Girls just wanna have fun...

...and so does Miles! The poor little guy, even though he loves his cars and sports - he can't stand not to join in on the dressing up and dancing! But with lots of little girls around him and two big sisters he's kind of been bombarded with this kind of stuff since he was born. I guess I have some great blackmail for when he's a grumpy teenager!

FYI

I finally started updating my "other blog" again. I was debating about just combining the two blogs since they are both about my family. But then I figured I'd use this one for posting main events/pictures/etc. and use my other one for posting the smaller every day things that I don't want to forget... minus pictures (usually). Which means it's mainly the funny things my kids do!
If you want to read a few funny things my kids have done/said the past few days the link is on the sidebar, or click HERE.

Oh, Nora...

Nora has been filled with enough attitude lately to bring a small country to their knees. Begging for mercy. Just imagine what this is doing to her mother. Nora has generally been a pretty easy going child. But when something is amiss in her world you better watch out. She has thrown out all the stops lately - hitting, flipping her head, crossing her arms, making rude sounds, yelling, etc. etc... you get the picture. I end up dragging her to time - out, which she then refuses to sit and then I end up dragging her to her room - with her grabbing on to anything her little hands can hold onto to try to stop me. It takes 100% of my willpower not to spank her little bum during these battles. Of course she is so upset by this time - and so am I - that I have to just leave her in her room and go clean something to calm myself down. Yes, I know I shouldn't be dragging her to time-out or her bedroom. I know I should stay calm - even when she's not. I am the parent after all. Guess it's time to check some more parenting books out from the library. Any suggestions on some good ones?

I almost took a picture of Nora throwing a fit on her bed, which is where she is right now, but fearing her wrath and not quite daring to open the door, I opted to post this one of her during a happier moment earlier this week. Okay, naughty or nice... she's still adorable!

A tale of three bikes...

I've been meaning to write a post about this but it keeps not happening.... but it must be recorded so here it is.

Brian usually rides his bike to school - except in really bad weather. When we moved here he brought his bike with him that he had gotten when he was about 15. It was the Blue Giant Iguana. Apparently a pretty nice bike at one time - and still a good bike for how old it was. Almost two years ago it was stolen up at the MSU campus. And no, it was not locked up. Although Brian took some time to make it look like it was... I still have to tease him about that. We reported it to the police (he had registered it - so that was good) But chances were quite slim we'd get it back. There are over 20,000 on-campus students - and most of them ride bikes. So I bought him a 50.00 bike at a yard sale, but it ended up being kind of crappy. Oops! So we bought him another bike on Craigslist - a Trek - that has been a great bike and we let our neighbors use the crappy one (yeah, we're nice like that). So last spring we were driving around campus looking for the MSU surplus store where they sell cheap office chairs and the like. We got to the place it was before, and it had been moved. As Brian went to turn the car around to go back out the driveway I saw that we could get out by going around the building so I suggested we do so. So we drove around the building - which ended up going right by the Amtrak station. Next to the Amtrak station was a small bike rack with about 15 bikes chained up. When we saw it I immediately said, "Maybe your bike is there!" Which is kind of funny because Brian spent a lot of time looking at bike racks on campus searching for his bike - there are not too many blue iguana's around anymore. Anyway - his bike really was there! It was chained together with about 6 other bikes and looked like this:

Missing the front tire, the seat and a few other things... and one of the shifters was in need of major repair.

We called the police and they were able to verify it was Brian's bike since he had registered it. They cut off the chains and we brought it home. We were excited to at least have the frame back. Brian has still been riding the Trek bike... until it got stolen last month! This time it was locked. Grrr... We (again) went to the police up at MSU and reported it. But if we're going to get it back we'll probably have to do it ourselves. Maybe we'll get lucky again? But our neighbors were kind enough to give us the crappy bike back. And considering it has one wooden pedal and no pedal on the other side - we figure if it gets stolen than they definitely need it more than we do!

something new

In trying to balance out my life a bit I decided one thing that had to happen was a successful way for the kids to help out around the house. We've tried a lot of different things - none of them having had long term success.
So I came up with this:

It's our new chore system... and I love it! I came up with 10 chores the girls could do with minimal to no help and printed them off and had them laminated. I sewed it using just one yard of fabric for the main part and some scraps for the words, and I used strips of clear vinyl (which is so cheap) for the little pockets. I wanted 7 pockets - one for a picture (wallet size) and then six slots for Monday through Saturday. On Sunday nights we let the girls choose two chores they are going to complete every day Monday through Friday. Note: I do not consider brushing hair/teeth, taking baths and stuff like that chores for my kids. The girls are old enough to do those things without being praised and rewarded for them. The hard part was what do to for an incentive to get the chores done? I didn't want to give them real or fake money, I didn't want to give them toys or candy... So we decided if they do their chores every day then on Saturday night they get to stay up "late" - which means we start the bedtime routine at 8:30 instead of 7:30. The girls were thrilled with this arrangement (especially Sophie - our night owl.) And they get to choose what we do with that time. This Saturday we played pirates (a household favorite which needs to be recorded one of these days...), played a round of Guess Who and Cootie Bug and then the girls watched an episode of Hello Kitty on Hulu. The girls have done a great job doing their chores and the only problem we've ran into was at first they thought since they had their assigned chores that meant they didn't need to do anything else! So we had a talk about the things they are expected to do, such as clearing their own dishes from meals, putting their clothes in the hamper, and general cleaning up things they play with vs. chores from the chore chart. It feels so great to have a system that I think will work for the long term.

Oh, we also have some cards with "scripture reading" and "prayers" on them. I put this card behind the girls pictures and they are in charge that week of reminding us to do those things. And they also get to tell our family how we did at doing both of those things each night (did we listen, were we reverent, etc.) and what we could do better the next night. It's been pretty fun - and good for the kids to do this.

Resolutions

I am the type of person who usually makes a hefty list of New Year's Resolutions. A lot of them tend to be the same year after year. This year I have not sat down and wrote out a list. I didn't want to write down the same things and quickly forget about them. Now, I don't always forget about them... but I wanted to do things differently this year. I've seen on some blogs of friends and family that they have chosen a word for their year - and I think that is such a fun idea! So I've been thinking about what word I could use to represent ALL of my New Year's Resolutions. One word that could encompass everything I want to accomplish this year. And yesterday it came to me. BALANCE. That's my own personal word for the year. To find greater balance in my life in so many areas. I found this quote from President James E. Faust and loved it:

Balance in large measure is knowing the things that can be changed, putting them in proper perspective, and recognizing the things that will not change. And balance also lies in attitude. May our attitude be one of achieving balance and wisdom and understanding in all that we do.

Here's to a great (well-balanced) year!

A fun Saturday & a tricky boy

We went to the Zoo at the last minute on Saturday afternoon. It was pretty warm and only a few other people were there. We had a great time getting out together and doing something fun! Oh, and the Zoo here is FREE in the winter! That made it even better.

The girls were so excited to do the penny smashing thing. And since we got in free we figured we'd splurge and spend $1.00 for them to do it. We saw a lion, tiger, lots of monkeys, red pandas, camels, birds, arctic foxes, meerkats, otters, penguins & a few others.
It was such fun to be outside! It's been unseasonably mild here lately. We ended the day by picking up one of Domino's new medium two topping pizza's for 5.99. Wow! It was sooo good!

And here is Miles' trick of getting down from the bunkbed, he's been doing this for quite a few months but has it perfected now. What a cutie.