Category Archives: Around the House
Talking to cousins with Skype
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We recently spent a couple of weeks in Virginia visiting family. This was the first time the kids have cried because they were really sad to leave their cousins. My SIL thought of the idea to use Skype to keep in touch. We’ve used it a few times and the kids love it. They get so excited when we are getting connected. When talking to their cousins, they usually show each other their stuffed animals, and talk about what they have been up to that day. We even took our cousins on a trip though the house using my laptop cam. It has been fun!
Indie finished Math-U-See Beta!!!
Indie is so excited to complete his math for the year. He has not been loving math. I think he is a little bored with all the subtraction lately. Next year he goes straight to multiplication. We are taking a break from MUS but this summer we will be doing math games and some review of what we have done over the past year.
Disco Christmas Lights
Christmas 2009 – we finally contributed to the neighborhood with arches. Out arches had a bonus feature, disco lights! The lights all have a little flashlight effect. The kids think it’s very neat!
Paint
We need to do this more often. The kids had so much fun, I just keep feeding them paper. 🙂
Ahhh, sugar cookies!
Decorating cut-out cookies gets more fun each year!
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- indie chose to eat his “butter scotch plane”
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- Beluga chose Mama’s first!
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- “hummmm, which ones to choose?”
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- we’ll be doing this a lot this season!
Board Games Galore
Accountable Kids
In January we started using a program called Accountable Kids and we LOVE it. The program helps us gently remind the kids of what’s expected of them daily. There are 3 sets of reminder cards; morning, afternoon, and evening.
Each set of cards completed earns the child a ticket that allows them to do a privilege like watch a TV show or do something on the computer (anything that works for your family).
We only have them do simple daily chores that they should do anyway; make they beds, clean their rooms, clothes into hampers, get dress, brush teeth (with our help). The tickets can also be taken away for discipline for not listen, name calling etc. It’s really worked out well. We don’t expect perfectly made beds but sometimes they do extra well and over time, we hope, it will stick with them and realize that it’s nice to have a tidy area to play and live. Over time we can start to pay them for extra chores completed like taking the trash out. a reward for 10 days without loosing a ticket your child can get a date with whoever they choose. Here, J went for ice cream with Mama
The kids finally moved into their new rooms!
We are finally getting the kids into their rooms. We still don’t have the C/O yet but we really want to get them out of the cramped room they are sharing with all the stuff and get them into their new HUGE spaces. VERY EXCITING and just in time for naps. GG (Grandma) is over and watched a movie with them while we get everthing moved up and into place. Thanks GG!
New addition on our house
We have be in the middle of adding an addition on our home since last June. It’s been about 8 months. We are squeezed into a smaller space than we are used to and all of the belongings were moved in this the smaller space with us. Stacked where ever it would fit. We are getting along fine but we are not on any kind of schedule at this point. We try to get away from the house in the mornings when we can. We do some table time when we can but it’s really hard to just keep the house semi-clean, and keeping myself and the kids happy can be a challenge as well. Yesterday they broke though from the addition, to the main house. This was huge. Now, I can easily do laundry, and work on the addition without being away from the kids. Before, we had to go out the front, or back door, then enter the addition though the garage. Now, there is doorway from the living room, right into the addition. Perfect! We are still waiting for the a/c to be installed (today), and the electirician to come and put receipticals and switches, and we need the plumber to come and hook us up to a drain and sewer system. I won’t be posting much until we get more settled into the house over the next month or so.