Kid's Chore Chart

I don't know who's idea it was, whether it was mine or Andrea's, but either way I like it. Our boys, who are only 5 and 3 years old, already have chores that they have to do, some on a daily basis. The picture below is snap shot of our chore chart (you can only see Caleb's part). As you can see the chores are listed on the left side with a corresponding block for each day of the week. And each time they do the chore, they get a star. For example, Caleb's chores are cleaning the table (after a meal), feeding his fish, cleaning his room, emptying the dryer, making his bed, and taking out the bathroom trash. Because all of those are things that he can do. Taite only has 3 things: cleaning up his toys, taking out the recyclables, and emptying the dryer (b/c he helps Caleb do that).And at the end of each week, for every star they have, I give them 1 dime. I know thats not a lot, but I can't afford a quarter for every star and a dime keeps things simple. So, why are we doing this?

Well, because I want to start early teaching my children about the value of hard work and about the proper and correct use of money. When I was growing up, I never received any form of allowance. And even though I know my Dad's reasoning (everything I had he provided), I still think I would have benefited from personally learning how to use, save, and be generous with my own money. As they get older, the chores will increase in quantity, and their value will go up as well. But for now, I think this is a good start.

Daddy Day at Marbles Museum

Well, its like after mid-night, and I should be in the bed sleeping because I have an early morning tomorrow, but I guess that grande coffee at 6pm and glass of Coke at 8pm were too much for me. So, since I can't sleep I thought I would post a short blog about my day today.

I took the boys out for a "Daddy-Day." In case you don't know what that is, thats where it's just me and the boys all day... or most of the day. We left this morning around 7:30am to go to McDonalds for breakfast. And then shortly after, we headed to Raleigh to go to the Marbles Museum. (We were actually headed to a place called the "Playspace" on Glenwood Ave., but it no longer exists.) I wish the internet could be updated with information like that.

Anyway, we ended up finally getting there around 11:30am. So, we went ahead and ate lunch in the park before going in. But once we were in... Whoa, let the fun begin! There was so much to do and so many kids! Oh my goodness, it was like controlled chaos! I mean seriously, my boys played there for 3.5 hours and would have stayed longer, and we maybe did half the stuff you could do. But boy, they had a blast. I have posted a few photos below of our day.

Taite especially loved the HUGE Thomas the Train set...

Both boys really liked the water stuff. Here was a continuous running fountain layed out like a river with a waterfall at the end. They were a little wet after this.

This had to have been their favorite. It was the "peas and carrots" bin. (ball pit) They must have went in like 30 times. We even left for a while to go do something else, and ended up coming back to finish the day here. They loved it!

Here they were supposed to be learning about other cultures in the world, like how Eskimos sometimes live. I must confess, we didn't do much learning... just playing.

Not sure what happened to this last picture of Taite with "snow shoes" on... maybe my computer savy wife can figure it out for me.

Down By Creek

Yesterday, Clift (Andrea's Dad) and I and Caleb went to the little creek behind their house. For the most part, Caleb loved it. Mostly he just threw rocks in the "e-ow" (water). But then he figured out that it was ok for him to actually get in the water. He really loved that. Normally you wouldn't be doing this in March, but it has been unseasonably warm - in the 80's! Caleb had a great time!