Who Earned a Date?

When the kids do all their chores for the day, they get a sticker on their "date cards".  When the card is full, they get to go on a date with Mom or Dad.  I love it, because although we'd like to just take our kids on dates, we keep forgetting or are not consistant.  Having them "earn" it makes us accountable and is a nice reminder as well :)

So far, we've gone for ice cream at Bulloch Drug, eaten cookies and played at McDonalds and visited the pet store.  The purpose is to have some one-on-one time with each child.  The only problem is that Elina wants to include everyone and go as a family instead!

Before & After...I still love my Chore Boards!

Since I wrote earlier in the year about my chore boards, many have asked how it is going.  I have to say...I STILL love my chore boards.  Coming from a very free and unstructured home, I just couldn't wrap my brain around how to organize my life.  It wasn't just about cleaning, it was about bringing structure to an overwhelming world of chaos that was very frustrating at times.  With that said, I just had to post these "before and after" pictures.

Before: 

After:


I read a pamphlet by Rachel DeMille that said if you want to have more time with your family....get rid of your stuff.  We spend so much of our time taking care of our stuff (cleaning, organizing....trying to get our children to clean) that we don't have as much time.  I took that to heart and "gutted out" the playroom.  I let the kids pick a certain number of toys to keep out, then I boxed the rest up.  I figure we'll rotate them through every so often and it'll be like a whole new set of toys again!

Project Quiet!

We quickly learned that our dining room wood floor mixed with the high ceiling and our not-so-quiet children made for some very loud dinners.  I tried to remedy the problem by painting on some material and framing it.  It didn't work...but I was really pleased with how the pictures turned out.  I've never really painted before and had a great time figuring out how to do it.  I only had to re-do one picture when Aaron decided to help.  After that, I let the kids paint on their own material!  I think next I'll try long curtains!