Owen said...

I'm so far behind on blogging that I'll never catch up. One thing I do want to do is start keeping a better record of the funny things that Owen says. He's growing so fast and says the funniest things every day. Today he had his opening ceremony for tball so he's had baseball on the brain for weeks. His bedtime prayers went a little like this: "Dear Lord...thank you for this day..thank you for my mommy and daddy...thank you for all of the kiddos..thank you for all of the baseball players...the red ones....the blue ones...the yellow ones....the orange ones....and thank you for Caroline's dad's tractor. AMEN!" Pictures and more posts to come soon (hopefully!)

Look Ma No Training Wheels!

Weekend Warriors....alternately titled Moments of Insanity

When you've got company coming in 7 days....what else should you do but destroy half of the house in home renovations!?!

last glimpse of this horrifying wallpaper...that matches the green countertops....that matches the green hardware....oh my!

glimpse of the 1/2 bath in progress

last glimpse of the green wallpaper in the 1/2 bath....that matched the green countertop...that matched the green hardware....oh my!

Here's hoping in 7 days we can get the house put back together, cleaned from top to bottom, and set up for company to arrive. Shouldn't be a big deal unless we let working 3 jobs between the two of us, taking Aiden to the doctor in Little Rock, and running the kids to AWANA, choir, gymnastics, church, etc. get in the way!

Discipline

Disciplining Owen has been a challenge to say the least. He is just a mini version of Chris so they butt heads on a daily basis. He's very strong-willed and very active. We've tried all kinds of methods and read books and articles on disciplining boys. I put together a system that took ideas from several sources and it has been working for us so I thought I'd share.

I took an idea from the website I Can Teach My Child and added in a little kindergarten discipline style and this is what we came up with:

I am not artistic or crafty so it's not the best looking thing ever and its taken a beating already so I need to redo the poster. Anyway, the gist of our system is this: Owen has rules based on our expectations for him at this age and 3 age-appropriate chores. He can earn green sticks when he does his chores or shows good behavior and he is given red sticks when he breaks the rules or misbehaves. The sticks are placed in the chart at the top (this particular day he had 3 red sticks and only 1 green...bless his heart!) throughout the day. At the end of the day we count the sticks and if he has more green than red he earns a quarter. The 3 jars at the bottom give him choices on what to do with his money. The green is for "give", the red is for "save", and the blue is for "spend".

We've been doing this for about 3 weeks now and my sweet Jesus loving little boy has chosen to put his money in the "give" jar every day so far. He takes the money to church each week and puts it in the offering plate.

This has really worked for us so far. He is highly motivated to earn those green sticks and a red stick just breaks his heart. It's a good math lesson at the end of the day when we talk about 'more' and 'less' and count the sticks up.

Snow Day...Again

Earlier in the week there had been mention of some possible snow for the end of the week. I didn't pay it any attention because we get that from time to time and then nothing happens. By Thursday the forecast was calling for snow and we were under a winter storm warning for the following day. The next morning we awoke to the phone ringing off the hook at 6 am with people calling to let us know that school had been cancelled.....AGAIN! We had a great time playing and spending time together without all of our usual obligations.

These pictures are not in order so bear with me!

he can't even sit up all the way in all of those layers!

It's the Michelin Man!

lots of snow!

suiting up!It was only 24 degrees so we spent a lot of time playing inside

the view from the front porch

Owen wanted me to take a picture of his horses. He carefully lined them up and then the horses had to approve the photo after it was taken.

there was lots of wrestling....

he's so excited!

the view from the back porch

They're calling for another winter storm this next week. I've enjoyed the snow and the fun that we've had but I sure am ready for summer!

Snow Day Dance Party

Aiden has always loved music and loved to dance! Owen has just recently started dancing around the house. While we were stuck indoors during the bitter cold we've had recently, we had a little dance party. It takes Aiden a little bit to get warmed up but once he does....look out!

Look who's walking!

Aiden had been taking a few steps here and there for a month but never seemed all that interested in walking. Around the week of January 22nd he started taking off and continues to improve every day.