Do you Love BOOKS?

Okay, for those of you that love to read & have books in your home, I found a new website that I absolutely LOVE! I've been using it for a couple of months & it is soooo cool!

What you do is find the books in your home that are in great shape but you don't want anymore. You list them on this website & when someone requests a book from you, you mail it. When they receive the book then you get a "credit" to request a book from someone else. You can also purchase "credits" for like $3.45 each so you are basically buying a used book from someone else. The really fun part is that when you sign up & list 10 books, you'll get 2 FREE "credits" to get 2 books immediately. You have to pay shipping on the books that you send, but you don't have to pay anything to get a book from someone else if you're using your free "credits". Its like the BEST used bookstore out there! I've already shipped a few books off & also received several books & am loving it!

If you'd like to check it out, use this link.

What I really love about this is that I have been able to really add to my book collection & fill in a few missing books that I've wanted at such a low cost. So far, I have received 2 free books for posting 10 books that I've been willing to give to others and I've had 3 requests for my posted books --- after I spent less than $3.00 each to mail those books, I received a free book of my choice in return. I've also purchased credits from the site (1 credit for $3.45 = 1 new book) to get more books that I wanted.

YW Activity: Culture Night

Our Mia Maids were in charge of the combined Young Women activity last night & we had a lot of fun. We did a culture night. We asked for volunteers to bring a food from a foreign culture, set up a display table, or give a presentation. Those that set up tables got to share what was on their table & we had a couple of our girls give great presentations on places they had visited (Panama & France) and we got to try out some delicious food!

While I was busy with other parts of the planning, my husband put together a Culture Quiz that you can download here. He gathered together some fun facts and we passed it out to the girls as a quiz. I put a list of the countries/cities that were the answers on the board for them to guess from.

Caution: he gathered this list from the internet, so while we know that EVERYTHING you read on the internet is true, use this list knowing that its not first hand knowledge but was pulled from internet sources ;)

Adventures While Dad was Away

Jeff was out of town for work last week so I got to handle things alone with the kids. We did pretty well . . . even managed to have some fun & definitely some unplanned adventures!

While Jeff was gone we managed to . . .

• find out that our fire alarms work. This was totally not on purpose! And the sight of my cheese crisp coming out of the oven ON FIRE was crazy!
• get stuck in a car wash. The car wash grabbed on to our tires & pulled us through to the first stop & then got stuck. So, we were stuck being covered in soap & having those long strips of whatever brushing over us for about 5 minutes before I called Jeff in a panic for some advice. His answer of "just drive through" seemed so simple but I didn't know what would happen or if we'd be able to make it all the way through. We did make it through, got a profuse apology when we went inside & explained what happened, got a refund for the car wash & got sent through again AFTER they fixed the conveyor belt that had gotten stuck.
• find ourselves in very close proximity (within a 1/4 of a mile) of the evacuation line for a wildfire that was burning in our town. SCARY while I sat there & watched the coverage wondering if the evacuation area would be pushed further to include us & knowing it would be difficult with the two kids by myself.

But, despite it all, we made it through & definitely had a memorable time. (We're excited to have Jeff back home now!)

FHE: Bully or Superhero

Thanks to all the comments on my previous post, both on the blog & through facebook! I especially liked the suggestion that we need to teach that as members of our family, we should be each others' protectors. In that spirit, we are using a family home evening idea adapted from another blog. I'm printing out 2 pictures (one of a bully & one of a superhero) and putting them on popsicle sticks (each kid will get their own set of pictures to hold during the lesson). Then we'll talk about how we're supposed to take care of each other (like the superhero). I'm going to attach a superhero picture to a jar & each time the kids act like a superhero to each other we'll add a bean to the jar; when it gets filled up we'll go out for ice cream. With only 2 kids & them both being very small, we're going to use a small jar so we can fill it up quickly!

Click here for the lesson that inspired my adapted lesson, as well as the pictures that I'm using.

Parenting Help, Please!

We're going through a difficult time here. When the new baby was brought home from the hospital (over a year ago!) there really weren't any problems with the 2 year old. Now that one year has gone by, he's having some serious problems with her . . . she takes his toys, he has to share things with her & we're just plain struggling. He even starts throwing a fit when she wakes up from a nap or wakes up in the morning (after him); he starts crying, "No, Evie's not awake!"

What to do? We've relocated a few of his toys to his bedroom (the ones that he has a really hard time sharing) so that he can play with some things by himself. We've done occasional one-on-ones - where mom takes one & dad takes the other on an errand alone. And we've given Chase a couple of grown-up jobs that he really likes.

Do I just have to wait for him to grow out of the stage or is there more that I could be doing? Help, please!

Job Charts to the Rescue!!!

We've really been struggling lately with recently turned 3 year old, Chase. Seems he's just now hitting the "terrible two's". The first problem that cropped up was refusing to eat, especially breakfast. And then there have been lots of "no's" being yelled. I don't know about you, but a toddler yelling "no" to my face really gets my blood boiling.

The issue isn't completely resolved but last week we introduced a job chart and it has worked miracles. Chase gets to put a sticker next to each item after he completes it and he loves to get those things done so he can mark them off the list. His job chart includes -
Morning: making his bed, eating breakfast, brushing his teeth, reading scriptures, and unloading the dishwasher (with a little help from mom)
Evening: cleaning up the toys, brushing his teeth, saying his prayers

He is loving having something to be responsible & especially loves unloading the dishwasher & I have been amazed at how great he is doing. On only the 2nd day, he knew where just about everything went as he unloaded.

I used some super cute graphics found here.

More Toddler Book Recommendations

We're getting lots of books from the library & a lot of times they turn out to be ones we read just once. But we've recently found some winners that Chase wants to read over & over again. Here's our recommendations:

Dr. Seuss's ABC
Frog & Toad series by Arnold Lobel
Harold & the Purple Crayon series by Crockett Johnson
Chicka Chicka 123 by Bill Martin Jr., Michael Sampson, Lois Ehlert
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault


ENJOY!