Chores are a Chore

Making the kids do their chores has always been too much of a chore for me. Constant cracking of the whip and a waste of time for me. Lots of things I just ended up doing myself because I could get it done a lot quicker without the whining and fighting. I've tried numerous tricks to make it go smoother but never has one worked so well for both me AND the kids. My kids like checking stuff off so a daily chart works best. But to get them doing them consecutively for a month takes incentive. Money just doesn't give them green eyes yet and telling them that they can take that money and buy a little something with it still doesn't make them quite as excited as seeing something they want in front of them that they are working for. This way, I control what they get instead of spending hours at the dollar store waiting for them to decide on a piece of junk toy that they'll loose interest in shortly and will probably just end up in the trash. So this is how it works, every time they do all of their chores for the day they get a star on their chart. For days where they have a long list of chores I make a chart for them to check off along the way. The hardest part of this process so far has just been making sure Alex doesn't do Johnny's chores for him. He is really a lazy kid and cries for sissy to help him whenever a finger has to be lifted. She really wants them to have the same number of stickers too so she really wants him to get his chores done (yes, she has slight OCD tendencies). But she also has a soft spot for him and her mothering instincts kick in any time he's in distress. Johnny knows this and uses it to his advantage. One thing that is never on the chore list but is always a chore for Johnny is bedtime and the other night he was having a rough time admitting that his overly tired body was ready for bed. Since Mom and Dad weren't being too sensitive to his cries he called for Sissy. She put him in bed, tucked him in, got him a drink, books, stuffed animals and sang him a song, or two, or three. As much as he loves having her around to baby him, she loves to baby him. I know this is a little off from my initial story but it comes out every time they have chores to do and I have to go as far as to threaten her if she helps him in any way. I hate telling her that she can't help, it's nice that she wants to do that, but there are plenty of other ways she gets to help him during the day and I want him to learn to do things for himself. So right now I have these sport cups on display for them to see every time they add another sticker to their chore chart and they just keep plugging away at those chores. Everyone wins. Chores are no longer a chore!

Froggy Days

This year is the "Year of the Frog" at Zoo Boise. Our Zoo passes are expiring this month so we figured we'd get one more use out of them and see their newest visitors. I was really hoping to see a cool bright blue frog like the one they put on all of their posters but no such luck. It seemed that the brighter the frog was in color the better it was at hiding. Except for the red-eyed tree frogs that were happily suctioned to the outside glass for everyone's viewing pleasure. Maybe it was because of their recent stardom in "Go Diego Go" where he rescued them from a branch drifting swiftly downstream. The kids also happened upon a Zoo helper who was out giving her walking stick friends some fresh air. They were each very excited when they found out they could hold one.

Tadpoles and Leapfrogs

After two weeks of swimming lessons Johnny is much more comfortable in the water and Alex is a lot safer in the deep end. Both of my kids love being under the water more than on top of it which made it hard to hear their instructor at times, but I'm told that improves with age (crossing my fingers). Johnny's favorite thing to do was diving under the water for the super hero diving toys. Alex of course loved going off of the diving board and down the slide all by herself this year. However I think her favorite part of swim lessons was walking with her hands all the way down a long pole to touch the bottom of the deep end and then shooting back up. Neither of them are timid and their over confidence can be a bad thing around water. I'm grateful for swimming lessons to help guide their confidence and they were glad to be in the water every day for two weeks to cool off these hot summer days.

Roaring Springs

After swimming lessons on Wednesday we took the kids to Roaring Springs Water Park for the day. Brad took the day off and even though it was closed the day before for thunder and lightening storms, it was clear and beautiful the day we went. We met Brad's sister Emily and her husband Tate there. They were nice enough to watch the kids for a little so we could go on some bigger rides together.
Johnny's favorite ride? The newest kiddie ride they just put in, "Kiddie Kowabunga". It's striped green and purple so as soon as he got to the bottom he would start chanting "green and purple ride again?!" and then he would chant it all the way back up to the top. Brad and I took turns taking Alex on some rides and the whole time Johnny would ride the little tube ride. He got to know the lifeguards at the top of the ride very well and they learned that he needs to sit in the tube backwards because he's just too short to reach the handles when it's facing forwards and that he likes to be spun around as he's pushed down the slide. I think he rode that ride at least 2 dozen times. It was hilarious.

Alex's favorite ride? Racing Ridge. It has been her favorite for the past 3 years since she was tall enough to ride some of the bigger rides. She's perfected being able to glide to the end of the ride further than anyone else. We went on the lazy river a few times and she never wanted to use a floaty, she swam around the whole time and the rest of us had to race to keep up with her. We were wearing them out pretty fast (or was it the other way around?) but she had renewed energy when her friend Alayna showed up and they got to go on a few rides together.
This is the first year we've brought Johnny with us. Before we've always left him with a babysitter. He's old enough now that he asks to go there every time we drive by it and since he's not napping in the afternoon I knew we'd be able to stay as long as we wanted. We took the kids a couple of times on the "Pipeline Mines" which has double tubes so the kids can sit in front and takes you through a blackout tube. Johnny's adrenaline was pumping when we got down it the first time and even though he didn't like the waterfalls you have to pass through he liked it enough to go on it twice.

Good times, right now it's a once a year tradition but as soon as Johnny is 42 inches tall (which unfortunately I think that'll take a couple of years) we'll invest in season passes and go all the time in the summer.

Paddle Boats

They got new paddle boats this year! We've seen them floating down the river on our trips to the park and had to try them out. So yesterday we took the kids, Brad and Johnny got a pelican and Alex and I got a swan. The kids took turns steering down the river and around the lake. At one point Johnny was sitting all the way over next to Brad and their whole boat was drastically leaning to one side as they paddled nonchalantly down the river. It was a fun afternoon. Maybe next time we'll rent them a little longer so the kids can play around the lake a little more. Very cute.

Here's to Summer

I don't know what it is about summer that makes me try to pack as much into a week as possible. I guess it's the longer days and warmer weather but even things that we can do all year round don't become a priority until summer comes around. So here's to summer and all the fun we can pack into just a few months.

This week the kids started swimming lessons. Our friend Suzy has started teaching swimming this year and so the kids are in a familiar pool with a familiar teacher. Johnny is just a little too familiar with her though and wants her undivided attention even though there are 4 other kids in his class that she needs to focus on.

Friday night Brad needed to set up our smaller tent to make sure it was in good working order before we lent it to his parents for a camp out coming up. He suggested that the kids camp out that night by themselves in our backyard. Me: "By themselves, really?" Of course he had already mentioned it to them and they were beyond excitement. I was skeptical because when we camped in Cascade Alex woke up so many times and I didn't want to be running downstairs every time I heard them wake up. I figured they would end up inside halfway through the night. Well they were in high spirits and didn't go to sleep until the sun went down but they fell right to sleep as soon as it got dark around 10pm. We had our back door and windows open so we could hear them just fine and around 3am I heard Johnny whimpering. I headed out to the tent and he was wedged up against the side of the tent so I put him back in place and asked if he wanted to go inside. No answer, he was already back to sleep. He slept the rest of the night only to be woken by his sister at 7am. Not too bad, I have high hopes for our camp out in a couple of weeks.

That next morning I took the kids to the Pioneer Day parade. They had a cute little covered wagon ride pulled by a couple of Shetland ponies, lots of activities for them to participate in (including the stick pull which although I believe Johnny can out muscle his sister, her long arms and legs are definitely too much of an advantage and she pulled him right up off the ground) as well as a parade that the kids got to be in pulling their own covered wagons.


That afternoon (after a good nap) we took the kids to the YMCA for some rock climbing and swimming. They had lots of fun rock climbing. Alex did better bouldering without the rope than with it. Maybe she has trust issues, I don't know. But Johnny just wanted to hold onto the rope and swing the whole time. He had no fear of heights as long as he didn't have to do the work to get himself up there. Alex always went a couple of steps higher than she wanted to just to prove that she wasn't scared. Unfortunately they were holding a swimming competition that day so the pool was closed. Luckily for us we have some very good friends with a pool in their backyard who let us intrude at the last minute and go swimming there.

I'm ready for a couple of days of not doing anything but for some reason that never really works out. I think that as much as I like summer, 3 months of it is probably all I can handle. :o)

Snake River Stampede

Tuesday night we stayed up late and took the kids to the Snake River Stampede that we've always heard a lot about. We went with Jason and Suzy and their 3 kids, Luke, Brooke and Maddie. The 3 younger kids might have been a little young (that includes both of my kids) but there were a few highlights that really captured their attention. The first one was a "light rider" drill team that started here at the Snake River Stampede but has performed all over. It's a large group of girls with lights trimming their outfits as well as their horse's and with all the lights turned off they run drills around the arena. Very cool. We also had the "One Armed Bandit" perform who hearded a couple of buffalo up ontop of his 18 wheeler. Johnny really liked that one. And of course the bucking broncos, barrell racing and bull riding were all very impressive. Alex loved looking through the brochure at the Rodeo Queens as well as watching the clown act. And Johnny really loved the cotton candy. Of course we weren't able to bring our cameras in so I have no pictures to post other than the one I found on the interent above. Maybe we'll go again in a couple of years when they're both a little older.

Test Camping

Ever heard of "test camping"? 2 years ago we took Johnny on his first camping trip and he kept us up all night every night. Last year he wasn't invited to camp with us so we took Alex and left him at the cabin with Nana and Papa. This year we're planning on going camping in Oregon with family and Brad swore he wouldn't take Johnny unless Johnny could prove that he could sleep through the night in a tent. I rolled my eyes, "he's 3 now, not 1 and sleeping in a crib in the tent". None the less we set up a test campout this weekend to prove that Johnny is ready to camp. We pitched the tent outside of the cabin and Johnny slept like a rock all night long. Alex on the other hand kept waking up because she was sliding off of her pad or out of her sleeping bag. She's used to sleeping on a full size bed and the confinement of a 2 foot by 5 foot pad was just too much to handle. She was up early and out of the tent and I had all the sleeping bags and pads and everything in the tent packed up and Johnny was still out like a light. He slept better in the tent than he does at home. It was a good practice run though, on our real campout I'm going to put their fleece liners on the outside of their sleeping bag and thermarest to hold everything in place. No more sliding off of their pads in the middle of the night. We also took the 4 wheeler out for a ride and found some huge dandelions that the kids were having lots of fun with. It was a quick but fun filled weekend.

LOVE the giant dandelions!

Johnny was finally ready to receive the

"how to roast a perfect marshmallow" lesson from Dad.

Happy Independence!

Happy 4th of July! We spent the weekend in Cascade at the cabin. The kids got to play all day with their cousins, exploring, finding "treasure" and building forts. We caught the parade in town that morning, here are a few highlights.

Johnny made friends quickly with the people next to us who assisted him in gathering the candy being thrown in our direction. Or at times he just put his bucket out in front of him hoping they would make a basket and he wouldn't have to collect the candy at all. Can you say "lazy"?

We got a cool fly by from a nearby airbase.
(I'm sure my Dad or brother could tell me what kind of planes these are.)

The kids got more than their fair share of popsicles that were being handed out.

After the parade we all met up at the lake for a little swimming.

Here's a shot of my newest little nephew, Aiden Castleton.

And one of my next-to-newest little nephew, Weston Woodward.
It was nice to be able to hold them and play with them all weekend and then pass them off to their Mom's when they got fussy.

We ended the weekend with a BBQ and fireworks at Tiffany's house. Everyone was exhausted so we set off the fireworks before it got dark but the kids enjoyed them just the same.

We were trying to use up the package of sparklers faster so we gave them to the kids in threes!

Hope you all had a great Independence!

A Birthday Gift from my Mom

My Mom flew out here June 1st to watch our kids while we were in Mexico. Then she drove for two days with me and the kids to California, drove us back to Idaho and flew home today, July 2nd. One whole month of service to me as a gift and how does she end it? Well yesterday she helped the kids make me breakfast in bed and then she watched them while Brad took me out to dinner and a movie. How nice is that? Loved the visit Mom, thanks for all you do!

We're Back from Nor Cal

We're back from Northern California where we got to spend 2 weeks with family and the kids got to hang with their cousins. We turned the living room into another bedroom with a pop up playhouse tent and the kids slept in there great. We visited the ocean a couple of times and brought home a few treasures. My favorite part about the trip? The pictures Anna took of my kids. So adorable. Here are my favorites (there are a lot of them). Which one is your favorite of each kid? I need to pick one to print out and hang in my family room. We're leaving Thursday for the cabin with Brad's family and playing at the lake. No rest for the weary, it's all worth it though for the memories we create each summer.

Oh and...Happy Birthday to me today! Yeah!