Twinner Hats!

I made some hats for my new niece and nephew. The brown ones are preemie size and the blue and white ones are 3-6 months!

Aren't they cute!

They are just too cute!!

Luke's New Bed...Take 2

As I recently posted, Luke got a new bed a few weeks ago. Since then Luke has decided that the floor is much more comfortable. This is how I found Luke tonight.

You can't tell, but he's holding a half eaten cookie in his hand.

How do you unwind before bed?

Mother's Day

I was ready for Mother's Day.....were you?

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!!

Luke and His Bed

Brad took Luke's crib down over Easter Weekend, but we didn't have a bed frame so the mattresses were just on the floor. This week we got a bed frame for Luke's "Big" bed. The days of just putting him in his crib and walking away for the night are gone. Now we have long nights of Luke getting out of bed and getting into things. Fun Times!

Success!

Lately I have been worried about the fact my kids really don't know how to work. That scripture about "the sins of the children being upon the heads of the parents" keeps coming to my mind. I know it's my responsibility to teach them, but how? Over the years there have been some small successes, but I've been realizing that Nelson will soon be 11 and I really don't expect him to do enough (in my opinion). We have slowly been stepping it up. Over the last month or so I've been doing better with making sure each kids does something to help with dinner. Then, this week after they got their homework done they had to do 3 jobs before doing anything fun. These jobs have not been too hard and it they stayed on task were completed in less than ten minutes. Now for the reason I decided this was all worth a post. Today, as usual our house was a mess! I was going to start cleaning myself when I decided today would be a great day to get the kids to help. I made them each a list. They were given two rooms and then I broke the room down into specific chores that they needed to do to get the room clean. I usually have them clean this way, but I've never written it down. Usually I give them a job like, clean under your bed. They go do that and come back for another job. This goes good for a few times, but it never fails, either they stop coming back to ask what to do next, or everyone gets frustrated because it takes me so long to answer all the kids and go look to see what I should have them do. This time on their list there was a box by each small job to check off and when all the boxes were checked the room should be clean. Each older kid had two complete rooms to clean. It was amazing! We had the house picked up, dusted, swept, and vacuumed in an hour, and I didn't do it myself!! Who knows if it will work this well again, but we had success today!

Macey liked this because she can stay on task and get her jobs done quick! Usually she ends up doing more because she is fast so I keep asking her to do something else. This time once she had all her check marks she was done!

Annie did good too. She liked having her own list and even added to it!

Kambree was our biggest success. She is my one that never comes back for her next job. She got her list done this time. An added bonus...she had to use her reading skills to figure out what to clean next.


Nelson did great. Nelson had learned to beat the last system. He would just take forever to make his bed or pick up his clothes so he wouldn't be asked to do something else. This time he had to finish his list.


This was Nelson's list.