It’s that time again! Our local weather keeps teasing us with hot days that make it clear that summer is just around the corner! I’m depending on my Summer Bucket List more than ever this year, as my children have reached a whole new level of fighting that I am certain will send me to the loony-bin if I don’t have a clear plan of attack. That clear plan of attack comes in the form of my Refreshing Summer Bucket List. Continue reading
Huzzah! Remember my last post? How I said I had three items on my Task List that I had begun to ignore, as they had been on there for so long? Well, guess what? I did one of them this week! I was so thrilled with finally accomplishing it that I’m sharing it as my First Friday Find! A while ago, I saw this idea for a chore board for kids presented in different ways on Pinterest, and I finally got around to completing my version!
Let me start by saying, I hesitate to give my children money for chores. Both my husband and I try to instill in our children that they are not entitled to any money by helping around the home. We want our children to know that some things get done simply out of respect for their living area and things. So, making any sort of system that created an allowance based on chores was a hard sell for us. However, I can understand how they might like opportunities to make money. That is why I created a chore board for them that includes tasks above and beyond the other chores that are expected of them as part of our family. As their part in sharing the load in our home, my two eldest are responsible for doing the following without rewards: clearing the table, sweeping under the table, emptying the dishwasher, taking out the trash, cleaning up toys/books/clothes/crafts/etc, bringing laundry down, putting laundry away, and more. As my boys grows older, their load of responsibilities will increase. I may ask more or less of my children than most, I don’t know. But, for now, this is working in our home.
With my daughters getting older though, their abilities to help around the home have increased. As a result, our chore board for kids is FINALLY going to come to pass. I have 8 clothespins on our chore board. The current list of chores include: dusting upstairs ($.50), dusting downstairs ($.50), vacuuming upstairs ($1), vacuuming downstairs ($1), cleaning downstairs bathroom ($1), cleaning upstairs bathroom ($1), washing windows in our TV room ($1), and parent’s choice ($1). I put cleaning specifications on the chore tags to avoid any shortcuts being taken. I also noted that on “parent’s choice” it may involve more than one chore to earn $1. This may not seem like much money, but, again, they have a responsibility to be a contributing part of our family first and foremost.
In an effort to keep some sort of order to this system, I have a few plans in mind. First, they will need my approval of their work before they receive the money. Second, I am going to ask that they write their name on the back of the paper so that I can keep track over a longer period of who is doing what in our home. If it turns out that washing the windows is the coveted chore, I don’t want to find that one of my daughters is always snagging that chore first. So, to be fair, they can’t do the same chore twice in a row. Lastly, I plan to refill the money in the chart every two weeks. This will slow down the rate at which they try to earn money and keep my husband and I from going broke. I can see my second oldest dusting every single day, if it meant more money. She actually enjoys that chore.
As for the making of the chore board for kids, it was really quite simple. I picked up a decorative piece of wood at Hobby Lobby and used some paint, clothespins, and tacky glue that I had from home and VOILA! I wanted to come up with a catchy title at the top, as I still regretted not putting “Seeking Sole Mate” at the top of my Lost Socks craft. So, while many other websites called their system “Work for Hire,” I settled on, “Earn more by doing a chore.” I love how my eldest questioned where I got the line from, not believing that I was capable of such creativity. I managed to paint the letters freehand with the printed version as my guide. You can see by the picture that I had a change of heart during my creation from sizing down on WAY TOO big a font to switching out the word “make” for “earn.”
Once the craft itself was complete, I picked up Sawtooth Hangers from Hobby Lobby, snack size bags from Target, grabbed some small bills, and typed up the chores on card-stock paper for durability. Once I finished it, I couldn’t wait to hang it in our laundry room/mudroom over their filing bin. That hanging filing bin was another lifesaver in our home. I was so sick of seeing the girls papers and random drawings on scrap papers, that I finally made them in charge of deciding what papers and drawings were worth keeping in their designated space. That may sound heartless, but my second eldest is notorious for writing made-up song lyrics, menu items, directions for x-y-z, and more. The clutter adds up fast.
So, there you have it! This month’s First Friday Find is a combination of finding a morsel of my mojo and sharing a crafty find I stumbled upon years ago, but only recently made a reality. I know my kids are especially grateful that the chore board for kids is complete, and not just something I keep promising them will be implemented at an undetermined date. Here’s to my hired help making my life a little easier.
For many, Memorial Day Weekend is the kick-off for Summer. School does not get out until mid-June for my kiddos, but that’s not stopping us from getting a head start on some summer fun! This weekend, we’re going on our first camping trip as a family. So, I’m sure you can expect a camping related post in the near future. In the meantime, I am so excited to share with you my 50 Fabulous Summer Bucket List Items to do with your kids!
My personal summer bucket list includes the following 50 items along with 20 more items that are specific to the region where I live. I highly suggest that you take this list and add some of your favorite things to do locally. Most of these were on my list last year, but I’ve added some new ones and removed the ones that were a bust. This will be my third Summer using a bucket list and I can’t wait! My Summers have never been better, since I let a bucket list guide my way. My love of completing lists keeps me motivated to carry out all these items, and makes it a fantastic Summer for all of us!
last year, which my kids love. I’m thinking we’ll do Charlotte’s Web
this year.
byKlutz for cheaper on Amazon.
There you have it, Folks! Please feel free to download the free printable version list of my 50 Fabulous Summer Bucket List Items. Preparing this post has me pumped up for this coming Summer. It was fun to remember all the activities we’ve done since I started this tradition two Summers ago. I can’t wait to see what the Summer of 2015 has in store for us!
This is not my typical post, but I was too excited not to share! As I’ve mentioned before, I am not crafty. So when I attempt something crafty, I feel the need to share my success (or failure) with you fine readers.
. She’s pretty amazing like that. If you’ve never heard of it, check out the link above. It’s sweet! Alas, it required some extra cords, as our TV does not have HDMI input. With the Roku 2 cords adding to our already abundant amount of cords, it was turning in to a bit of an eye sore around our TV. Because we are renting, we can’t start drilling holes and such, so I tried to come up with something to hide the cords. The planter box proved to be my solution.
Here in our neck of the woods, Fall is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Winter greeted us with a significant snow storm that served as a reminder to get cracking on my Awesome Autumn Bucket List before I embrace the next season. So, when I was walking the girls home from school, I told them to grab all the leaves they could find so that we could work on our Fall Craft, which was an item on our bucket list. Sadly, we started this project too late in the season for it to be a complete success. However, it still turned out pretty cute, so I thought I would share.
You may be asking yourself, “Hey, didn’t she say that she isn’t crafty?” You are correct, I did say that. But for some reason, if you put some sort of brush in my hand, it somehow seems easier for me to tackle. This time it was a sponge brush to pull off the DIY Leaf Mason Jars that I found on Pinterest through the website Plan Provision. It doesn’t provide much of a how-to on the site, but it does tell you what you’ll need. The problem in our results was that I wasn’t aware that the leaves this late in the season would prove to be too crispy and therefore would not stick properly to the mason jars. We had to cut up the leaves a bit to make them stick at all. While I still think they turned out nice, I plan to do this project again next year earlier in the season for a more professional looking final product.
If you still have a bit off Fall hanging on where you live, you may want to give this project a go during your Thanksgiving break. If, like us, winter is upon you, then keep this in mind for next year! It really did add a beautiful effect to our dining room. Even better, it left us one bucket list item closer to completing our goal of creating the most Awesome Autumn yet!
You got it! This month’s First Friday Find is about finding my lost socks. And, hopefully, your lost socks too!
I am neither artistic nor crafty, so the fact that I did something like this is shocking. I originally came across this idea while perusing the glorious world of Pinterest. It was on a blog called Stories by Me and the woman was posting it as a mod podge project. I did not complete this project doing mod podge, as that sounds too complicated for me. I simply bought the wood piece, three satin acrylic paint colors, and clothespins from Michael’s to make the project pictured above. I already had glue and a picture hook available at home.
Painting the wood was so much fun! Why is painting so pleasant? I don’t want to paint pictures. I don’t want to paint walls. But painting a simple item was somehow therapeutic. It gave me the same satisfaction that coloring or putting together a puzzle often gives me. Is it the mindless focus on a project that produces rapid results? Who knows? But it sure was enjoyable!
Putting the project to use was the best part! I was actually excited to do my wash the day I hung it up to see what socks would find their “sole mates.” Two of the socks found their match and I got oddly giddy.
May you find the same joy that I did in creating this super easy and fun project in an effort to get a handle on all of your rogue socks.
firstyoumustbegin.com 