Reward Chart

If you're like me, I'm always trying to come up with different ways to get my son to be motivated and not nag him to do things. Although some of these things seem simple, it's something Isaias needs some help in. He does pretty well in school and is very bright. He's in 1st grade and has begun reading chapter books! He does pretty well in spelling, and he LOVES math and is good at it! All that to say, I think when he gets home he has used up all the patience and motivation at school and just wants to be done.

My newest idea focuses more on his good behavior rather than bad. I was having him put a checkmark when he was not obeying well or not doing what he was supposed to. Each checkmark meant he had a chore to do the next day before his screen time. That lost it's effectiveness and I hated focusing on the negative. Isaias always tries to be optimistic like his Dad, so a reward system seemed more appropriate.

Here's my new method:

It's pretty self-explanatory, but a couple of the things are worth 3 tallies since we're working harder on those. I'll change them up as I need to. Also, he must do these without being asked. If I have to tell him, (after I've given ample time), he still has to do it but doesn't get a tally. I've kept it so he can get rewarded fairly often so he stays motivated. The rewards are simple, but effective! For some families, I know they let their kids pick any cereal they want, but I limit the sugar my kids have, including cereal. So, this would definitely be a reward! 

We keep track of the daily tallies this way. I found it for $1 at Target a while back, and it has come it handy for many things! I like how it has a magnet on the back. In the top left corner are the tallies he earned from last week. Isaias is also learning about tally marks and counting them at school. He's learning math at home too! ;) 

If you need more ideas, I love the book Creative Correction by Lisa Welchel.

I'd love to hear ideas from other people too! Feel free to comment!

Blessings

I just recently decided to dedicate a door in our home titled "Blessings." (It's just the door that leads to the garage.) Here, my family and I have begun to post blessings from God. It can be anything, really. We just write our blessing on a piece of (nice) paper and tape it to the door. So many times I forget all the great things God has done and tend to wallow around and let my feelings and fears consume me. God has done many many amazing things in my life, and I don't want to forget it. It will also be great for Isaias and Lily to learn and see when and how God works in people's lives. I think we get caught up in life and can easily overlook these things. God recently began speaking to me about how I wasn't taking charge of my kid's spiritual growth. I'm leaving it up to the church, and while they do an awesome job, it needs to be a daily practice.

Today, I was able to write a big blessing down. Let me first give you some background. On Wednesday night Erik and Isaias went to Kansas City for a soccer game. The game was tied so they did a tiebreaker and it added an extra hour or so. (Don't you like my not-so-technical terms? :) So, the boys didn't get home until 1:30 AM! I of course stayed up and waited for them, and by the time we all went to sleep it was 2AM. I was up at 8 the next morning. By Thursday evening I was pretty tired, and Erik and I went to bed at 11:30.

At about 3:30 am I woke up to Erik looking out our bedroom window. There were some emergency vehicles in front of our neighbors yard. We live on a street where we hear emergency vehicles many times a day, and into the nighttime. I never heard anything though since I was SO tired. Our neighbor's house had caught on fire! It wasn't a couple houses down, it was right next to us! Our bedroom and Isaias' bedroom are on the side closest to their house. According to the news there were flames and it caught the back part of the house on fire as well as the attic. I'm so shocked I never heard or saw anything until the last couple emergency vehicles left.

 I didn't realize how bad it was until I looked at it in the morning.

From our bedroom window you can see their back deck area.

Erik talked with the neighbor and they said it was probably a cigarette that was thrown out and since it's been so dry it just caught on fire. The boy who lives there happened to go get a drink of water. (at 1:30am) and saw the flames. I'm not sure where the adults were, but it was their bedroom that caught on fire from the outside.

I can totally see how God protected our neighbors! I can also see how God protected me and my family as well. I started to think, "what if...." Many scenarios went through my mind, but God told me not to think about that, and to focus on how He had protected us all. Funny thing is, I had recently been wondering if God forgot about me. I can tell you for certain He has not!! He never will! God is good!

Great Wolf Lodge

Last week we went on a mini family vacation! We took my niece, Juliana along too. This was our first trip to Great Wolf Lodge, and it won't be our last! This place is expensive but Erik was able to get a great discount on it through his job. We only stayed one night, but for Lily it was enough since she's only 1. She missed half her naps, went to bed late, swam, ate dinner late, and well, didn't do too bad for all that actually! Isaias and Juliana did great. We all came back on a sugar hangover!

We had an employee take this for us, which is why it's not really focused. :/

I chose not to take pictures the first day while swimming. Otherwise I wouldn't have enjoyed the fun, and there was nowhere to lock my camera up. We got there early and our room wasn't ready until almost 5, but they told us to have fun and swim while we were there. :) 

We didn't eat dinner until 8pm that night! They have a restaurant there in the hotel so we went there. The kids meals were 7.99! However, that included your meal, a side, drink, and a pair of wolf ears. We were trying to decide if we wanted to spend $21 on just kids meals plus another $25 on our dinner. I asked the kids, "Do you want wolf ears or are you ok without them?" I wondered about Juliana since she's almost 10 and she might be too big. She gave me a funny look and said, "yeah, we don't need them." I said ok and we got something cheaper to eat. Isaias ended up telling our waitress that it was our first time, so she brought out sides of applesauce for free and wolf ears for FREE for all 3 of the kids! Juliana then realized that I wasn't asking if we wanted real wolf ears to eat, but wolf ears for her head! Sometimes we don't think about how kids interpret things, hahaha!

Dinner

While we were at dinner, Oliver the Wolf stopped by!

We got the "Wolf Den" room. The kids LOVED that there were bunk beds and their own space with a TV! 

Good morning!

I got a few pictures in the next day. This barrel holds 1000 gallons of water and drops about every 3 minutes. It was pretty awesome!

The next day we ate at Fritz's. It has the train on the ceiling that brings your food to you. We've always gone to the one at Crown Center in Kansas City but tried out a different location. It was less busy and much nicer!

Juliana got to push the button to call our order, and Isaias got to take it off.

It was a great vacation! Next time we're planning on staying for at least 2 nights!

Memorial Day 2012

For Memorial Day we kept it pretty low key and just had my sister and niece over. It was simple yet fun. :) 

The kids played in the sprinkler while Erik grilled.

Lily cuddled with Auntie "M" :)

Lily kept walking over to Isaias and was getting right in his face and smiling, then walked away. Silly girl.

Another one of Lily's faces! Totally unprompted!

Happy Memorial Day, and thank you to all the soldiers who fight for our country! 

Parenting

This blog post is a little harder for me than others. Why? It has to do with my parenting. One of the things I'm most sensitive to. There have been so many nights that I've cried late at night over my parenting. I tend to be pretty hard on myself.

I've been able to pinpoint the issue back to when Lily was born. As we all know babies need so much more care and attention since they can't do anything for themselves. Between going back into the hospital for jaundice, breastfeeding full-time, keeping the house clean, dinner, and everything else I was worn out. Lily had colic too. The first 2-3 months she wouldn't go to sleep until anywhere from 2-4a.m. Crying. The whole time. Erik had to be to work at 8 am and I couldn't stay up the whole time every night with her. Neither of us had the patience. Talk about being tired! I was trying to be a supermom and didn't ask for help from friends and family. With that being said, my time with Isaias dwindled along with my patience. I have so much guilt about it, it's ridiculous. I knew things were going downhill but I couldn't figure out what to do. I would pray often about it. See, Isaias was an only child for 5 years. All my time went to him, so the change of having a baby was hard. We are totally in love with Lily and prayed for her for years, so, please don't think I'm placing any blame on her. There was change that needed to happen on my end that the kids couldn't do anything about. It had to be with God's help though.

I kept trying some different things with Isaias to get things better. I knew his love language was quality time so I would try to go out with him different places for a "date night." Things didn't seem to get better. He's a sweet, loving, and thoughtful boy but when started butting heads I knew something needed to change. There was a wedge there that I couldn't seem to move, and it weighed me down every single day.

Very recently I had a friend who was talking about the book, The Five Love Languages of Children. I got through most of the book a couple years ago but never finished it. Sometimes books need to be read again as situations and people change.  To sum it up, this book talks about how children have a "love tank" that gets filled depending on what their love language is. Children need a little from each area but emphasizing on their top love language is critical. Here are the 5:

1) Physical Touch
2)Words of Affirmation
3)Quality Time
4) Gifts
5) Acts of Service

 I finally finished reading the book a couple weeks ago. At the end of the book there was a quiz for children to determine their love language. They recommend age 5 and up for this quiz. I figured, oh, what the heck, I'll give it a try. The results were unexpected. For years I knew, or I thought I knew that Isaias' love language was quality time. Turns out that's number 3 on his list! The top two (that tied) were Acts of Service and Words of Affirmation! I immediately began thinking of things I could do to test it out. I immediately put it to the test and started by helping him clean his room. My niece, Juliana, was there and helped too. While we were cleaning Isaias said, "I feel so excited!" I asked him why and he said, "Because you guys are helping me clean my room!" See, Isaias felt loved because we were doing a service for him and that told him we loved him! I've been trying to give him encouraging words too. Not only am I being more careful of what I say, but how I say it. Children whose top love language is words of affirmation take it harder when people are mean. Another thing I'm working on is if I'm busy doing something, I want to take time and listen to what my son has to say. I want him to know that he can come to me, at 6 years old, and tell me all the good and bad things about his day. Or even just to tell me about a cool move he did on the Wii. This way when he's 16 and being pressured at school or has a situation he still knows I'll be there for him.  If we, as parents give them the love they need when they're young and growing, they'll be able to handle situations better when their love tanks are full. I want to give him the tools he needs to get through life. When I'm trying to encourage Isaias I try to be careful. I don't want to say that I love his drawings ALL the time because I want him to feel that sense of accomplishment. I also don't want him to worry about what others think. He needs to be proud of something for himself. Instead I'll notice things like, "look at all those colors you used!" I'm not sure if that all makes sense. Sometimes I have a hard time expressing my thoughts, so, hopefully blogging will help!

I've seen so much of a difference in Isaias! It's like night and day! In just 24 hours! I know God orchestrated it all. God's planning and timing is perfect.  He has also given me more patience. I know that I know that I KNOW  that is God for sure! I couldn't do that on my own!

This blog post was not just to share personal information. I believe God wanted me to share it. In the off chance that I didn't hear right, he'll still see that I'm doing what I believe he wants me to and bless me for it.

Many women struggle with their parenting and if I can give one ounce of help by sharing this, then it's worth it. I want to highly recommend The Five Love Languages for Children to everybody who has kids, grandchildren, or is even just around children at all. If there are behavior issues going on with a child, their tank first and foremost needs to be filled. Behavior problems after that are much more minimal. After that I think Love and Logic is a great book to read.

The wedge between my son and I is getting smaller each day, and I know soon it will be gone. Those are the things about life that excite me! More than a new couch, car, house, clothes, or any material possession. I was once asked after Lily was born if I felt more for Lily than Isaias because she was a girl. Bad question to ask, right?! Well, my honest answer is that I LOVE both of my kids so much and I love them equally. They each have a uniqueness to them. They're both very lovable, sweet, smart children. I love my kiddies to pieces! :)


If a child lives with criticism 
     He learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility
     He learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule
     He learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame
     He learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance
     He learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement
     He learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise
     He learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness
     He learns justice.
If a child lives with approval
     He learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship
     He learns to find love in the world.


- By Dorothy Law Nolte

The many faces of Lily!

If you've been around Lily for any length of time you probably know she LOVES to make faces. She gets quite a reaction from people and I love that she does it. It makes her unique and she's so expressive! The earliest I remember her doing faces is about 6 months old. It started with her "Chucky face."This post has over 45 pictures!! It took me a while to go through over 9,800 pictures searching for them all. Yes, I take LOTS of pictures. :)

Here is the first face she started doing...her "Chucky Face"

The next is her "Smoochy face"

Her "O"face

Sad Faces 

These are pictures that I can just hear her making funny noises in!

Her most recent "Frowny Face"

Hammin' it up!

Sleeping...

She is by far the most expressive baby I've seen! She knows what she wants and doesn't hesitate to let you know! When my sister, Mariana held her for the first time after she was born she was amazed that Lily just stared at her! Even as a baby only hours out of the womb she stared intently at people. She still does it to this day. Very much so! I think people get intimidated by her. Especially on the frowny face she does! I love my kids! I'll be posting pictures of Isaias at school soon!