Last week we enjoyed weather that hit into the low 70s. Even the upper 50s were seeming warm and welcome. We went to the park. We walked a long bridge over a small wildlife refuge. We followed the black billowing smoke to a house on fire (sad, I know, but fascinating too).
But, the highlight of my week may have been when I was reading blogs and found someone recommending MyJobChart.com to help kids with chores and fun rewards. My kids have spent the weekend logging in to the site, discovering their chore lists and trying to get more points than their siblings. Nothing like a bit of healthy competition to finally get stuff done around here.
Mylie is also desperately wanting a new toy from the Disney store. She hasn't decided which one, but my guess is it will be something Minnie or Princess. As a result, her night time wanderings of the house and late night play is becoming a thing of the past. She gets a sticker for each night she stays in her bed without getting out. 21 stickers means a trip to the Disney Store. She hasn't missed a night yet and I am hoping a habit is forming here. We started the stay in bed sticker chart before we discovered MyJobChart.com, so we thought we better keep that one going as is since it is working.
Mylie's pictures are getting more elaborate and it is fun to see her express her little imagination through her art. She drew a very detailed Halloween picture for her friend Liam, and it involved a girl in a princess costume holding a trick or treat bag. The house was decorated for Halloween. There were bats in the window and Jack-o-lanterns on the porch. The moon had dark clouds pulling away from it. There was a ghost holding a colorful trick-or-treat bag on his way to the next house. He had on saddle oxfords. Up ahead of the ghost was a child in a dalmation costume. It was quite fantastic, I must say (and perhaps not just because I am her mother).
My kids had yesterday off for President's Day. Mylie has a goopy cold, if you know what I mean. So we pretty much just hung around the house and did chores, etc. Andrew completed five jigsaw puzzles. He and Zack played a few rounds of Jenga. Maddie made herself a tote bag out of a ceral box and a wallet out of an empty Almond Milk container. Did I mention we decided to pull the plug on cable? The kids can watch movies from our extensive VHS collection (the thrift store nearby sells 6 for $1 so we have almost every kids show on VHS ever), or watch shows on the computer. Their favorite site for shows lately is PBSkids.org and they really like the show Fetch. They have also renewed their love for our two pet guinea pigs, who have been getting much more attention lately.
My kids are home again from school today. That tricky little Mother Nature threw us a curve ball. She sent us gorgeous weather last week, and then she waited for a three day weekend to decide to send snow so that my kids could make their three day weekend a four day weekend. This really just keeps happening...
I hope we didn't burn out all our creativity yesterday!
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3 comments:
Creative little minds at work over at your house. We did away with cable too & joined Netflix. This way I won't be sucked into watching all of my trashy shows, or just watch them online later.
Wow - I hope you kept the Halloween picture instead of giving it to Liam. You should collect those little gems and use them as Halloween doecorations! That's what we did and it makes it so fun to pull out the holiday decorations and see what masterpieces we created when we were small. Go Maddie making fun/useful things out of recycled matierials. If she gets good and can twist the wrappers, she could make starburst bracelets and coke bottle top purses too!
props for giving up cable. i don't think i could do it. actually, all of my shows are on basic cable- but espn isn't- so that would never happen in this house:) jealous of the nice weather
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