Family Chore Chart

For about two years, I have been trying to decide what type of "chore chart" to make for the kids.  I searched blogs, then I searched Pinterest.  And I found lots of great ideas, but not the perfect one.  I guess that's my OCD - if you can't design the perfect chore chart, don't make one at all.  Well I finally had to just suck it up and make one! 

I'm going back to work full-time for the first time in 5 years, which really spurred me on to make this one.  (If I decide to re-do it later, fine!  At least its functional for now).  I made a a row for each day of the week and a column for each child.  I decided to go ahead and add a column for each parent too.  I think this will help the kids see how everyone has to do chores around the house to contribute to our family.

So far it seems to be working.  The kids eagerly check the chart each day to see who gets to do the dishes and who has to sweep the floor.  The 21 month old might be a little too eager to check as you can see from some of the wrinkled up pictures on the bottom rows.  The bottom rows indicate daily responsibilities, but I still need to work these out a bit better.

I uploaded the chore cards here.

Summer Bucket List

Last summer we re-created the poster from the "Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer" movie with all the things my eldest daughter wanted to accomplish before school started. 

our version

from the movie

This summer we decided to make a new poster, but a little different.  It's our Summer Fun Bucket List.  You can find lists online of 100s of fun summer activities, but we decided to select just a dozen special things to put on our poster.  To create the poster, I cut the letters in the heading out with my Cricut, as well as the funky squares to "check off" when we complete one of our items.  Obviously I hand wrote all our activities.   The poster is hanging in our living room where the kids/our family can track our progress!

No Whining

For months I have been searching for a way to minimize the whining in my house.  With three kids and another set to join us any time before school lets out - I can only handle so much of that sound!  I stumbled upon this "No Whining" jar idea and decided to give it a shot.

It took a few days for me to decide how I was going to handle the money aspect of the jar.  I had already been struggling with the idea of allowance vs. conditional allowance based on chores vs. doing chores because you are part of this family.  Was this money going to be tied to all that too?  What a mess!  So I decided, we are just going to start this No Whining jar and figure the rest out later.  The 6 yo and 4 yo each get 10 dimes after church on Sunday.  Each time they whine, fuss or complain, a dime is lost to the jar.  If there are any remaining dimes by the time we leave for church the next Sunday, they get to be put in the kids' piggy banks.

I washed out some peanut butter jars, stripped their labels and printed out this verse:  

Do everything without grumbling or arguing. Philippians 2:14

The girls colored and decorated their labels, then helped glue them onto the pb jars.  We put their dimes in a little bag and put everything on the dining room table.  Lo and behold, at the end of the first week, they still had money left!!  I never thought they could make it a couple days without whining at least 10 times, much less a whole week!  So Sunday after church, I again doled out 10 more dimes.  So far, they haven't lost them all again this week and I am excited to see how this experiment progresses.
 

Easter bunnies

I was inspired to create some cute Easter bunnies when I saw a photo on Pinterest a couple weeks ago.  I tracked down the original on the Pieces of Me blog, and had to create my own mantle decor!  I made my own cardstock template and went to work cutting out bunnies from all kinds of scraps I have in my stash.  I added some cotton tails, strung them up on ribbon and voila!  Cute Easter decorations (at no extra cost!).  I am going to try to figure out how to upload a template, but in the meantime, it is pretty simple to create.

A Very Tangled Birthday

So we celebrated Addison's 3rd birthday in March, and I cheated.  I started making a pinata.  I wanted to make my own cupcakes and frosting.  But I didn't.  I cheated.  I used a store-bought pinata.  I used cake mix to make the cupcakes.  And I even used tubs of store-bought frosting.  And the kids loved it.  They loved breaking the pinata.  They loved licking the frosting off the cupcakes and gathering the candy and toys in there little pink goodie bags.  

I did manage to do a create a few homemade touches for the party though.  I made my own water bottle labels.  I don't have any fancy design programs, so I used Microsoft Word and I think they turned out pretty darn cute anyhow!  I attempted to make "macaroni and cheese cupcakes."  I adapted a recipe I saw on Giada de Laurentis' show Giada at Home.  Let's just say, the recipe needed more adapting!  We also had a family friend hand-draw a poster of Flynn Rider so the kids could pin the frying pan on his head.  It was a total hit!

Now that summer is over, I finally got around to loading all the photos of the party onto shutterfly.  

I made an adorable photo book for Addy.

Birthday girl playing Pin the Frying Pan on Flynn Rider.

So I'm behind, what 's new...

In February I intended to write a post about the pancakes my husband makes for Shrove Tuesday and about all the different breads we had been making.  We threw Addy's third birthday party in March and I meant to post photos and write a blog entry about that as well... but I guess I fell a little behind.  

St. Patrick's Day and Easter have passed, as well as the end of my eldest daughter's kindergarten year.  So we celebrated the beginning of summer by going to the theater to watch Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer.  We decided that we needed a Not Bummer Summer Dare Chart just like in the movie!

And voila, the poster from the movie on the top and our homemade poster on the bottom!

Judy Moody Not Bummer Summer

Mega Rare Not Bummer Summer Dare thrill chart

 

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