Post-it #105

With summer here, and no school to take up time in our days, I knew I'd need something to keep the boys from expecting to play video games or watching movies all day, so I came up with a system of sorts.
To earn "points" to use electronics, they must complete chores. They have normal chores that they must do every day, and they earn a half hour of electronic time with that. But if they want more time, they can request another chore. I assign a point value to each chore depending on how difficult it is, or how much it's worth to me that I don't have to do it. :) One point is equal to one minute of electronic time.
I also wanted the older boys to keep up with their reading, so I have them read from a chapter book for 20 minutes a day. Each minute they read is also a minute towards video games or movies.

I was worried that implementing this new system would illicit many complaints and fits, but it hasn't. The boys have had a great attitude about it all, and ask for extra chores all the time. I think they actually like earning their playing time. It's been good. And my house has been cleaner. A win-win!

Seventieth Passage

The end of May we went to a wedding for one of David's good friends. In fact, David was the best man! Here are some photos from the professional photographer. 

Best man and groom (Steve)

 Handsome, handsome, David

 David gave the best man speech, which he fretted over, but it turned out great!

 The family. I'm wearing a maternity dress, which, I think, makes me look huge. I don't feel that big...

 After dinner was dancing. Morgan and Lydia LOVED it. Here are some awesome shots of them tearing up the dance floor.

 Favorite.

 Lydia's dancing with Camden, the groom's son, and the groom's sister. She also took her turn dancing with Ashly, the bride. Or, princess, as Lydia called her.

Toward the end of the evening, William worked up enough courage to dance too, but we didn't get very good pictures of it.

Post-it #104

Yesterday was the big ultrasound. My mom agreed to come to our house and watch the kiddos, and I went and picked David up from work.
We got a firm GIRL diagnosis, which was difficult at first, since her legs were always in the way. We're excited! We'll even out the boy/girl ratio a bit, room sharing will be pretty simple, and I'm excited for David to get to have a girl of his own.

Sixty-ninth Passage

My Lydia is changing all the time. She's growing a lot in her speech and maturity. In the past week or two she has started getting attached to things.
Dumbo is her favorite movie and she wants to watch it all the time. Blah.
She has a baby doll that I got her for Christmas two years ago. She has played with it occasionally.  This last week it is everywhere she is. If she puts it down and forgets where, she'll ask "where's baby?" and look around until it's found. Oh, and this doll is filthy now. I'm afraid to wash it because there is a small hole in the fabric, so the stuffing can come out. Baby goes with her to bed, it goes in the car, to Grandma's house, everywhere.
Lydia also has a favorite book. We read it every nap time and many bed times. Here she is with her book and her baby, ready for a nap.

Lydia LOVES to dance. She puts on tutus and says, "come dance, Mommy." So I put some music on, and we dance. This is Lydia dancing in her tutu, with her baby, today.

She's a funny girl, and I love her.

Sixty-eighth Passage

Not long ago the Caldwell library had a cool animal guy came to do a show for the kids. When we got there there were tons of people there already. David joined us during his lunch break. After arriving, we sent Morgan up through the throng of people so he could get a closer look. Lydia hung out in the doorway with us.

The animal show was fun. Mostly it was reptiles, (snakes, turtles, lizards...) but he also had a tarantula. You can see Morgan and Lydia sharing a chair on the left side of the picture. When the crowd thinned out a little, I sent Lydia up to Morgan.

Morgan thought the tarantula was the coolest part.

After the reptile show we went across the street to the park to play. There happened to be many people from our ward there, so Morgan had people he kind of knew there to play with him. William and Owen were with their mom this particular day.

Coincidentally we are at the park when they did the free lunch at the park thing. So I let the kids have one. 

Fun summer days.

Post-it #103

I got those foam curlers for Lydia and gave them a try.

 It worked!

We made something cute out of it, though.

Sixty-seventh Passage

The last week of school, I took the kids to the aquarium in Boise for a homeschool field-trip. It was pretty fun, but very crowded. The boys were well behaved, Lydia was tantrumy. But we got to see and touch a lot of cool animals. Here's a bunch of pictures.

In the tropical fish tank, they got some seaweed to try to feed the fish. It was difficult because of limited space around it, and the fish weren't really biting. Lydia and Owen got to look though, when the rest of the group was elsewhere listening to the tour guide.

They got to pet an iguana.

The sting ray and shark pond was probably my favorite thing. We got to touch them, which was fun.

They got to touch the sea anenomes and star fish.

Octopus!

The big fish tank.

We had to do the merman and mermaid photo opp.

It was a fun time, and also a frustrating time, (thank you, Lydia!)
We should do it again sometime.