Archive: Babysitters

Where to find your dream nanny in Seattle

Looking for a nanny in Seattle to watch your kids during the days can be a challenge. You’re trusting her with your most precious cargo: your children. You want to make sure that she’s qualified, trustworthy and someone your little ones will enjoy spending time with. Here are some tips for exactly where to find the perfect nanny in Seattle and its surrounding areas:

Ask friends for recommendations

Maybe a friend recently stopped working full time so he or she no longer needs their nanny. If your friends don’t want to share (trust us, it’s not uncommon with a great nanny in Seattle), ask them to ask their nannies for suggestions. Remember that the good ones tend to flock together so if a quality sitter or nanny recommends a friend, odds are she’s high in rank too.

Ask around at local community events

Let neighbors and friends in your community know you’re on the hunt. A lot of times, someone knows someone who has a great nanny in mind. Ask around at your local farmer’s market or church to see if anyone comes to anyone’s mind.

Look on Mom Trusted:

Mom Trusted doesn’t only offer top choices to preschool programs and child care options. We connect with quality nannies too! Just visit our search tool and enter your Seattle zip code to start searching today.

Sources:

-Mom Trusted: http://momtrusted.com/

-“How to find a good nanny” Baby Center: http://www.babycenter.com/0_how-to-find-a-good-nanny_5933.bc

-“Hiring a nanny: 7 tips on finding the right fit for your family when hiring a nanny” Momeo: http://www.momeomagazine.com/hiring-a-nanny-7-tips-on-finding-the-right-fit-for-your-family-when-hiring-a-nanny/

-Photo courtesy of marin/freedigitalphotos.net

Summer Activities for Kids

With warm weather finally here, it’s time to get outside! Kids do best with a little direction and encouragement for their imagination so Mom Trusted put together a list of fun summer activities for kids. Don’t forget the sunscreen!

Decorate the town with chalk.

Chalk is a summer classic that never gets old. Grab a fresh box and let your little ones go crazy. It’ll probably only be a matter or minutes before your fresh sticks of chalk start to snap, but don’t panic. Invest in a giant Tupperware container that can hang out in the garage and be a home to old, used chalk chunks every summer. This will also allow for a collection of colors!

Play catch with water balloons and slippery hands.

Fill up a bucket with water balloons and head to the back yard. Then, grease up with something like vegetable oil, lotion or good, old-fashioned soap. See how long you can play catch with the balloons sliding around through slippery hands.

Float ice boats.

Make ice cube boats by freezing a tray of cubes with a drop of food coloring in each. Have your kids help you decorate little triangle pieces of paper as flags for each boat. Then, glue the flags to toothpicks and stick one per cube before freezing the colorful ice cubes. Fill up a cheap, plastic pool in your yard and let your kids splash around and float their boats.

Have a bubble party.

Fill a plastic kiddie pool with dish soap and water. Then, get creative with different bubble makers. Hunt through your garage. Use hula-hoops, bend wire into fun shapes and dig around in your kitchen to pull out a strainer with extra big holes.

Go on a water balloon hunt.

It works like an Easter egg hunt except you’re using very full water balloons. Because they tend to burst when they hit the ground or are squeezed too tightly, the goal is to see who can fill their basket with the most full balloons. Then, have a water balloon war with your new-found treasures.

Make your own sprinklers.

Raid your recycling for the biggest plastic bottles you can find. Then, drill holes in them and give them to your kids next time they’re playing in the outdoor pool or running through the hose and sprinkler. Voila! Mini sprinklers!

Sources:

-Pinterest: Summer Activities with Kids: http://pinterest.com/melissa_taylor2/summer-activities-with-kids/

-“Water Balloon Games for Kids” Fantastic Fun and Learning: http://www.fantasticfunandlearning.com/water-balloon-games-for-kids.html

-“Summer Activities for Kids: Ice Boats” Spanglish Baby: http://spanglishbaby.com/finds/summer-activity-for-kids-ice-boats-water-play/

-“Tutorial: The Human Bubble and More” U Create: http://www.ucreatewithkids.com/search/label/bubbles

-“30 Summer Activities for Kids” Lil Luna: http://lilluna.com/30-summer-activities-for-kids/

-Photo courtesy of chrisroll/freedigitalphotos.net

Bug Crafts for Kids

Express some critter creativity with this bug crafts for kids:

Fuzzy caterpillars

Glue different colored and sized pompoms to a popsicle stick. Then, glue on two googly eyes and one pipe cleaner smiley mouth. You’ll have a herd of fuzzy friends in no time.

Paper inchworms

Cut green construction paper into three-inch strips. Tape the end to a sheet of paper and loop it around the first 1/5 of the paper strip (almost like a paper chain). With the remaining 4/5 of the paper, bunch it up, making waves and gluing the paper down at the bottom of each curve. Stick on two googly eyes and two pipe cleaner antennas. Draw on a smile and you’re good to go.

Painted butterflies

Grab some gigantic, white sheets of paper and a variety of paint colors. Have your children go to town. Show them how if you place a blob of paint on a piece of paper and fold it in half, it can come out looking like an abstract butterfly.

Styrofoam spiders

Take a three-inch Styrofoam ball and paint it black. Stick three pipe cleaners out of each side for the legs. Paint on a red smile and stick on two googly eyeballs. We’ll bet these little guys turn out to be the friendliest spiders you’ve ever seen.

Paper plate ladybugs

Staple two paper plates together, creating a small pouch. Paint it black. Next, take a third paper plate and cut a pie-slice-shaped chunk out of it, the remaining portion will be the wings. Paint the plate with the missing piece red with black spots and staple it onto the black pouch body. Cut legs and a round head out of construction paper and glue or paint on eyeballs and a smile.

Sources:

-“Bugs and Insect Activities for Kids” Pinterest

-“Kids Bug Crafts” All Kids Network

-Photo courtesy of Salvatore Vuono/freedigitalphotos.net

Ant and Worm Activities for Kids

Mom Trusted put together a few fun ideas for critter-crazy children. These will help them expand their scientific knowledge and have a great time. Here are some bug activities for kids. Some are educational and others are even tasty:

Invest in an ant farm. Your kids will have fun for hours watching the ants dig mazes.

Eat dirt for dessert! Make some chocolate pudding, following the instructions on the box, and pour it into small, plastic cups. Then crumble chocolate cookies on top of the pudding. Stick a few gummy worms in each cup. You can even add green coconut shavings (dyed using a few drops of food coloring) for grass if you want to get extra fancy.

Make a worm hotel. All you need is a big glass or plastic jar and some worms. Fill the jar with dirt, stick a few worms in and watch them wiggle through it. Note: the worms will be happiest if you alternate dirt and sand every few inches. Make sure to return them to their natural habitat after a few days.

Make compost in your own backyard. Gather veggie kitchen scrapes, some leaves or cut grass and place in a large pale with a lid. When it starts to decompose into dirt, add a few worms to help the process along.

Feed the ants and watch how much they can carry. Be sure to do this activity far away from your home! Grab some lunch leftovers and take them out to a field with a few ant hills. Drop the food in large chunks and watch as tiny ants come to take away pieces many times their size.

Sources:

-“Bugs and insect activities for kids” Pinterest

-“Creepy crawly activities for kids who love bugs” education.com

-Photo courtesy of antpkr/freedigitalphotos.net