I love having the kids home more during the summer. We don't worry about getting to bed at a certain time, don't worry about homework or piano lessons, and try to be as unscheduled as possible. In the morning the kids do their chores. Each day they have to make their bed, clean their room, rinse and load their own breakfast dishes, read for 20 minutes (sometimes alone or sometimes we'll read a book together. Tomorrow we're starting The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane) and practice piano 10 minutes (anything they want since they're not in lessons). They are then assigned at least one extra job which could be cleaning out the car, weeding, washing walls, cleaning baseboards, etc. Today's extra job for all three kids was deep cleaning rooms. We only got half way done before lunch so will finish the rest tomorrow.
We have a chart on the fridge with a grid of 144 squares. When they fill up all the squares we're going to Roaring Spring Water Park which they LOVE! They each get to fill in one square if they get all their morning jobs done. They get to fill in one square for each extra job they do. If they do or say something especially kind or thoughtful I tell them to put a smiley face on a square. We also fill in one square if we said family prayer a.m., p.m., and read scriptures. The chart is a great motivator, and I love it because part of the rule is if I have to nag or remind about their jobs, they don't get to fill in a box. So they take the initiative to get it done on their own. We also told them we'll go to Roaring Springs as many times as they fill up the chart so the faster they get it done, the more trips to Roaring Springs we'll have this summer.
We do our work before lunch and then after lunch is play time. We are lucky to live in a neighborhood where there are so many kids their age they love to play with. Today Luke and his friends played outside literally from lunch until 6:30 tonight. Gabe played with them most of the time and Luke is so good about including Gabe. Maryn had friends over and they played house with Ian most of the day. They insisted on changing his poopy diaper, and I had to laugh when I went to change him again later and they had put the diaper on backwards! It must have been hard to Velcro it in the back with him lying down.
I have some friends I walk with in the morning. We get up at 6:45 and walk for about an hour. I love this time although today we got rained on.
We had a cockatiel in our backyard last week!
Ian and dad chilling in the hammock
This picture was taken by Gabe. He is our resident photographer and had about 50 pictures on my camera to my 10 when I downloaded them tonight. And yes, they are all this blurry.
