Chore Chart

About a month ago I decided to make a chore chart for the girls. Everyone in the house had been driving me crazy with leaving clutter around. I was really getting frustrated with the amount of clean up I would have to do on a daily basis. The girls would also play mind games with me over cleaning up and would constantly fight with me over this responsibility. This drove me to creating a chore chart. I also wanted the chore chart to start teaching the girls about financial responsibility. The chore chart has been set up so that they can earn money for doing their chores. Now when we go somewhere if they want to buy something they will use their own money that they earned.









I decided to break each chore down and assign a certain amount of money to each chore. I assigned things that were most important to me a higher value and things that they already do pretty well without arguing a lower value. I also told them that they would only earn money for each day they did that chore and if they didn't do the chore they wouldn't earn money for that chore for that day. The total amount of money that Aly could earn if she did every single chore everyday is $5.50. The total amount KK can earn is $3.50. I set the chart up for Sunday through Saturday with every Sunday being there payday. Here is the amount they earn for each chore:

Aly (this is the daily amount)

Clean Bedroom: .15
Clean playroom: .20
Clean Kitchen Table: .20
Put clothes in hamper: .10
Brush teeth morning: .05
Brush teeth evening: .05
Doing math or reading: .05

The most I think Aly has earned in a week so far was around $4.00.

Here is KK's amounts:

Clean Bedroom: .10
Clean playroom: .15
Clean Kitchen Table: .05
Put clothes in hamper: .10
Brush teeth morning: .05
Brush teeth evening: .05

The most I think KK has earned has been $2.00.

Each week I draw a line on where the week ended. The girls color their squares in themselves. I am finding this chart to be very effective and the girls are not arguing with me any more over cleaning. However, I have learned that they still need constant reminders such as, "Please go clean the playroom and then you can color in a square on the chart!"

The girls love the chart and payday too! Aly has $26 saved up and KK has around $17. Some of this money they already had but at least they are learning to save and learning to spend their money on things that are important to them.

BTW I cam up with the total amount for each child based on their age. They say $1 a week for each year old you are. Since they are 3 1/2 and 5 1/2 I developed the chart to reflect their current ages.

Chickens

On Sunday hubby decided to take Aly to the pet store. Many weekends this is a ritual with hubby and he usually takes both girls which provides a nice break for me. However on this day the girls just couldn't seem to get a long so I told him to leave KK with me. KK did well being home without sister and enjoyed some alone time with me. I am sure Aly enjoyed some alone time with Daddy as well. In fact, they even decided to pick out some Bantam chickens. They completely surprised us! We had no idea Daddy would be bringing home chickens. We knew that we were going to eventually get some...maybe this May. I think Aly was in love with the chickens the most. She would hold them gently and talk to them. They will probably grow to love Aly the best. KK just didn't quite understand how to hold them without squeezing them. She tends to be a bit rough on animals right now. Here are a few pictures I took of Aly and the chickens:

Aly is a bird!

Oh my gosh, Aly did the cutest thing the other day. She has such a great imagination! I only wish I had half the imagination she does. She gathered her art supplies and sat at the table and made rainbow wings for a bird. Then she preceded to tape them on herself. In the beginning she flapped around the living room saying she was a bird. Later she decided to draw and color a nest and she put it on the end table next to the couch. Then she got on top of the nest and sat down. She told me she was laying an egg. She was very proud of her bird wings and pointed out how she made them symetrical and made rainbow wings.

Bath time

A few weeks ago I took a picture of the girls during bath time. They looked so cute in the tub together and were actually getting along. KK asked Aly to come and sit next to her which has never happened before. Usually Aly is in the front of the tub and KK is in the back. They had a great time posing for the camera and I really thought this picture shows just how much they are both starting to look alike. Yes, I believe it is now evident that they are sisters and look alike. When they were younger I used to think nobody would believe it but now that their features are developing I am really enjoying seeing the similarites.

Our bill slashing goals

One of the reasons I chose to buy a laptop is our goal to get rid of our cable television bill. I have been doing quite a bit of research lately on my favorite shows that I watch and found out that every single one of them could be viewed for free on the internet. So over the next month we are going to be working on making that change and will be saving around $480 a year!

Our next bill that we plan to slash is our cellphone bill. We currently pay $55 a month with tax for both of our cell phones. However, a friend introduced me to tracfones. It basically is a pay as you go phone and we plan on switching to that. Now with the new hands free law in CA, hubby and I are barely using our cellphones. So we will work on switching over to that service and should be able to get away with $100 in minutes for a whole year which will average out to around $8 a month each or less. This could save another $480 a year!

After that I am not sure what else we could cut. I will have to think on that one...it is so fun to keep getting rid of bills!

Subbing Day 12

I had the opportunity to sub in Aly's class again today. Actually I would have been able to sub, Mon., Tues., and Wed., if KK hadn't been sick. She was feeling better Wednesday so I was thrilled to be able to sub in Aly's class.

The morning was stressful as usual getting the girls ready and out the door by 7:40 a.m. The worst part was when I showed up at KK's preschool at 8 a.m. the person who was supposed to be there hadn't shown up. Of course I am panicking and not sure what to do. Five minutes later she shows up which ended up making me five minutes late to work. I hate being late so I was pretty irritated about it.

The worst part of the day happened twenty minutes after school started. One of the little girls in the class came to me and told me her tummy didn't feel well. Then she threw up right in front of me on the floor. I grabbed a garbage can to let her finish and then had someone take her to the office so she could go home, poor girl. Then being the germ a phoebe that I am, I got my instant hand sanitizer out of my sub bag and proceeded to give every child in the class a squirt of hand sanitizer. I swear I must of given myself a squirt of hand sanitizer 15 times during the school day! Every time I thought I may have touched something she touched that morning I squirted myself with hand sanitizer. My girls have been sick enough this year and I certainly will do everything I can to try and prevent that yucky illness from coming to our home!

It was picture day at school and it took an hour just for our class to get their pictures taken. It was crazy. I was unable to get things done from the lesson plan because of it. We only managed to accomplish a butterfly art project that she had...the kids loved the project, and a math paper. The day went fairly well. While the children were very chatty and not listening well it was to be expected after three days of different subs.

Mom's Night Out

A week ago Friday we got to have a fun local Mom's night out on Main street. The merchants all stayed open late and offered food and wine tasting as well as raffles and shopping. Oh I and I forgot to add dancing lessons! Yes, some of the girls in the group joined in for some Belly Dancing lessons!




Our first stop ended up being Belly Dancing. Three of the girls joined in and made it look easy! They also looked really cute don't you think?











Our next stop was dinner because I was very hungry. We had Mexican food and margaritas!











After dinner we walked down Main Street and the girls did some wine tasting! We all bought a bottle of wine--I of course brought one home to hubby since I don't like wine!

We all had a great time and are looking forward to trying to have a fun Mom's Night Out once a month.

Stimulating the economy

I believe that each and everyone of us can take our tax return and do our part to stimulate the economy. O.k. not the whole tax return but a part of it that you can afford to splurge and spend on yourself. This year we decided to let hubby pick something out, I get to choose something, and we are buying a new playset for the girls for the back yard. The playset is thoroughly needed. While we do have a hand me down set from hubby's brother, it is leaning and cracking and not so safe to play on anymore.

Today we took care of buying hubby's wish and my wish. Hubby got a new bass amp and I got a new laptop! Yes, no more sharing the computer with hubby and the children. Now I have my own. Which means I should be able to find time to blog more right? I sure hope so because I have missed it! We hope to purchase the children's playset this week as well. The one we really wanted we found online and it was out of our pricerange. However, today I went to Sam's club and they had the exact same one for $400 cheaper so I am thrilled we will be able to get it for the girls. The hard part will be hubby building it. It will probably take him a couple of weekends.

An Interview With Aly

Another interview thing floating around facebook so I decided to have Aly answer the questions. Here is what she thinks:




1. What is something mommy always says to you?
Please and thank you

2. What makes mommy happy?
that she has children

3. What makes mommy sad?
if she didn't have kids

4. How does your mommy make you laugh?
telling funny jokes to me like knock knock jokes

5. What was your mommy like as a child?
just like me and Kayla

6. How old is your mommy?
I don't know....50?

7. How tall is your mommy?
15 inches

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
make us happy

9. What does your mommy do when you're not around?
go out and go to dinner with her friends

10. If your mommy becomes famous, what will it be for?
going out to dinner

11. What is your mommy really good at?
making us laugh

12. What is your mommy not very good at?
doing cartwheels

13. What does your mommy do for her job?
teacher

14. What is your mommy's favorite food?
pineapples and ribs

15. What makes you proud of your mommy?
that she teaches

16. If your mommy were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Minnie Mouse


17. What do you and your mommy do together?
have a mommy and Alyssa night out

18. How are you and your mommy the same?
that we both have brown hair and we both have teeth

19. How are you and your mommy different?
that she has glasses and I don't

20. How do you know your mommy loves you?
because she cooks food for me

21. What does your mommy like most about your dad?
that he likes some of the clothes that you buy him

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
out to dinner!

So little computer time

Wow, I can't believe it has been so long since my last post. Weekends are typically hard to post on but lately it seems as if everyday is a challenge!

Last Friday night I was able to enjoy a great night out with local ladies down on Main Street. The merchants stayed open late and offered wine tasting as well as cookies, snacks, and even a sample of Chinese Chicken Salad. I decided to be the designated driver and fill my car full of ladies. It was great having adults only in my car for a change! The women all had a great time too!

Hubby and I are still trying to do date nights. January was a success with two date nights. Unfortunately in February we didn't have any but we have already started March out great and had our first date night of the month on Sunday. This time we had dinner and a movie. The girls really love their babysitter Meagan too. This time she brought over bowling, Monkeys in a Barrel, and another game for them to play. She is really good at always playing with the girls and giving them her time.

The past month for Aly has been a bit of a roller coaster for her. She started a new reading group up where she was sent to first grade so that she would be challenged. This ended up not being a good experience for her. She was very uncomfortable not having any of her fellow students in the class. She felt like the first graders were "big kids" and was a bit intimidated by them. There was also no effort made into trying to buddy her up or help her make a friend. Once it was suggested to do that I was hopeful that things would work out but we still ended up having obstacles. Apparently one of the first graders disciplined her for something and the teacher's expectations were not at Aly's level. What I mean by that was since Aly is in kindergarten she is still writing in mostly uppercase letters. Since this reading group is in first grade with the exception of Aly, the teachers expects the students to write correctly with lower case letters except for capitals where needed. Anyway, I guess the teacher didn't want to make an exception for Aly given her grade level and would make her go back and erase the words she had written and write them over again. This was frustrating for Aly on multiple levels...first she had never been expected to do that--neither her kindergarten teacher or I expect that out of her, we are just helping her to develop her writing skills, secondly she still is confused on writing some of the lower case letters, and finally she has never been told to redo her work before--she is always very careful on her papers so this was quite a change for her. The final thing that happened was the first grade teacher told her that she couldn't come to her class anymore if she was going to cry! So I told her kindergarten teacher it was just causing Aly too much stress and it wasn't worth it. I will help Aly at home with reading and her kindergarten teacher said she would get some materials and try to challenge her.

KK has grown so much in this last month. I really need to scan in some of her drawings. She has been drawing faces now and even drew me with glasses. She is also drawing dogs and elephants--of course she has to tell me what they are because I don't really recognize. She is also starting to write letters on her own which is so much fun to watch. She knows how to spell her name but is still hesitant on writing it. She would still rather stay home with Mommy everyday then go to preschool so I made a compromise. I used to have her in preschool two days a week from 9-3:45 but now she is only going two days a week from 9-12. Since I am only subbing for Aly's teacher I don't really need KK in full days. KK is also so amazing on the computer! I can't believe how well a three year old can navigate her favorite websites like pbskids.org and Playhouse Disney. She rarely needs any help and can go from game to on these sites and she doesn't even know how to read!

So hopefully this week I can get some more time on the computer as I have a ton of photos to post and want to scan in some of KK's drawings and such.