week in review...

I have felt so compelled to write lately, but since I've taken quite a long break, I almost feel like I don't know where to get started. I think this is the easiest way for me is to dust off this blog of mine.  I'm feeling an urgency to journal my thoughts and my life.  I'm sure this will be lots of rambling, but hopefully this will help get my rusty writing skills back on track.

Life is busy.  My days are filled from morning until evening with stuff.  Things to do.  Places to be.  But, we are in a beautifully content spot in our lives.  I love my kids ages.  I'm loving the time I have with Tim.  I love our life right now.  Every week my iphone is filled with pictures like the ones below.  These probably give the best sneak peak into my life.

I always get a wild hair and start projects like this on a whim.  One day, after the cleaning the playroom, i felt like the Lego's weren't being utilized as well as they should.  Who could find anything in that huge container, with millions of different Lego pieces?  I HATE having things in my home that are not being utilized!  I wondered if they were organized better if the kids would play with them more.  Therefore, this project was born:

We spent the weekend sorting Lego's in our free time, which actually turned out to be perfect since I came down with a nasty cold and didn't have much desire to do anything else.  A few days later, our Lego's were all organized and now look like this.  I need to spruce it up a little more and give them some proper Lego's, but I'm so happy we got this far.  I got this idea here from the blog I heart organizing.  Hoping to make mine as cute as hers soon!  I am happy to report that my boys have been playing with Lego's for a week straight and they are still perfectly organized in the bins.  (Wish me luck).

Tim was trying to participate in "Movember" but couldn't do it any longer.  This is what he showed up to dinner looking like one night.  I'm happy to report that nobody approved of the handlebar mustache and it was removed shortly hereafter!  (Please note the can of coconut milk on the table!  I asked Cooper to go downstairs and bring me up a can of mandarin oranges, this is what we got instead!)

I take pictures of EVERYTHING!  What did I do before I had an iphone?!  When I want to remember a quote or send it to someone, I just take a picture of it.  The result is lots of these pictures on my phone.  I love that I will have documentation of these inspirational things.  I really do love the idea being taught here.

Crew has a friend!  He has more than one friend, but he now has a friend that he is always asking to play with.  "Call Mack", "Mack's House", "Mack come over."  They are adorable together (most of the time).  Sometimes Crew can be a bit overwhelming to Mack, but I love watching these little relationships form. 

Parker has a million friends!  This kid is the life of the party.  Tim and I were at the school for Cooper's parent teacher conferences, which were held during the day and decided to go spy on our other boys.  We found them in the lunchroom.  Here is Parker's crazy group of boys that he was eating lunch with.  I couldn't get any of them to hold still long enough to take a picture!

In a magical moment, Payton was also in the lunchroom!  He had to be a dun-dun-dun LUNCH WORKER.  Ugh, he hates it because you have to miss recess.  And it requires work.  This kid would not even acknowledge that he knew us so I did what ever normal parent would do, pulled out my camera and started taking pictures.  (Maybe I am just a little embarrassing!)

Whizzing by me as fast as can be...

Sometimes a clean playroom needs to be documented...

And a delicious dinner that was thrown together with a bunch of leftovers...

And these crazy kids dressing up and having fun...

One of my favorite moments of the week, was how excited Parker was about his Cub Scout den meeting.  They did a service project where they handed out "free smiles" and suckers to people that were coming into the rec center.  How would this not brighten anyone's day?  He has the best Cub Scout Leaders and always has so much fun!

Other notable events from this past week were the boys Parent Teacher Conferences.  They are all great kids.  I'm happy their teachers seem to know them and love them.  I'm happy my kids are able to do well and don't need too much help from us!

Cooper almost got hit by a car in the Target parking lot.  Happy I didn't see it, but scared us to death for a few days.  Reminded to slow down just a little bit and focus on what's most important!

Time out for Women, Catching Fire, Bergstrom's Thanksgiving Dinner, Sophia's Birthday party, indoor soccer games...it's all in a weeks work, but I love it.  I'm where I always dreamed I would be!

homework confession

After being off track for over a month, my two oldest headed back to school today and I'm just trying to gear myself up for it!

Payton, my oldest son, is in third grade, which means that he's been in school for 4 years.  Up until this year, we've never done homework.  Go ahead, gasp and judge me.  I told you it was a confession.  It's not something I'm proud of.  In my defense, he has always been a great student and he's an extremely independent child.

I thought I was living it up while I could.  I'm sure he'll have more homework when he gets older, let's take advantage of this down time while we can. I'd reassure myself.

He's always had spelling words, daily reading and math papers that would come home, but Payton would complete his math papers while on the bus ride home so that he wouldn't have to waste his precious play time once he got home.  He also spent so much time at school working on the spelling words that he never needed to practice them at home.  He does his daily reading with the lamp beside his bed after we've tucked him in for the night.

My point is.  I've never been involved in the homework process...until this year.  Two things happened:

First, Payton started getting homework.  Not just do-on-the-bus-homework, but needs- to-be-done-at-home-redo-that-assignment-because-it's-too-sloppy-need-your-parents-help-buy a tri-fold-for kind of homework.

Second, Parker started kindergarten.  He gets a packet that he needs to complete each month, a book he reads daily and sight words to practice, which is easy.  The issue is that he LOVES homework. (I'll explain why this is an "issue".)  He always has.  Even when he was in preschool he was begging to do "homework."  (Honestly, I have no idea where he learned the word...not at our house!)

So, after 4-years of no homework, we are now required to do homework.  Like everything else in life, I had to make it a priority.  And I did.  The past few weeks I've had to set weekly goals.  Help boys with homework - daily.  Since I'm being honest, it hasn't happened daily (just like my exercise goal), but I'm trying.  I want to get in the habit of learning in our home daily.  I want to develop these skills that my boys will need for the next bazillion years of their lives until the graduate with their PHD's.  (A mom can dream.)

When I first began trying to implement homework daily it was painful for ALL of us.  Payton has never been in the habit so he thought I was torturing him.  Parker never wants to stop doing homework once we start because he loves it so much and gets angry when I tell him we're done for the day.  For me, I've struggled to find a good time to help two boys, without pulling my hair out!

We don't have a set routine yet, but I think we're getting there.  My only goal has been to do something, anything daily.  I've realized there are so many fun ways to do homework.  These scrabble tiles (pictured above) have been perfect for Parker to spell out his sight words.  AND, he can do this for hours without needing my help, just a quick glance of approval every so often.

Payton is really competitive and loves games.  We use this website aaamath.com.  Payton loves doing the timed tests.  We play another game together with flashcards.  We lay the multiplication flashcards down on the table and the first person that can say the answer gets to keep the card, until the stack of flashcards are gone.  Whoever has the most cards wins.  Honestly, he's beat me a lot of times without me letting him win.  We are both having fun and we're learning.  Better than that, we're doing...HOMEWORK!

All this time, I thought I was being so smart, but now I'm realizing how much I've missed out on.  Luckily, there is always time to change a habit and start something new.  I'm grateful that I am finally making homework a priority.

Do you have any great homework suggestions for me?  As you can tell, I still need a lot of help!

children's chores

I am not great at having my kids help me clean around the house and doing weekly or daily chores. My boys are very responsible. They make their beds every morning, brush their teeth, get dressed themselves and always keep their room clean, but it's the other household chores they don't often do. Not because they don't like too, but because I don't let them. They absolutely love cleaning the toilets, vacuuming and dusting so I usually try to do it when they are not around so that they won't ask to help. What's wrong with me? I'll tell you. I'm a perfectionist. I've recently realized that this is not helpful for my children. I know that I need to involve my children in the household responsibilities whether I like it or not. It is my responsibility to teach them, not to make sure they have a perfectly clean house to live in.

I have tried to establish different chore routines for our family, but none of them have worked with our lifestyle. The only day we could all clean together would be Saturday's and that is impossible with our sport schedules.

I've tried to assign my children to certain areas of the home, but they always get jealous of what somebody else is doing. Also, I've noticed that a lot of times things were getting done that didn't need to be. Therefore, I came up with a solution that I could have complete control over, but still allow the boys to help. I would chose a Daily Chore for my children. I've tried to do this before, but was always too lazy about it. I would make up silly little tasks for my kids to do just to make them feel like they were helping. However, this wasn't teaching them anything.

In order to give more responsibility to my kids and also make myself accountable to actually let them help, I typed up and laminated a bunch of chores that always need to be done around the house so that I don't have to try to come up with something off the top of my head. Each day I put up a chore on their charts depending on the needs of our home. We've been doing this for over a week and it is working out fabulous. My kids are so excited to see what their daily chore is and I am forced to pick something and have them do it. It has been more work for me right now because I have to teach them the proper way to do things, but I know this will pay off down the road. Soon enough I will have amazing little workers who can unload the dishwasher, dust the house and vacuum the floors just the way I like it {or close enough}! It's also helping me realize that letting go of control is not so bad. These boys really can help out and do a great job.

Here is how I implemented our new chore system. I made a "Vacation Countdown Calendar." We have done this every time before we've gone on a trip and it's worked so well for my kids. We are planning to go to Disneyland in June. The boys use these charts as a way to earn money for the trip. If they complete all of their "Jones POWER responsibilities" on the left side of the chart they earn a sticker for the day. Each sticker is worth 50 cents. If the boys get a sticker every single day they will be able to earn $40 to spend on the trip. If they don't earn a sticker one day, they just won't earn that money so if they choose not to do their chores one day {which has happened in the past} they just get less money. I don't have to nag my boys to do something. They have a choice. They have a reward or a consequence. It's really a best case scenario all around. Tim & I figure that we would spend at least $40 on souvenirs for them anyway. So, why not have them earn it?

Here is the chart I use to start with:

This is the Daily Chore portion that is laminated so that I can easily transfer it to future months chore charts.

I pasted the calendar on to a 12x12 card stock paper.

Then I let the boys personalize them.

Both of the boys charts hang in our kitchen near the pantry where they easily see them all day long. They are constantly reminded that they have a goal they are working towards.

My absolute favorite part of this chart is that I incorporated all 5 aspects of our family motto. I was trying to think of something I could do for "enthusiastic," I thought of things that make me happy; exercise and serving others. I added these two things to the boys chart and it's been their favorite thing. They have been sharing with each other so well. They are constantly telling me all the nice things they are doing for each other. They are also doing push-ups and sprints every night. It's pretty cute!

Now, let's see how long this lasts?