A month of nothin'

I was really surprised when I went to write this post and saw that I haven't posted in a month.  And yet, there really isn't a huge backlog of pictures to post on here.  Huh.  I guess we haven't done much in the last month, though it has felt busy to me.

The main thing that has made me busy is the chore charts.

We started this system with the kids, and so far it is going . . . pretty well.  Basically, they are both happy to do the tasks if one of us reminds them to do them.  Tyler is especially excited to get his check marks.  In fact, one night I went to check off his "pick up toys" spot and realized that while he hadn't picked up any toys, he hadn't been home enough to make a mess that day and it was late so I figured we would just call it good.  But he jumped up and started searching his room and the hallway for toys to put away so he could earn his check mark.  On the other hand, today was so busy that no one reminded them to do their chores and not many of them got done.

Kaitlyn, in contrast, is all about the money at the end.  We give them a dollar if their whole sheet is checked off and ten more pennies if they do any extra tasks like weeding or something.  Mostly I want them to get more practice with the coins and how much they are worth, and have Kaitlyn earning her money instead of searching the house for lost quarters to buy candy with.

And of course, I quickly realized that I shouldn't be asking the kids to do something I'm not, so now I have a chore chart too.  Since my cleaning habits lately have been really bad, the first week of that amounted to spring cleaning.  And boy, that wiped me out.  I think my goals are reasonable, I just have to keep up with them better than I have in the past.

So, the house is looking better than ever, but that task has consumed the last couple of weeks.

Huh, what else have we done?

We went to the Tulip Festival with Grandma.

It was FREEZING cold.  And windy.

Jasmine discovered the tunnel.  I am always amazed at how much those silly tunnels are loved.

She's running around the house now.  And climbing up stairs, but not down.  Still no words, but I think she is understanding us a bit now.  And of course, still imitates everything.  Like pointing at people and telling them what to do. (The jammies are too big, but the saggy bum made me laugh every time I saw it!)

Or grabbing a shovel to help Daddy dig holes for our new fence.

I got a new bike, so we've used that on the canal road a couple of times.  Jasmine loves it so much that anytime we set her down in the garage she heads right for it.  Oh, and if I have my hands on the handlebars when we are stopped, she picks my hand up and tosses it off so she can hold on.

Last time we took our dinner with us in a backpack and ate at a little picnic bench pavilion along the way.  It is so much fun to have kids that can ride now - even if they are really slow sometimes!

Kaitlyn learned her first piano song! She was just pushing random keys one day and told me that she was playing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", and I thought I would try and teach it to her.  I never would have guessed she could learn the whole song, but it only took her about 20 minutes to pick up the whole thing.  She's pretty proud of herself.

Oh, and Kaitlyn broke a board at a Karate class, too.  Her friend is in the class, so she got to come try it out for a day.  She thinks she wants to take that instead of gymnastics next year so she can "learn to fight the monsters that come at night."  I would prefer ballet or gymnastics again, but we'll see what she picks.  It was a cute class though.

And Tyler is in love with playing the sword game on the Wii.  Watching him is hilarious!  And he really is good at it, somehow.  Which means that we have finally found something he is better at than Kaitlyn.  She wasn't so happy about that.

He beats her every time!  And he is really vocal about it, which is great for him. "I did win the game!  And Kay-yen did go in the water!"

Other than that, this month was pretty quiet, I guess.  But my mom flies into town on Tuesday, so life will be more crazy until school lets out!