My Babies!

Yes, The Packaging Is STILL the Best Part!

When you were a small child, do you remember opening a gift, only to set it aside and play with the box? There is one Christmas that stands out in my memory because my mom got a large appliance of some sort, and my sister and I turned that box into a play house and spent hours in the front yard playing in it. I don’t even remember what the present was!

My children are the same way…they love a good box! Over the years we’ve turned boxes into houses, rocket ships, trains, and the like. Their cardboard sides have been used for crafts of all sorts. I’ve started doing more of our shopping on line, and whenever a package is delivered, I have several boys begging for rights to the box! But now, we’re finding that the packing box has another treasure to offer…cornstarch packing peanuts!




Yesterday when Joshua’s new grammar books arrived, I handed a few of the packing peanuts to the boys. They weren’t impressed, until I told them how to dampen the ends and stick them together. Then all hands flew to that box…they had so much fun building with them! It wasn’t a very big box, so the peanut supply was small and they were used up quickly. But oh, they were fun!




Another package was delivered this morning. It was so funny--as soon as I opened the box, the boys grabbed a few peanuts and licked them to see if they would stick! They were more excited about those peanuts (yes, they are the sticky kind, not boring ol’ styrofoam!) than they were about the can of yummy freeze-dried strawberries the peanuts were protecting. I put them away, telling the boys that we would build something with them once they finished their schoolwork. Nothing like a good incentive to keep them on task, right? I can’t wait to see what they will create this time!



Jordan's expression after licking a peanut...he decided he'd rather lick his finger and touch it to the peanut instead! The other boys didn't seem to mind the taste and licked away!




I’m thinking about ordering a big bag of these for the boys. I did a little bit of research, and you can buy colored ones, called Nuudles, specifically for kid’s crafts. Or you can order plain white ones from a packing company. They’re hard to compare price-wise, since the former are labeled with a piece count and the latter by cubic feet. I suspect that the plain ones from a shipping supply store will be less expensive, though. I’ll let you know what I find.




What would you do? Would you spend extra for the fun colors? Or would you stick with cheap basic white, knowing that your children would still have fun with them?

Hooray for Spring!

We have really enjoyed playing in the snow this winter, but after months and months of freezing weather, we are so ready for spring. So imagine our excitement to have two bright, sunny days in a row with a temperature around 60 degrees! We've packed the babies into our new double stroller, gathered up our sand toys, ventured out to our favorite neighborhood parks...and left the coats at home!

It is so much fun to watch Josiah play...he was just starting to run around the playground on his own last fall. Hopefully we will be getting out for haircuts this weekend--in the meantime he has this cool halo effect going on!


Jonathan...


Josiah loves to slide...


Come on up here, this is fun!


Jordan digging around in the last bit of snow left in the sand box...





Joey was playing on the play scape with a little girl he befriended, but then his attention was grabbed by the ice cream truck driving up to the play ground. Yes, apparently you only need a day or two of decent weather before the ice cream trucks start making their rounds. I personally think this is ridiculous--60 degree weather doesn't exactly make me feel the need for a cold treat. And then of course I had to feel guilty when my sweet little boy came up to me with his big pleading eyes and impish smile, and I had to tell him I didn't bring along any money for ice cream. It didn't help that his new friend (whose mommy was better prepared) was happily licking a huge vanilla cone. Silly ice cream truck!


Josiah playing in the sand...


Joshua and Jonathan hanging out on top of one of the tubes you're supposed to crawl through on the play scape...


Joey on top of the same tube...Joey has become camera shy of late, and the only way I can take his picture is if I sneak up on him. Forget him looking at the camera! As soon as he sees it, he either looks down or quickly turns away.





After romping around on the play scape for a while, we headed to the swings. The boys love to swing! Here's Jordan soaring high in front of one of our prettier neighborhood buildings...


One of the big benefits of getting out to the park in this wonderful weather is learning that I CAN, in fact, get all 6 children out by myself. While I have been anxious to get outside more, in the back of my mind I have been nervous about how it would be with all six of them. It was pretty easy to get out with 5--but with only 5 Joey got to ride in the stroller. Now he's on foot, and he's a dangerous combination of fearless and unpredictable! I'm training him to hold on to a handle/strap attached to the stroller. So far, so good! Whew! I'm sure we'll be out exploring all that New York City has to offer on a regular basis again in no time!

A Little of This, a Little of That...

Proof That They’re Learning SOMETHING…
Thursday afternoon Joshua was trying repeatedly to get Jordan in trouble for eating some candy without permission. I was preoccupied with birthday party preparations and obviously wasn’t responding the way he expected. When I finally “got it” I told him to go to his room—you tattle in this family just to get someone else in trouble and YOU get the punishment. He stormed off in a huff and shouted “I wasn’t tattling! On WHOM did I tattle?!” Looks like we still have quite a bit of work to do on the attitude. But it is encouraging to see that the grammar lessons are finally sticking!




Another Work in Progress…
I finally started cutting a new quilt. I’ve had the fabric for a few months now, but couldn’t decide exactly how I wanted to proceed. While my first quilt followed an online tutorial step-by-step, this one I’m making up myself. The reason? I’m trying to work in pictorial squares that are an odd size. Time will tell if I regret this decision or not. It’s certainly a lot more complicated than I had hoped, and I’m thinking I’ll go back to following a pattern for my next quilt. Oh, I was originally planning to use this fabric for Josiah’s quilt, but Jordan has claimed it for his own! Josiah could care less, so I’ll find him something else.




A Few of My Favorite Things…
This is admittedly late since the weather will hopefully be warming soon, but during the cold winter months I love to sit and relax (okay, I’ll settle for just sitting) with a nice hot drink. I keep three easy mixes on hand—hot cocoa, chai tea, and swiss mocha coffee. Yes, it would be even easier to just buy them at the store, but they’re so much cheaper to make at home, and when I run out, I don’t have to go anywhere to get more. (I'm lazy that way.) I whirl them around in the blender to make them a nice, uniform powder, although that isn’t necessary. Placed in a pretty jar they’d make lovely gifts, too.


Boys Will Be Boys…
…And Joey is a real stinker, in more ways than one! I’m in desperate need of potty training help with my most stubborn (and super smart!) child…we’ve got #1 down pat, but he absolutely refuses to make any progress on #2, despite both lavish bribery and dire threats. I know, I know, no one ever goes off to college in pull-ups, but I’d like to stop buying them well before we start paying tuition! If anyone has any brilliant ideas to motivate this kid, I’d love to hear them. I’m getting desperate!

10 Ways to Celebrate Our Children's Accomplishments

This week we had a major accomplishment in our house—Jordan completed the 100th (and final) lesson in his reading lesson book! Yay! He was so incredibly proud of himself, and naturally I was proud of him as well. After all, we started out with much groaning, kicking, and screaming, but managed to end up months (and months) later with an emergent reader. Of course we made a big deal about it! Jordan was just beaming all day. I wanted to do something special for him to reward him for his hard work, and come up with a list of ideas for the next time I need a fitting reward for a job well done.

Here is my brainstormed list of ways I can reward and honor my children for their accomplishments. Some of these things we do already, some are new ideas for me. Of course, generous amounts of verbal praise are always in order, but sometimes I want to do something even more tangible. I hope some of these ideas will be useful to you, as well.

Celebrating Our Children's Accomplishments

1. Giving a small trinket or toy—We keep a “treasure chest” at our house that I fill with inexpensive little trinkets-decorated pencils, shaped erasers, little notepads, and toys like bouncy balls and foam airplanes purchased cheaply from Oriental Trading Company or the like. Okay, I’ll admit I keep this around mainly for bribery of the preschoolers—but it also makes a handy reward for those times when you catch one of them being particularly nice to another, or (more rarely) doing a chore without being asked.

2. Picking a favorite meal—Our children have several favorite meals and desserts that I almost always keep the ingredients on hand for. Letting one of them choose dinner and/or dessert, and better yet letting them help prepare it, is a great reward for them.

3. Getting out of their chores for a day—This, of course, means a little extra work for ME, but the boys see this as a great privilege! (It’s perceived as an even greater reward when, instead of Mom doing the chores, they get assigned to a sibling. Of course, that’s beyond the scope of this list, and may make a later list of “Extremely Effective Consequences for Being Mean to Your Brother." ;)

4. Choosing a favorite activity for a family time together—Whether it’s a favorite movie (complete with popcorn!) or their current board game of choice, they love the honor of choosing what we do for family night.

5. A special outing with Dad or Mom—ALL of our boys love to go out one-on-one with Mom or Dad! We’ve done this as involved as going out for a meal or an event together to as simple as grabbing an ice cream cone or a walk to the park. Daddy has even been known to take a boy to work with him, if his schedule permits and that boy is completely caught up on his school work.

6. Extra TV, video game, or computer time—Easy, free, and a HUGE favorite of our media-lovin’ boys, especially since their more responsible parents severely limit their access. (the HORROR!)

7. Staying up later to play a game or something with Dad and Mom—another treat that the older boys enjoy, especially if they can play a game that we can’t usually play because it is too “old” for the little guys.

8. Learn a new skill—Jon loves to learn to cook new things. Joshua loves to learn new crafts. These can work out to be very beneficial for me as well…Jonathan was excited beyond belief last week over learning how to clean the bathroom. (And no, I didn’t artificially build it up to sound like great fun! Even I couldn’t do THAT with a straight face!) It’s now his weekly job, and he does it well and loves it!

9. A special coupon book—I haven’t tried this yet, but I want to. I’m thinking of a simple little printed booklet with some of the above-mentioned ideas in it in coupon form. This would be a reward for a major accomplishment or character trait over time.

10. A gift card—For a small amount to a store they either like or is related to the reason for the reward—This is what we ended up doing for Jordan’s accomplishment. Since we’re celebrating the fact that he finished his reading book, we gave him a $10 gift card to Borders to buy a new book of his very own. He is excited to be able to use it, and keeps calling it his very own “credit card!”

Now don’t get me wrong, we do some of these things “just because” as well—our children don’t have to perform in order for us to do nice things for them. But one of my goals as a parent is to encourage my children to have good character and to always do their best. Rewarding their efforts goes a long way towards molding them into the excellent young adults we hope they will become.

What do you do to celebrate your children’s accomplishments? I’d love to have you comment with your ideas!

Time to Celebrate!

Look who's TWO!! Josiah! He was very excited about the cupcakes...



But he wasn't too sure what to make of the candles.






Stopping to actually pick up the cupcake wastes valuable time. This approach is a much faster way to get all that sugary goodness in (and around) your mouth!



Yum!



About a month ago, I blogged about Joshua wanting to make bean bags for Josiah for his birthday. We decided to use some brightly-colored broadcloth instead of the scrap fabric I had originally given him. We also decided to embroider the colors on them. I helped a little bit, but Joshua did 75% of the work himself. He even decided to use some of the "fancy" stitches on my machine--stitches I have never used myself, and I've had that machine about 20 years!



Didn't they turn out cute? I think he did a great job, and Joshua is very proud of them. I think Josiah is going to have so much fun playing with them! I'm just hoping they won't become projectiles. Who am I kidding? With all these boys, of course they will be flying! I suppose it's okay as long as they're not hitting ME!


Happy Birthday, my sweet little Josiah! We love you!!

Learning a Lesson the Hard Way

Jonathan, my 9-year-old, is on a quest this week. He wants to earn $15 in addition to his regular allowance of $5 before this Saturday. Why? He wants to play his new video game. Why does he need to earn it by Saturday? Because we have a family rule that video games are only allowed on the weekend. And why does he need $15 to play?

Our story begins Sunday evening at Target, when Jonathan not only talked Dad into letting him go peruse the Wii games, but ultimately talked Joshua into going halfsies on a new game. We got home too late to play the game, so it was put away in eager anticipation of next weekend. Unfortunately when school commenced on Monday, we found that our math DVD had been left out and therefore made available to the resident preschoolers. Joseph and Josiah are notorious for their ill-treatment of DVDs. It was pretty much scratched to death!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told them that they are responsible for safely putting away their school DVDs after each use. They were promptly informed that they would be replacing the DVD. “No problem,” they thought. Joshua still had enough money left (he’s my saver) and Jonathan would just save his allowance until he had enough. What they didn’t count on was mean ol’ Mommy telling them that they couldn’t play their game until it was paid off! Joshua, who has a “take it or leave it” attitude about video gaming anyway, was unfazed. Jonathan, on the other hand, thought the world was going to end.

He’s been begging for jobs around the apartment to earn extra money. I offered to let him dust the dining room, living room, and foyer furniture for $2. He pounced on that offer. I then mentioned that he could shred a stack of papers I had weeded out of the filing cabinet. I offered just a dollar. After all, the boys usually beg for the privilege of helping when I pull out the shredder! He readily consented, and went right to work. Thirty minutes into this job he realized it was bigger than he thought and began to renegotiate—now he wanted two dollars. I pointed out to him that he had agreed to do the work for $1, and that in the future he would do well to do any negotiating over price up front! He plugged along, finished the job, and earned his dollar.

He still needs $12 more. As much as his plight tugs at my mommy heartstrings, I don’t want to make it too easy for him. After all, my goal here is for him to learn the value of being responsible. If it’s just handed to him, he will be much happier in the short run but will have missed an opportunity to gain some very valuable wisdom. And this lesson, while learned with some discomfort, is learned at a much smaller price now than it might be years later.

He hasn’t quite caught on to this yet, but I have no intention of letting him earn the total amount of money he needs before Saturday. While it makes me sad, I know he needs to miss out on playing his game this weekend to drive home the point that he needs to be diligent in caring for the school materials that we purchase for him. I’m sure there will be tears on Saturday. I’m hoping that when he is a responsible young adult he will appreciate this lesson. In the meantime, you can fully expect me to be nominated for the title of Meanest Mommy of the Year!