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!

FHE: The Sabbath Day

Thought we'd have a short little lesson on the Sabbath day for family home evening on Monday. Chase is really talking about the days of the week these days & loves to go to church on Sunday but always asks to go to the store while we're on our way to church!

I'm going to print out some pictures of places & things: church, store, playground, Jesus, man with a briefcase (to represent going to work), etc. and we'll talk about what we do on Sunday & what we don't do on Sunday and that we should do things that help us to think about Jesus.

I also stole this idea from a blog a while back & made it my own. I put together these shelves that we're going to hang in their rooms. On Saturday night, we'll hang their church clothes up on the hooks & put their shoes on the shelf to make sure we have everything ready for Sunday without any scrambling on Sunday morning. The shelves were purchased at Hobby Lobby during their 50% off sale - still about $25 each. I just added pictures of the kids in their Sunday clothes, pictures of Christ, and vinyl lettering with a cute paper background.

Family Home Evening: Gratitude Lesson

Last night's Family Home Evening was on gratitude. We talked about how when someone does something nice for us its important to say "thank you". Then we talked about all the nice presents that were received for Christmas and that it was so important to say "thank you" for all those nice things we received. We took pictures of the kid with the presents they got from their grandparents (each picture was with what they got from one set of grandparents) and then this morning I used walmart.com to make thank you cards that have the pictures on them. When they're ready, we'll write a thank you message inside, help the kids to sign them & send them off to the grandparents. Here's the pictures we took - and yes, the puppy was a gift of sorts from grandparents. Not exactly a Christmas gift, but we were given a puppy from my parents' recent litter and got to bring her home after our Christmas visit.