Back to the old routine

Well, summer break is officially over although the weather stuck around! : ) My kids had lots of fun this summer and of course, every year, it seems to go by faster and faster.

This summer, we made our first summer list.

We marked off MOST of them. There are still a few left- one of which is potty-train my new 3 year old.

We spent lots of time on the waterslide.

We had our Back to School family night a couple weeks ago. We did this last year and the kids loved it!

Emma was in charge of decorations. She drew placemats on the paper tablecloth.

She also taped up little pictures she drew of school supplies.

I scored some lunch trays at GW several months ago.

Of course, we had to have rectangular pizza and corn.

Konnor always tries to close his eyes when I take a picture.

Brady said the blessing.

We talked about the new school year and how K and E could be an example of Christ to their friends and teachers.

After dinner, we made pencil cups out of old soup cans and scrapbooking supplies.

Then, the first day of school arrived. Emma started 1st grade and Konnor started 3rd.

Little Brady is still in pre-school!

We are looking forward to a great year ahead!

Disobedience Chores

It is always a good thing to have clear consequences for disobedience. In the past, when my kids have disobeyed, I would threaten them that if it happened again, they would be in trouble or I may have...just a few times.... resorted to yelling. I think we have all been there before. Until I had a plan in place for dealing with disobedience, I often got frustrated and didn't handle the situation in the best possible way to teach my kids why it is important to obey. So, I decided to make a plan. This may look like an ordinary mug, but it is not.

It is full of little folded pieces of paper each with a chore written on them.

My kids have age-appropriate weekly chores that they do to earn money like taking out the trash, bringing in the mail and cleaning their rooms. We have chore day on Thursdays when they complete these weekly chores.

When they make a bad choice and disobey, they have to go to this mug and pull out a disobedience chore. There are times when we use other disciplinary actions, but this seemed to be a great quick consequence to disobedience.

They do not get to choose which chore they want to do. So it is the luck of the draw whether they get to wash the windows in the living room or clean the toilet in the upstairs bathroom.

I tried to put chores in the disobedience mug that would be less than desirable, but helpful for me to have done. I must say that since we have been using disobedience chores, I have been much calmer and more effective in my parenting. My kids have been happier because they know the rules and consequences to breaking them. And- my house has been a little cleaner!

For the record- this is my daughter doing her weekly chore, not a disobedience chore!

You should check out Lifeway's Homelife Magazine this month. There are some great articles (one was actually written by moi!) and more family jar (mug) ideas. I can't wait to try out the "Caught Doing Good" jar for my kids this summer. I'm hoping it will help my two oldest see the good in each other!

I'm posting on the Homelife blog this week, so check it out!

Typical

Most days look like this:

The boys are wrestling. Yes, my youngest still has his pjs on in the afternoon.

E is doing her homework. Eventhough she has all week to get her work done, she insists on doing it all in one night so she doesn't have to worry about it the rest of the week. Can't blame her really.

This was a rare occasion when her big brother wanted to help her and she allowed him to. Had to get a picture of that one.

Konnor's Baptism and Easter

A couple weeks ago, my husband had the honor of baptizing Konnor. It was an awesome day celebrating what God was already doing in our son's life. He has been on a journey of learning what it means to follow Christ (and still is!). He came to the point where he was ready to make the public statement of his faith. It has been so cool to see him feel genuine remorse and guilt over his sin. I even heard him telling his younger sister how she could become a Christ-follower, too.

We were so happy to have many of our close friends and family there to celebrate with us. It was truly a day we will never forget!

We had a busy Easter weekend with Secret Church on Friday night and services Saturday night and Sunday morning. The kids and I made resurrection rolls using this recipe. Let me just say, they were YUMMY and so easy! We will definitely make these again!

I mean, who doesn't love a cinnamon/sugar/butter covered marshmallow wrapped up in a crescent roll? I love how once they are cooked, they look very similar to a cave!

(BTW- we used reduced fat crescent rolls, I can't believe it's not butter and splenda in place of all the real stuff and they still tasted awesome!!)

The kids got into their Easter baskets about 5:30 because we all had to be at church super early.

After an awesome day at church, celebrating the ultimate sacrifice made for us, we had a great lunch and came home for some egg hunting.

(yes, my son was running around in his diaper- classy, huh?)

Here they are (+ a few neighborhood friends) digging into their loot.

It was a great day!

Valentine's Day Celebration!

Okay, so I'm a little late sharing about our family Valentine's Day party, but better late than never, right?

I dug out the decorations I used for last year's celebration.

I added the little mailboxes (for some reason, I didn't take a close up pic of them.) that I think everyone in blogland bought at the dollar spot in Target. I had intentions of cutting out the kids' names in vinyl with my silhouette, but I wimped out and just used stickers. Each family member made a valentine card for each other and we delivered them to the mailboxes. This year, we just used left over valentine cards that the kids didn't use for their classmates. Next year, I'm hoping to think ahead enough to have the kids make hand-made cards for each other. It definitely kept them busy while I was getting dinner ready, though. I always take any advantage I get to encourage the kids (mainly Konnor and Emma!) to say/do something nice for each other!

For dinner, we decided to have a Papa Murphy heart-shaped pizza. For $5, you can't beat it!

After eating pizza, we opened our valentines from each other.

Emma got some shoes and tights for her American girl doll. **Side Note--For you moms who have daughters with these dolls, did you know that Michael's and Hobby Lobby both have clothes and accessories for 18 inch dolls? With the 40% off coupons that always seem to be available for these stores, you can get a pretty sweet deal!**

Konnor (great pic of the top of his head, huh?) got a new Percy Jackson book that he'd been wanting.

Brady got a green truck that he picked out that day at Target. He was happy. That boy loves trucks.

For dessert, we had chocolate pudding with pink sugar sprinkles.

My hubby and I ate our chocolate pudding out of the champagne glasses we used at our wedding. I know...awwww. My wonderful husband brought some beautiful pink roses home, which were the same kind he gave me on our first Valentine's Day together when we were sophomores in high school!

He brought one home for this girl, too!

All in all, it was a great day!

In non-Valentine's Day news, last weekend, we totally rearranged our house. You read that right, not a room, not a few rooms, every room in our house except the dining room, kitchen and master. It was pretty much nuts, but we LOVE it! Everything's not totally in it's place, but I will definitely post about it soon!