Healthy again

I'm back and today I'm grateful that for the first time in 5 weeks, everyone washealthy  enough to go to church.   Although Hubby has the cold that is going around, the kids are all healthy and I am healthy.  I'm hoping hubby will feel better soon.  

Anyway, even though I wasn't blogging it,  I have still purposely thinking about what I was grateful for each day. I know the kids were as well. As I was passing our grateful bulletin board, I noticed some new notes. One said "Dad's mashed potatoes".  So sweet. 

Sick

On top of three kids having chicken pox, I've been slammed with a nasty cold. I'm still being grateful... Just not blogging about it. I'll be back when my house is healthy. Today I'm grateful that hubby is doing dishes in the kitchen while I'm tucked into bed. 

My boys

Today I'm grateful that my boys are pretty easy going when they are sick. 

3 days of grateful

It's been quite a weekend. Both boys came down with chicken pox on Saturday.  Sweet Pea has some sort of cold/fever/cough but no spots.  I've been working on crocheting slippers for people so I didn't get to blog my gratefuls. So here is three days worth. 

Saturday I was grateful for a night out with some fun ladies to celebrate my wonderful friends birthday.  After being mostly stuck at home for the last  two weeks and looking at another two weeks at least stuck at home, it was good to wt out, laugh and relax. 

Sunday I was grateful to be able to go to church and have my love tank filled up. We have such an amazing church family and I love being in community with them. 

Today after Sweet Pea coughed all night and woke up this morning crying, trying to cough and gasping, I am grateful to have a doctor who is not overbooked and can see my little sick girl on such short notice. And that the appointment lined up almost perfectly for Jeff to come home for a late lunch to watch the rest of the sickies.  

I am so thankful for this life. As crazy as it gets sometimes, I am so thankful. 

Fridays

Our grateful board

Today I am grateful for my kids and their enthusiasm for life.

Today we repurposed a bulletin board that was hanging up in our hallway. This board had coupons that expired over a year ago, random old papers, drawings from when "J" was 7.  So we decided to make it into our grateful board.  I have been loving this grateful project. Even when I have had a terrible day or feel really down, as I reflect on my day to the things I am grateful for it lifts my spirits. I thought it would be great to get the whole family in on the project.  As soon as the kids realized what I was doing they couldn't stop writing things down. I eventually had to make them put their pencils/pens down and get back to their schoolwork.   I took a few pictures of the things they were grateful for just to share. I love my kids hearts.

This one was Rhinos. It is hard to read because he wrote his G backwards but it says "Our God"

Sweet pea loves school. I think she is probably the only kid who would put this on the grateful board. Haha. 

There you have it our new family project.  The kiddies can hardly wait to fill daddy in on it when he gets home for lunch.

Snow

I am grateful to be alive today. That's all. 

New reward system!

Hey all.  Yesterday's grateful coming up!  Yesterday I was grateful that school went very smoothly yesterday.  Everyone worked hard and I didn't need to prod too much

Today I am grateful that we will have friends visiting tonight. We usually have another family over every Tuesday because our kids extra curricular activities line up with each other. Last week we had to miss it and I really missed that middle of the week connection. 

I wanted to talk about something else. My boys are absolutely obsessed with video games and would play all day every day if I let them. I slowly started implementing rules about the games and tv as well since "J" is more drawn to watching tv than video games. The rule was they could only play/watch games/tv on the weekends and one night during the week. The other nights they could spend their time reading, drawing, playing a board game or just plain playing.  Then as "I" learned to read I wanted to implement motivation for reading. You see, "I" loves to read but "T" and "J" are very much reluctant readers.  So I made another rule. For every minute of screen time, they needed to read. At first the boys would only read when they wanted to play. So for example, they would set a timer and read for 30 minutes. Then they would play video games for 30 minutes. Then they would go back to reading and then video games and so on. The other night "I" realized that he could store up his reading time for a longer video game time.  So we have been just writing their times on our white board. But they kept getting wiped off so I searched the internet and found these little reading bucks. So I printed them out, a different color for each child.

Now for every ten minutes they spend reading, they get 1 reading buck which they can in turn exchange for screen time.  I keep all the bucks in an envelope and we covered an ice cream bucket with some blue paper and when they earn a buck, they put it the bucket. When they spend a buck, it goes back into the envelope.  The kids are very excited about this system and the boys already have over an hour of reading time saved up. 

Now you might be wondering how Sweet Pea can possibly earn reading bucks when she can't read yet. Well whenever she sits and listens to one of us to read to her, she earns a buck. For example, she sat and listened for ten minute as "I" read me his reader so she gets a buck and so does "I".   I'm hoping this system solves both the begging to play video games at all hours and gets them reading a lot more. 

Oh and the previous rule of game nights and reading nights still stand.  However, Mommy and Daddy have the authority to declare a free night whenever they want where the kids can play video games without spending their bucks. We will keep free nights to special occasions such as when someone is sick or if we have company coming or a meeting in our home and the kids need to be in their rooms quietly. 

Ouch

Today I am grateful to have a few hours this afternoon to sit and get off my feet. 

You see yesterday, I let the dog loose in the back yard and ran around playing with her.  Unfortunately, my foot sunk into the snow and I twisted it. And yes I mean twisted my foot. Not my ankle. My foot.  So now the muscle that runs through the arch of my foot is in a lot of pain. To make matters worse, I slipped on the ice this morning and seriously did the splits.  Not nice. So yes I am grateful to have some down time and I just got a text saying my Monday girls (babysitting) were gonna be joining us tomorrow so I get to see their silly faces all day. I missed them last week!  

Forgot to post yesterday. (Written 1/27/14 but for some reason didn'tpublish)

Hey all. Yesterday was a full day with lots of visitors. I was grateful when the kids were finally in bed and I could put my feet up and veg out in front of the tv.

Today I am grateful that my hubby helped  to clean and organize the school closet among other closets. The kids stuff every paper they find into the school closet It was a mess and completely overwhelming to me.  I have ignored it for way too long. 

Tonight we went to our niece and nephews birthday at the bowling lanes. It was the first time Sweet Pea went bowling and the first time that I've seen the kids bowling. They had so much fun. We had fun too and I hope we can take them bowling again soon!

It's tomorrow but...

Today I am grateful that I got to go out on a lunch date with a beautiful friend to celebrate her birthday a little early.