plans for this and they were extremely excited to do it. The younger 2 and I were the judges while the older 3 cooked. When the first person was chopped they became a judge with us. I completely forgot about prizes which was ok since it wouldn't have been very fair to the 2 little guys since they didn't even get to compete.
It was so much fun setting everything up in triplicate. What was not so fun was washing everything in triplicate.
Opening up the cup to see the surprise ingredients.
Even during a very serious cooking competition he still can't stop hamming it up in front of the camera.
He wasn't so sure about the cheese.
We might have run out of frying pans and had to use the griddle. Maybe.
One of the esteemed judges.
The lonely tomato.
The judges getting the cooks' faces.
S's dish. He had the absolute best eggs (he threw every herb-looking thing into the dish) but the cheese required was nonexistent. And the turkey bacon was bland.
B's dish of a fried egg, apples and cheese, pickles, and applesauce. The judges thought the egg was good but the dish lacked a cohesive feel as the elements were simply thrown on the plate. This dish was chopped.
:(
R's dish of eggs and herbs and a meat and cheese quesadilla. The eggs were fine but the quesadilla lacked a sauce-like ingredient to pull the chicken and bacon together.
She deemed her dish delicious.
As did he.
Onto the next round: dessert! What you don't see between these last pictures is the amount of clean-up I had to do. :/
A blurry photo but it shows concentration.
While the cooks were cooking the judges went outside to observe the rain. And I got rain bokeh!! I didn't even know that was possible.
One of the cooks found condensed milk. It's no issue that it expired 3 years ago.
This judge got a little bored near the end. Notice his Spock-esque haircut? It's the result of his own haircut and my attempts to fix it.
Sneaking a bite of the oranges. :)
More normal picture, just forget about the cross eyed part of it.
Trying to get a picture of the desserts but photo bombed by B.
S's dessert was a finger food with a massive amount of chocolate with a slight hint of citrus. I didn't taste this round since we had an additional judge but the presentation was ok.
(Extremely blurry photo because I was rushing. Plus the focus point was off)
R's dish was a crumble sort of dish using marshmallows to glue the chocolate and crackers together. She used the oranges ok as zest and a side part of the plate.
In the end the winner was R as her dessert was presented better and as my dad always says "Presentation is everything."
I had an absolute blast being with these kids and I can't wait til I get to do it again. For now I'll enjoy my current nannying job of watching a 6 month old. :)
//367. Math clicking 368. Planning 369. Beauty from photography 370. A Child's expectations 371. Water bottles 372. Pie with whipped cream 373. Pop-it fights 374. Whipped cream in the mouth 375. Finishing off other's food 376. Newly discovered cooking skills 377. Check-up phone calls 378. When Simeon threw lizards on me 379. Watching Star Trek 3 times 380. Classic movies 381. Mud masks 382. Whispers in the dark 383. A break from work 384. Lots of syrup 385. My little photog 386. Lists//
