M & S posing next to their pumpkin 🙂
Jack O’Lantern peppers!! What a great idea 🙂
Johanna from Colombia showing off her finished product!
How creative!! 🙂
Thanks to all of you who contributed responses (pictures) to our pumpkin contest! We had a really hard time choosing the winning entry. In the end, we went with:
AGNES from Austria (as well as her two helpers) and her pumpkin + Jack O’Lantern peppers! Well done!! 🙂
Flexible and Dependable Care:
No two weeks are the same with most households. Hosting an au pair provides the flexibility and convenience you need to simplify your life. With an au pair, you will be able to create your own child care schedule of up to 10 hours per day and up to 45 hours per week. By having your child care provider living in your home, dealing with sick days, snow days and life’s little surprises has never been easier.
A Cost-Effective Solution:
You will receive 45 hours of child care for just $361 per week, regardless of how many children you have. If you have full-time school-age children we offer a 30 hour per week Educare® for just $290 per week.
When you compare the cost to other child care solutions, including a nanny or day care, you will find an au pair can be a surprisingly cost-effective solution. Choosing our Extended Payment Plan, spreading out payments several month makes it even more affordable.
Full Service:
With exceptional child care, you should expect exceptional service. You will receive comprehensive program support including assistance with selecting your au pair, coordinating logistics, providing orientation for your family and au pair, year-round local support, medical insurance for your au pair and 24/7 emergency assistance. With a quarter century of experience, we are able to accommodate and anticipate the needs of host families. Our local, professional Community Counselors reside in your area and provide daily, ongoing, local support to you and your au pair to ensure a happy and successful experience.
Expert Matching:
At Au Pair in America, we offer Expert Match, a flexible and effective approach to finding the caregiver that is a perfect fit for your family. You may search for your au pair with our user-friendly online search tool, our mobile app or work with our professional placement team to find the perfect au pair for your family. Should you require additional assistance, we are ready and willing to accommodate.
Large Pool of Au Pairs:
With Au Pair in America, you will have access to the largest pool of au pairs in the world. Applicants come from more than 60 countries on five continents and our multi-tiered screening ensures that only the most exceptional and qualified au pairs are accepted. View our au pairs available now.
An Enriching Experience:
With Au Pair in America, your family is getting more than just great child care. Your children will receive a global education during their most formative years, learning about the world and your au pair’s culture and customs. In addition, many parents want their children to be bilingual. The constant exposure and reinforcement provided by an au pair are the best ways to immerse children in a new language.
Orientation and Expert Training:
Your au pair will have recent and practical child care experience, the details of which you will be able to review in their application. In addition, all of our au pairs complete a pre-departure online training segment and attend a comprehensive four-day orientation program that features: child development training, child safety training and adaptation training.
During orientation, all of our au pairs receive exclusive Red Cross® training composed of seminars and hands-on demonstration and with training exercises for infant/child CPR and safety, plus sanitization and illness prevention.
Au Pair in America has also partnered with AAA, the nation’s most trusted name in driver safety and instruction, to offer a custom classroom course specifically designed for au pairs. Exclusively for our au pairs, the AAA driving course is one of a kind, tailored to the needs of the international driver and specific to the safety needs of driving children in a car.
Program options to fit your family:
Whether your children are infants or school aged, Au Pair in America has the solution for your family. Choose from Au Pair, Extraordinaire, or EduCare to satisfy your child care needs.
Organizational Strength;
Au Pair in America is a division of the American Institute For Foreign Study (AIFS), which has provided educational and cultural exchange programs for more than 50 years. Our resources enable reliable visa processing, comprehensive insurance for au pairs and discounts for host families interested in any of AIFS’s renowned programs.
For this month’s cluster meeting we visited Monster Mini Golf (a themed glow in the dark 18 hole miniature golf course off NW Military Hwy). For many of the Au Pairs, this was their first time playing mini golf (they all did great!!) and it was a wonderful day of golf, conversation, and fun!
From left to right: Johanna from Colombia, Nut from Thailand, Caroline from Sweden, Annerien from South Africa, Elena from Costa Rica (in pink), and then Zuzana and Hana from Czech Republic.
Ivet & Hana, Elena & Zuzana, and Saaynaam & Nut
The girls showing of their Painted Plate projects 🙂
We stopped for some Subway after the game
Whether it is your week for share-a-snack at school, or you are looking to tide over tiny tummies until dinner—snack attacks can leave you starved for ideas. If your crew craves something more creative than a bag of goldfish, satisfy small stomachs with a playful presentation. Here are eight simple solutions that take snacks from drab to fab—and might even introduce some new flavors to the mix.
To view recipes, please visit:
When a child has less energy than usual, is unusually cranky, has less of an appetite, or just doesn’t seem him/herself, chances are the child is sick. Fever is a sign a child is fighting an illness or infection. Fevers are usually not serious and can be cared for at home. It is typical for younger children to run higher fevers than older children. Fevers are also often higher in the evening than in the morning. Be alert for rash, earache, stomachache or sore throat, as these may indicate more serious problems.
A child’s temperature can be taken orally, under the armpit, or with special thermometers only in the ear. Au pairs and host families should discuss the preferred method for that family. A child has a fever if the temperature is 99.4’F (37.4’C) when taken by mouth or under the arm. Be sure the thermometer is shaken down first, and left in place for 3 minutes in the mouth or 6-8 minutes in the armpit. Talk or read to the child while you are taking his/her temperature. Never leave a child alone with a thermometer.
When a child has a fever, he or she needs more rest than usual and should not be awakened. Quiet play is fine, but too much activity can aggravate a fever. Children should be dressed in light layered clothing. Liquids are very important – offer water, juice, fruit drinks, tea, popsicles, Jello or soup.
Some children might enjoy stirring their tea with a lollipop, or having soda as a special treat. Host families and au pairs should discuss appropriate medication and desired dosage. Do not offer children aspirin; consider instead acetaminophen or ibuprofen, but only with the approval of a host parent. If a child’s fever is over 103’F, a lukewarm bath might be comforting. If a child vomits, offer small amounts of liquids, but no dairy products. Within the first 24 hours the diet should be limited to clear liquids, bananas, plain white rice, applesauce and plain toast.
When children are sick they will need an extra dose of patience, attention, affection and comfort even more than they need medicine or special diets. Although basic rules and discipline should not change, a child may be more dependent on adults when he or she is ill. Extra imagination and creativity is needed to keep a sick child entertained with quiet pastimes. Children will welcome novelties – use a baking sheet as a tray to assemble a puzzle in bed or to keep crayons from rolling away; create a story with stuffed animals and a flashlight under a blanket.
Warning signs – It is time to ask for more help if a child:
• has a fever higher than 104’F (40’C)
• is very cranky, sluggish or doesn’t awaken easily
• has trouble breathing
• is confused, or vomits repeatedly
• is unable to swallow or is drooling
• has a convulsion or seizure
• has dry lips, sunken eyes, little or no urine or dark yellow urine
With some schools getting back in session and new au pairs who have recently arrived, I wanted to remind everyone about what to do in different situations with school buses. If you have questions, please ask your counselor or your host parents.
The rules regarding stopping for school buses are:
NB: It isn’t necessary to stop when passing a school bus on a different road or when on a controlled-access highway where the bus is stopped in a loading zone and pedestrians aren’t permitted to cross.
I would like to call your attention to a special offer from our sister program, Academic Year in America (AYA), operated by the AIFS Foundation. The AYA program is seeking host families to welcome a student into their home this month!!
* Host families can host for a short welcome period of 4-6 weeks, a semester for the full academic year
* Host families can be from anywhere in the U.S.
* Students are ages 15-18
* Students available are from Germany, China, Brazil, South Korea and Thailand
* Host families provide a bed, meals, a place to study and welcome the student as a son or daughter
* Students will attend local high school
* Students come with full medical insurance and their own spending money
* Local Support is provided by an AYA Local Coordinator for the family and student throughout the year plus support from the AYA National Office 24/7
Please take a few minutes to think of all the people you know and pass along a name or two to AYA! Please send me a message for more information!!
You can make a difference for a young student this fall!!
Thank you!
Love the enthusiasm 🙂
Caroline from Sweden & Annerien from South Africa
Annerien, Caroline with Johanna from Colombia Hana and Iveta from Czech Republic
Saaynaam and Nut from Thailand
To see more pictures, please visit Texas Pack and Paddle’s Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152398965876888.1073742023.107903396887&type=1
Cake:
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 (2 1/2 ounce) jar carrot baby food
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups finely grated carrot (about 4 ounces)
1/2 cup chopped pineapple
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Frosting:
1/3 cup (3 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 Tsp butter, softened
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup flaked sweetened coconut, toasted in oven
1. Preheat oven to 325 F
2. Combine flour and next 5 ingredients (through salt) in a food processor, until well blended. Place flour mixture in a large bowl. Combine sugar, canola oil, baby food, and eggs; stir with a whisk. Add to flour mixture; stir just until moist. Stir in grated carrot and pineapple. Spoon batter into an 8-inch square baking pan coated with cooking spray.
3. Bake at 325 F for 40 minutes (or 14-17 minutes if you’re making cupcakes). Cool in pan on a wire rack, then transfer to the fridge (this keeps them moist).
4. To prepare frosting, combine cheese and butter in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at high speed until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar and vanilla, beating at low speed until smooth. Spread over cake, sprinkle with coconut.
