Category: May

May-cember

The new trendy word this year I have been hearing a lot is May-cember. Meaning that May is crazy busy and packed full of end of the school year stuff and it feels like December because so much is going on. It is true, its a busy month. I find the word a little obnoxious though. I feel like it will perpetuate the craziness and people will start making things bigger and more elaborate to live up to the word. I am a little grumpy and cynical today though so maybe it’s just my negative attitude. We have had plenty going on this month though. I have put some of it in other posts but there are a few things I think are worth mentioning that I haven’t yet.

Ryan and I celebrated our 17th anniversary. Wow. It seems like forever and 5 minutes at the same time. The kids spent the night at their cousins and Ryan and I went downtown and stayed at a fancy hotel in the Power and Light District. We ate at a fancy steak house, and walked around afterwards for a bit. We found a place called Insomnia Cookie. They had giant delicious cookies that were served warm and they were open and delivered until 3AM. AAAhhh! I have never met a cookie I didn’t like so I tried a few. They were YUMMY! It was a fun little find but probably good that they are far enough away from my house that I can’t just pop in whenever I have a cookie craving.

Saw this at the Insomnia Cookie place, that would make your day better for sure!

The last time we had family pictures taken was four years ago. I have never gone that long between pictures but I really love the ones we have up now. I have been saying every Spring and Fall for the past two years that we needed to get new ones so I finally made myself make an appointment. Part of the reason I was postponing was because I was going to ‘lose 10 pounds first’ but mostly because it is a lot of work to get clean, coordinating outfits that fit everyone and haircuts, schedules, and the weather to all cooperate. It finally got done though. Instead of losing 10 pounds I gained 10 more, we had to reschedule once for rain, and Allison got a giant purple popsicle stain on her yellow shirt hid from me until we got there because she wasn’t supposed to eat it in the first place, but thanks to photo shop, we still got them done. I haven’t seen them yet, I am anxious for them to come!

Girls fell asleep after family pictures. Smiling for an hour is tough work.

I have been working on a few projects, or encouraging Ryan to work on a few projects around the house that we have wanted done for a while. It is nice to be getting a few of them checked off. Ryan put a screen door on our back porch which is awesome. I love being able to leave the door open and get fresh air with no bugs. Assuming everything lives I finally have the rock beds planted we put in last year and everything replaced that died last year and our front yard is done and can just grow and be pretty. Sherri helped me figure out the back yard while she was here so I can start on that…next year. I decorated our bathroom and master bedroom. We have a nice, pretty, relaxing space for Ryan and I to go hide in when we want to now. I also completed phase one of two in our garage re-organization. I designed some custom shelves that would hold and organize all the sports stuff in our garage. Ryan was willing to build them but I was not willing to wait until he had time to do it so I did it. It took me longer to do it, but it got done sooner that way and I was pretty impressed with myself. Power tools make me nervous but I got over it and used drills, saws and all kinds of power tools to get it done. The next thing I am currently working on is putting a new sink in our main floor half bath. It has a pedestal sink in it now which is completely useless and drives me crazy. I ordered an unfinished cabinet and I am sanding and staining it to match the rest of our cabinetry, then Ryan will put it in. Oh, we got our house tested for Radon as well and it measured at unsafe levels so we had a Radon pump put in. Ryan is convinced and I am on the fence that the whole Radon thing is a farce but we got a pump anyway. They left a PVC eye sore up the entire side of our house when they put it in. Ryan was not happy. The next day I climbed up to the very top of our 30′ ladder while Matthew held it with enough focus that made me feel only slightly more secure then if he wasn’t there at all but he promised to call 911 if I fell. I painted it all the same color as our house. Ryan hasn’t said anything since so it worked well enough that he doesn’t notice it anymore.

Matthew finished up 6th grade! He said it was the fastest year of school he has had so far. He also admitted that it school ‘isn’t that bad’. He had Field Day too but I didn’t make it to his so I don’t have pictures. He said it was a good time though. He always enjoys when he gets to test his speed skills. He is looking forward to not having to ride the bus for 45 minutes next year because he will be at the new middle school by our house. He picked art, cooking class, engineering and I can’t remember the last elective for next year. I was impressed with his variety when he showed me.

I did make it to his award ceremony. He was on the Principals Straight ‘A’s’ Honor Roll and was also recognized for participating in Mathletes and being the representative several times for their school for the events throughout the year. He is such a good boy. He just takes care of what he needs to have done and does a good job and is a good person. I am glad I get to be his mom.

  • Continental Math
  • Principal Honor Roll
  • Good job Matthew!

Emilee finishes up Kindergarten!

Emilee had her first Field Day this year. She didn’t really understand what it was but it was talked up enough by everyone and her teacher at school that she was very excited for it. She had a really fun time. She ran super fast in her relay. Her class was not the strongest at tug of war but they were the fastest in the mat pass. She loved the hamster ball and blow ups too. She tried the slip and slide but didn’t want to get to wet. I had a fun time sitting on the sidewalk drinking our lemonade and eating our snack. She is fun to just hang out with. She smoked everyone at the rope and net climb. She was pretty amazing on the pull up bar too. her gymnastic teachers always tell me how she is super strong. I don’t really notice it until she is doing more pull ups then the 3rd graders and climbing the rope in 3 seconds.

  • Playing Jenga with Carter.
  • Running in the hamster ball.
  • Zipping up the rope.
  • Racing the other kids up the net.
  • Getting ready for the class relay race.

For our end of the year celebration for Girl Scouts we went to a swimming activity. We had pizza and cupcakes and the girls swam their little hearts our for two hours. It was a fun time. Emilee says she wants to do it again next year so I guess I am in for another year as her Troop Leader. I still can’t believe I signed up to be a girl scout troop leader.

Emilee is getting really good with her reading and writing. I find lots of notes around the house that she has written. This is a picture she had laying next to her the other night when I checked on her before I went to bed. I loved it! We had just taken our family pictures the day before so she had drawn one of the poses we did. We are all lined up holding hands. I love the details she included too, all of our hair is correct and Ryan has his beard. Hehehe! So cute.

Ryan has been trying to take the girls out on a daddy date for some one on one time lately. Emilee was very excited and was watching like a hawk for Ryan to come home on their date day because she was very excited to go her Daddy Date. A friend came over and asked her to play and she said she would have to play another time because she didn’t want to miss her date with her dad. Emilee has the worlds biggest sweet tooth. For her date they started at the donut store with the best milk every made-strawberry flavor. Then they headed to a park and ran off some of the sugar.

My youngest is done with Kindergarten! It seems like just yesterday we were taking Matthew and Allison to Kindergarten! Emilee was excited to go to school this year but she struggled with the separation in the morning. She got braver each day and before long was jumping out the car door and skipping to class. She really likes her teacher. Mrs. Pahl is very nice and very organized and does a really good job making everyone feel special and important. I don’t think Emilee realizes yet that she won’t have Mrs. Pahl for 1st grade. We can worry about that later though.

For Kindergarten Promotion the kids sing a few songs for the parents. They all have a cute little graduation cap and tassle. Afterwards everyone goes back to their own class and the teacher hands out awards. Emilee got the Butterfly Award for her amazing colorful art work.

  • Promotion Songs
  • Emilee is not shy when they sing as a class. She loves it!
  • Heading back to class for awards after the performance.
  • Getting her Butterfly Award.
  • Emilee with Mrs. Pahl.
  • Only one more day of Kindergarten!
  • Mom and Emi selfie.
  • Emilee and her friend Bennett
  • Emilee and her friend Stella
  • Emilee and her friend Alton
  • Emilee and her friend Laney.

Allison wraps up the school year!

Allison has had a busy last month of school. Her teacher’s name this year is Miss Coovert. It is her first year teaching and she is pretty awesome. Allison has loved having her. All the third grade teachers have made this a pretty fun year. They always had fun projects when they learned things and Allison loved being able to use her creativity. One of her favorite projects was making a bottle buddy of a famous Kansan out of a soda bottle and a foam ball for the head. She picked Bob Dole because his name was Bob.

They have gone on several field trips the last few weeks too. They went to the Topeka Zoo and toured the Capitol building. They went to the Fire Station, and last week they went to the Mahaffie Stage Coach Stop. I went on that one with her. We panned for gold, road in a stage coach and learned a lot about the different trails pioneers used to travel around. I am glad that I got to go on a field trip with her. She won’t want me on to many more probably. She is getting to where she wants to be around friends more and more.

  • Panning for gold, we didn’t have any luck.
  • Stage Coach ride!
  • Mahaffie Stage Coach Stop

Allison has been learning the value of honesty the past few weeks too, and is still working on it. She asked me to sign her planner after school one day, which is very normal. The ‘planner’ she brought me was not normal. It was a stack of lined paper taped together with “Do Math” written on it. At the bottom of said stack of papers was a suspicious orange piece of paper sticking out that said “Parent Signature”. As you might have guessed she wanted me to sign her ‘planner’ on the orange paper. I looked at her and said, ‘You want me to sign your planner, is this your planner.’ She looked back and said, ‘Yep, my real one is missing so I made one.’ I picked up the pen she conveniently had ready for me to sign with and signed the white paper, she of course said I should sign at the bottom where the orange paper said. I told her is she wanted me to sign the orange paper I would have to untape it and read what it said first. I wish I could have gotten a picture of her face when she realized that her plan had not worked. I remember coming up with ridiculous plans like that as a kid and wondering how my plan could have possibly failed. Allison quickly disappeared when I started un-taping her ‘planner’. I told her when she wanted me to sign it she could come talk to me about it. It was a think sheet from school. They have to fill one out when they do something they are not supposed. It says what they did, why it’s wrong, and what they are going to do to fix it. All the teachers have tickets at the school and hand them out to kids when they see them doing something good. When they get so many tickets they can turn them in for a prize in the office. Allison had decided that she would make her own tickets at home with our color printer and then turn them in at school and told her teacher the substitute they had the day before had given them to her. Again, how did this brilliant plan fail?!? I of course did not fail to point out the irony that she tried to get me to sign her think sheet about being dishonest by trying to trick me and be dishonest again showing she clearly had a lot to learn about being honest. After a long repetitive talk about honesty and trust, several drafts of an apology letter to her teacher before one was approved, and the punishment of being grounded from friends and all electronics for two weeks, I signed her think sheet.

The forged tickets…

One of the best days of the year in elementary school is Field Day. It was a great success this year. It was 85 degrees and sunny. Perfect weather to play outside. They had the younger kids do Field Day in the morning and the older ones in the afternoon. I went and helped out with both of them and had some fun one on one time. Allison helped her class win the relay race and the tug of war. She had a few turns in the giant hamster balls and blow up obstacle course and slide. They had fun water activities and lots of rope climbs, net climbs, hula hoops, dancing, pogo sticks, and topped it off with lemonade and popsicles.

  • Water games
  • Alli in the hamster ball
  • Allison and Paighton waiting for the hamster ball.
  • Running her leg of the relay race.
  • Nice job Allison!

Allison finished her second year of Girl Scouts this year. She bridged from being a Brownie to a Junior. She joined a new troop this year and has really liked it. They do a lot more outdoor stuff. She went on a campout at the Zoo a few weeks ago. They went on a night hike while they were there and saw the animals while they were sleeping. Then they slept in one of the exhibits. She has a few good friends in her troop too. I am glad she has found something that she looks forward too.

  • Allison with her Girl Scout Troop
  • Walking through the rainbow bridge.
  • She is now a Junior Cadette instead of a Brownie.

This week at school they had the talent show and awards ceremony. Allison and her friend Hailey started working on a cheer routine at the very beginning of the year. Somewhere along the way it got changed to Hailey and Paighton doing the cheer (I think because they had matching cheer outfits) and Allison was the comedic relief/judge for the cheer leaders. They were all pretty excited about it and had fun doing it.

Allison was awarded the Student of the Month for P.E. and Miss Coovert gave her the Helping Hand Award because she is always willing to help in the class room. She is a very helpful girl when she wants to be.

She can also be thoughtful. The past week or so she has been learning to sew a little bit. She made a few pillow cases for herself to use. Then she decided to make little throw pillows for each of her Grandma’s so she picked out some fabric, I helped a little but she cut, sewed, stuffed and then decorated them pretty much on her own. They turned out pretty cute. She definitely has talented crafty side. In between sewing projects she decided to make a snack serving platter for her chips, salsa, and fruit. It actually worked quite well.

Allison’s snack tray.

Mother’s Day Weekend

For Mother’s Day weekend Ryan and Matthew decided that I would love to watch baseball. Just kidding. The coach asked if the moms were on board for a tournament that weekend and none of us were going to be the one that poohooed the idea so the coach decided that’s what we would want to do for Mother’s Day. The boys probably put him up to it though.

I do very much enjoy watching them play though so I wasn’t put out. The rain decided to come down almost nonstop for the whole weekend though so instead of playing baseball we spent most of it waiting the rain out in the car, or under an overhang somewhere. One of our games was close to one of the players homes so we went and had a little Mother’s Day celebration there while we waited for a bit. The boys each gave us a red carnation with a card that they wrote a little note to us on and it had a team picture and an individual picture of Matthew for me. There was brownies, donuts, and chocolate too so it was a pretty fun time. While the moms hung out and relaxed the boys and the rest of the kids decided to have a game of wiffle ball in the cul de sac. I think we only ended up playing one game the whole weekend. We all went to lunch together while we were waiting too. We do enjoy this team and the families. Everyone is nice and friendly and for the most part gets along. We have fun times together.

Emilee and Allison love being around the boys. Allison plays is cool and tries to act like she could take them or leave them. Neither one of them is supposed to be in the dug out but Allison will casually meander in there and try and go unnoticed as long as she can. Emilee is much less subtle. She knows better but occasionally I have to haul her out of the dug out or an after game huddle. She likes to give the boys more attention then they usually want with hugs, jokes, sharing toys, tickling, stealing their hats, offering one sunflower seed at a time, asking them for sunflower seeds and anything else she can think of. Some of them don’t know what to do with her so they just pretend she isn’t there. A few start calling for Matthew to ‘fix her’ and a couple are sweet and play a little bit with her. We remind Matthew that they will never admit it (at least Allison) but they watch him like a hawk and want to be like him and with him as much as they can so when he can he needs to include them. Sometimes I get an eye roll but most of the time he is good about letting them hang around when they can.

  • Team lunch waiting for better weather.
  • Matthew running the bases in wiffle ball.
  • All the moms and the boys on Mother’s Day.
  • Emilee spending a half inning on dads lap.
  • Matthew forgot how to wear a shirt.
  • Emilee giving Cam the run down on how many flowers she collected so far.

Tiger Sanctuary

Once baseball gets started it is not very often that we find ourselves with a free Saturday but a few weeks ago we had a few hour stretch on a Saturday so we decided to go and check out a Tiger Sanctuary that we heard about that is only a few miles from our house. We actually heard about it from a guy that Ryan works with. He lives right across the road from it and he wakes up to the lions roar every morning. I think that would be pretty cool. Lions roars are pretty awesome sounding, way better than an obnoxious beep from an alarm or rooster crow. Not that either of those wake me up every morning either I’m just saying that seems like a very invigorating, get up and get going, sound to wake up to in the mornings.

It was a pretty cool adventure. The kids all liked it. While we were waiting for our tour guide to get us we walked around the little shop and they have a giant beehive with plexi glass for walls so you can watch the bees inside their hive and see what they do and what it looks like. The were even able to find the queen bee that was laying eggs.

When our tour guide came and got us we walked around the sanctuary and got to meet all the animals. They have around 37 animals there in all. They were all animals that had been rescued from situations or injuries that won’t allow them to be in the wild anymore on their own. They had 6-8 tigers, a few lynx, servals, a pair of foxes, a leopard, a lion and a lioness, and a handful of other animals that I had never heard of before that we saw. Our guide told us a lot about each animal and also told us each of the animals individual stories and about their personalities. The tour was almost an hour long and the kids were interested the whole time, and new most of the animals by name when we were done. One of the things that stood out to me the most that I didn’t know before we went is that a fox makes oil on its skin that smells just like a skunk. It is a self defense mechanism. That is of course why the people that thought it would be ‘fun’ to have a pet fox got rid of him when he started making that smell. Boy did he stink!!

The last two animals we saw were wolves. They were both losing their winter coat and there was wolf fur all over the place back in their area. Our guide grabbed a handful of it and let the kids feel how soft it was. Emilee immediately started running around collecting as much of it as she could. She was very disappointed when her dad said she could not bring it home. She went from disappointed to mad when she looked at me to see if I would over ride dad and let her keep it and instead I said not only could she not take it home, she could not take it in the van. Gross. That is all we need, a giant ball of wolf hair spread all over the car and house.

Despite the wolf fur set back, we all had a good time and it was a cool place to see.

  • The animals were much more active then in zoos, the kids liked seeing them up and moving around.
  • This tiger was rescued from the circus.
  • Emilee begging to keep just a little wolf fur, oh and the really cool stick she couldn’t live without too.

Girls Camp 2018

Allison had to be convinced to go to Girls Scout Camp at first. She was a little perterbed that it wasn’t actually camping. It would be more accurately described as a day camp I guess. She wanted to spend the night. She said she would still go once she found out that her bestie Carlee was going to be there though. She ended up being very happy that she went.

We made all her ‘swaps’ to trade. I have a picture of some of those in an earlier post. She ended up with over 50 when she was all done making them. She put about half on her hat for the first day, it was so heavy it kept falling off of her head. Ironically she traded some the first day then decided that she liked hers the best so she stopped trading so she could keep her own.

She was up and ready to go everyday without any proding. She laid everything out the night before then wrote a list to check off in the morning to make sure she had everything, even though she had already checked everything off on the list she made to pack everything the night before. Hehehe! That is a little bit of myself coming out in her-makes a momma proud. We share the love of making lists. Hahaha! Actually, I have seen Ryan do that too when he has a fun golf trip the next day or he is leaving on his annual Vegas Guys Trip.

She had a blast. The bus ride to and from the camp was about 40 minutes and that was one of the best parts. There were lots of crafts to do, they went fishing, hiking, zip lining, had a cook out, archery, and a little free time to make sure there was plenty of time to swap their swaps.

Camp was Tuesday thru Friday. When I was picking her up on Thursday I heard someone yell, “Bye Taylor, see you tomorrow.” To which Alli said, “Bye see you tomorrow.”  I looked at her with a questioning look and she said, “Oh, I told everyone that my name is Taylor this week.” I don’t know where she comes up with her ideas sometimes.

Overall, ‘Taylor’ had a fun time and was glad she went. She is getting older and able to do more activities and be a little busier with her own stuff. It is helping her a lot to be happier and more satisfied. Sometimes she struggles with not getting to do everything that Matthew does, and has a hard time accepting that he is four years older than her. Someday that won’t be that big of a difference but right now it is pretty signifigant. She is very independent and motivated so she thinks that qualifies her to do anything an 11 year old can do. It is not just the age difference though. Matthew and her have very different personalities and their responsibility and realiability play a roll in it too which she doesn’t understand. I don’t expect her to grasp that either, it can just make for some frusterating repetative conversations for both of us.

She is still loving gymnastics, she decided to sign up to do Girl Scouts again next year, and is looking forward to resuming piano in the Fall as well. Top that off with being in 3rd grade and she should feel pretty busy with her own things going on.

Memorial Day and Grandma Terry’s Birthday.

The first couple weeks of summer were pretty hopping. I worked quite a bit. The girls went to Ms. Cristi or Ms Sheila’s house. They came home exhausted each day from playing with all the other kids and swimming. Emilee usually came home and crashed on the couch for a bit if she made it home at all before she fell asleep. Alli is a little less pleasant when she is tired so we had some rough nights with that. Matthew is ‘to old’ to have a babysitter but to young to watch the girls all day so he chose to stay home while I worked. He did some chores to earn electronics. He played with his neighbor friends too. I have two days left in June that I agreed to work and then I am unavailable the rest of summer.

We have hit the pool as much as we have had time too. Our neighborhood is owned by the same person that owns the neighborhoods east and west of us so they have combined all the amenities for all the neighborhoods to use. That gives us access to four pools which is really nice. One of the pools is pretty big and has a slide so most people tend to go to that one so we avoid that one and have the others to ourselves or very little company if there are others there. We try and invite cousins and friends to come swim with us too.

I went to a Starlight Theater show with some friends called #imomsohard. It was a comedy show about being a mom. I heard about it a few months ago and thought it would be a fun girls night out so when I asked Lori, Janae, and Liz were available and wanted to go. There were a lot of funny jokes, some about being late and making crazy arrangements to get places and things done with kids and family. We all had a good laugh at those inparticular. Between the four of us we had to arrange three babysitters, three chauffers for four different kids, and it took three cars to get us all there because we had to leave from baseball games, girls camp and work to get there. At some point we all said we might just skip because it was such a hassle to make all the arrangements to get there but we did it! We all made it and we were all glad once we got there and got to visit and laugh together for an hour and a half before we went to pick up kids, drop babysitters off and put everyone to bed.

Memorial weekend always feels like the official kick off to summer for me. The beginning of May this year was still pretty cold and I always wonder if they pools will really be able to open at the end of the month. But they do, and it is plenty warm! We don’t have a plan that we do every year for Memorial Day. Sometimes we stay home and work on projects, invite friends over to BBQ, or occasionally go some place. This year we went to Lincoln. Becky and her family came to visit Grandma and Grandpa Terry so we went up to see everyone and our Terry cousins came too. It was a relaxing weekend. We got out the slip-n-slide and sprinklers. Lauren’s kids and ours are getting old enough they pretty much police themselves and entertain themselves so sometimes we slip out to go shopping, or go to a movie, or get our nails done or something. There is usually some kind of game going on too. It was also Grandma Terry’s birthday on Monday. The kids decorated some cupcakes for her and she received many pictures and drawings they made. We sang her Happy Birthday. She seemed to be feeling pretty good so we got to spend more time with her too. I love the picture of her and Alli making faces at each other. We had a nice BBQ lunch and came back a little early on Monday to make it to baseball practice.

Sarah returns!

A few weeks ago Ryan and Matthew had something going on and it was a gorgeous night so we went to a park to play. I was pushing the girls in the swings and realized that I knew the person standing next to us. Her name was Nikki and her younger sister Sarah was my kids first babysitter. She used to watch them when I worked in the summer and then through out the school year for dates and stuff. The kids LOVE her. She was their main babysitter for about 4 years until she moved to California. They still talk about her and remember all the amazing times they had with Sarah.  She is graduated now and actually just got back from a mission about a month ago. Her parents are still in California but she came to visit her sister for a few days and happened to be on her way to meet Nikki at the park. My kids were over the moon excited when she showed up. They were running and playing tag with her within 5 minutes and so excited to see her.

When the girls told Matthew about it later that night he was pretty disappointed he didn’t get to see her. She ended up stopping by later that week for a few minutes to see Matthew too. I thought he might be ‘to cool’ but he was just as happy as the girls and had perma grin the whole time she was there. Emilee couldn’t get close enough to her and Allison was trying to tell and show her everything about her life in ten minutes. It was pretty cute. I love that they have those fun memories of her babysitting them. I think Matthew was 6 the last time she watched them. Emilee was only 1-2 so she doesn’t even have any actual memories of her but the older two have built her up so much she loves her by association. I am glad we ran into her. She was only here for a week then headed home for a bit before going to school, so it was good timing.

Summer begins!

Well yesterday was Matthew and Allison’s last day of school, and today was Emilee’s so we are officially in summer mode!

Emilee and I went to the elementary school for the last hour or so to watch the 5th grade slide show with Matthew and eat treats with him while they signed t-shirts and year books. Then we went to Alli’s class and ate popsicles and danced and took silly pictures with her. Then the whole school lined up in the halls and all the 5th graders walked through the school for their ‘final walk’ while everyone cheered and gave them a high five. It was a fun time.

Emi had a fun time today for her last day and got her little preschool diploma and gave Ms. Cristi a big hug. She will see her a few times over the summer when I work, but once kindergarten starts next year we probably won’t see Ms. Cristi to often anymore. She is an awesome teacher. Allison and Emilee love her to death. They love her so much that Matthew holds a grudge against me for not having him go to her for preschool. (It was her first year and I already had him enrolled in another one when I found out she was going to do it). Apparently his preschool experience was hardly bearable.

Switching topics a little, a few years ago we started working with a therapist with Allison to help her deal with her emotions a little better. One of the things he wanted us to start implementing right away was a ticket system that basically for doing things we want her to do she earns tickets and then can use those tickets to do things she wants to do. It is supposed to help her learn cause/effect, choice/consequence, need/wants, etc. We started out all gung-ho and did good and then have been off and on after the first little while with it. I won’t bore you with all the details as to why but it has become a pain in my butt. Everytime we go see him I know he is going to ask me if we are doing it, and I always go in with the intentions of telling him where he can stick his stupid ticket system, and then I always leave telling him we will rally and try again. He is a good therapist…or at least good at getting you to agree with him to do something. So we go home try it again and start the cycle over again. Again, I won’t bore you with details as to why it falls apart and all the different things we have tried, but two years later we haven’t figured out how to make it maintainable…until now…I think…I hope.

I found an app the other day called Chore Monster. Basically it is the same thing her therapist has been wanting us to do. The app tells them their chores for the day and when they do it they get points and they can use the points for rewards. Same thing. Being electronic for some reason makes a huge difference for me. There is a parent app that goes with it called Mothershp. So I had to basically plug in the ‘master chore chart’ and the rewards and then the kids can get on any of our phones or ipads and find their chart. I can totally cater it to each kid and make it more specific for one and general for another. It is easy to change if something isn’t working (without certain kids even realizing it and throwing a fit), I don’t have to redo a whole chart or carry stupid tickets everywhere with me, or remember to get or give tickets because I didn’t have them on me. They don’t get lost, they can’t be torn up, scribbled on, or leave me mean notes. The parents are the only one with access to changing things. All the kids have to do it click ‘done’ or ‘claim’. I can even set it up for Matthew that he can just basically use it as a reference so he knows what his jobs are because he doesn’t need to be monitored as much, except for his electronic usage which this will do too. For the girls I get a notification when they complete a chore so I can approve it or not, which is awesome because I can check it right then to make sure it was done right or not. Which leads into another thing we are working on this summer.

Each summer we make a bucket list of fun activities we want to do. Each summer I also have to adjust and let go of my house being as clean as I like it all the time, which is something I like and want but I don’t want it to be more important than other things to me. I do feel like the kids should help contribute to keeping the house clean though since we all live in it and they should learn to care for their surroundings. So, last night Ryan and I told the kids that along with our regular bucket list we were going to have a summer theme too. We had a mini family meeting to tell them that the theme we picked for this summer is ‘Work hard and play hard’. We even made a poster to hang up to remind everyone of the theme everyday. Then we talked about using our time wisely and doing our jobs we are supposed to do, to the best of our ability and try our hardest the first time. We talked about how learning to work is good thing and helps them become responsible capable people. All things that Ryan and I have been wanting to improve and work on lately. Then we showed them the app and how it works.

Of course there was some skeptisism and baching but today was our first day and it went pretty good. They like that it is an app too so they get to use the phone or ipad to see their jobs and use an electronic.  The app also gives them a ticket everytime they complete or cash in their points. Just a fun little side thing the app does is there is a little wheel they can spin with each ticket and win a ‘prize’. It is totally silly, the prizes are another spin if they get a smiley face, if they get a sad face it is a bag of hammers, or a dirty sock, or Matthew got a bag of farts last night. The wheel is just a little bonus. They don’t actually get anything from spinning but they think it is hilarious to see what is in the bag.

Today was our first day of implementing it. The kids got up and got their jobs done and then started using their points to play. It worked pretty good, they all did their jobs, they all have plenty of points, they all had fun doing things. It was a good day. Crossing my fingers that it keeps working.

We also started crossing a few things off our Summer Bucket List too.  We went to lunch with dad. We got new books to ready at the library (first of many times this summer). We went swimming (also first of many times). AND we always have a night or two that we go fire fly hunting. A friend of ours told us about a really cool place she found that has tons of fire flies so the girls and I went to check it out tonight. It was amazing, there were thousands of them, we will have to take dad and Matthew with us another time (they were at a baseball thing). I took some pictures and videos but they don’t do it justice.