about me - happy hooligans - about jackie and the hooligans

Welcome to Happy Hooligans – a blog that centres around the daily activities of my home-daycare, and is dedicated to easy and affordable arts & crafts and good, old-fashioned play.

I’m Jackie – the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans, and a self-proclaimed glitter-phobe. I’m a mom, a wife and a daycare provider.

Me and my boys.

My own boys are teenagers now, but I’m still surrounded daily by little ones. For this, I am eternally grateful because toddlers and preschoolers are my passion.

These are the little people that I lovingly refer to as The Hooligans. They’re the children in my home daycare, and the reason that my blog exisits!

Before starting our family, I had a career in bank management, but my all along, my dream was to stay at home with my babies once they came along. My husband always knew this, and fully supported me in this.

Because of a my life-long love for children, I was certain that a home daycare would be right up my alley. I opened my doors in 1998 when Matthew was 11 months old, and I’ve never looked back.

I often say I have one of the best jobs on the planet. It has allowed me to be at home with my boys during their formative years, and running a home daycare meant that while I am technically a WAHM, my focus was and always has been on the children. I love that, as well as having me at home with them, my boys had the added bonus of growing up surrounded by the kids in our daycare. And I can say without a doubt that my daycare has filled me with more joy, passion and satisfaction than my career in the corporate world ever could have.

The Hooligans and I spend our days crafting, baking, creating, exploring and adventuring. We’re all about old-fashioned fun here: getting messy, imaginative play, outdoor fun, and realizing the value of free and unstructured play.

I hope you like what you find when you browse through the posts here.

I am grateful to so many amazing bloggers out there who inspire me daily to make the Hooligans’ world more exciting, engaging and adventurous. You have all helped me take my own creativity to a new level.

I hope that Happy Hooligans might also serve as a the kind of place that inspires others in the same way.

Thanks for stopping in! I’d love for you to stay a while and poke around. And please feel free to drop me a line at jackie@happyhooligans.ca or leave a comment here on my blog. I’d love to hear from you!

Yours in Play,

Jackie & The Hooligans.