Some new things...

Again, its been a while since I've posted anything but in the last few months let's just say blogging was truly the last thing on my mind.  The last weeks of my pregnancy were a very painful one to say the least and of course along with that was end of the school year business.

Since then, we have added the newest and most precious gift from God to our family.  Her name is Raelynn and we couldn't be more excited and more happy about finally having a baby girl.  I look forward to all those mother/daughter things we will be able to do when she's older.  I say look forward to but hopefully she stays little for a while.  Let me just say how elated I am about having a baby in the house again and how now our family feels complete.  I think she is the final piece to the little puzzle we call our family.

And with the new baby comes new challenges of how to get my older two to continue helping in the house without me having to tell them all the time of things that need to be done.  And that's where my creativity has come back into play!  I'm quite excited about being back on my feet and to not have that infamous "pregnancy brain" all the time.  This is what I came up with...

I'm hoping this helps in the day to day chores the boys need to get done.  Here's what I did...

I decided I wanted to do something to help the boys get their chores done without me having to hound them all the time.  That's when I grabbed my camera.  Since kids, mostly boys, are visual beings I decided to take pictures of their chores (i.e.laundry, toys, recycling, etc) and then I laminated them so they would hold up well to the wear and tear of every day life.  Then I went to Walmart with the boys in tow and let them pick out their favorite color from a collection of colorful foam boards.  They both agreed on red.  (And for my favorite part of the project...)  Then I turned on my Cricut machine and went to town making all the letters you see in the picture.  I love my Cricut machine and this was just one more reason why!  I made stickers out of the letters and stuck them to the board along with velcro squares I found at Big Lots.  Voila!  A daily chores board!

A little tidbit on the side, I also color coordinated the chores.  Yellow borders means "this is your reminder" like getting dressed in the morning and brushing your teeth.  Green borders means "this is your privilege to live here chore" like making their bed, cleaning up their toys, and putting their laundry away.  Red borders means a paid chore.  These are things like vacuuming, dusting, and watering mommy's plants.  Things that are generally my responsibility.  I made these paid chores so that when they see that red border its a surprise and they know they will get something out of it.  I made the green bordered ones so that they understand that there are certain things they need to do just because they are a part of this family.  My husband and I figure we don't get "paid" for everything it is that we do and we don't want our kids to think that they should either.  We also don't want them to think that mommy will do absolutely everything for them and therefore raising a couple of very lazy boys.  We do make the chores age appropriate and the velcro helps because there are certain chores that don't need done every day like the laundry.  So I am able to pick their chores for the day every day, which also allows me to pick any paid chores for the day.  It also helps the visual aspect because they get to remove the picture when they have finished that chore allowing them to see their own progress.

All in all this board has helped out tremendously with the boys and doing their chores and has cut down on me yelling at them to get them done over and over and over again.  The cost break down of this project was very cheap- $3.00 for the laminate pouches, $4.00 for the velcro squares (2 packs), and $2.88 for the foam board.  We'll see how long the board lasts as far as the boys following it but so far they love it!


And don't forget to hit up one of my favorite blogs Women Living Well!  She is a great inspiration for us all!