Marbles

OK, so I started a new....let's call it an incentive program for my kids. I am tired of nagging them to do their chores and pick up after themselves so I came up with an idea. I bought some of those decorative marbles and then took them to the dollar store and let them pick out a container.

The deal is, for every chore they do, they earn a marble in their jar. For every 6 marbles they get, they receive a dollar. I told them I'm not buying them "prizes" anymore. If they want something they need to earn the money for it. We thought about upping the marble:reward ratio to 4 marbles for a dollar, but I am giving marbles for things like brushing teeth two times a day, so we thought 6 would be appropriate. If it's a big chore, they get 2 marbles.

The flip-side is, if they have to be told more than 2 times to do something, I take a marble out of their jar.

I am hoping this will help them to do the things they should already be doing, and earning money to buy for themselves the things I would have otherwise bought for them anyway. But the beautiful thing about children is....they think it's a cool new game!

Today was the first day of the "incentive program". I had kids begging me for jobs!! Even Brooklyn was doing chores and earning marbles. Jackson liked it because he had kids fighting over taking him for a walk. I know the newness and coolness will probably wear off but I'm hoping we will be able to stick to this one. I've had trouble in the past finding a system that works but I have high hopes for this one. I'll keep you posted on their progress!

Loganisms

If you've had the honor of meeting Logan, you know he is one of a kind! The boy is so entertaining, we love having him around, he keeps us smiling!

These are a few of his latest Loganisms:

I was on the phone to my friend. Logan chimes in: I hate small talk.

Logan: Farting is a sign of happiness. (don't ask. I don't!)

Logan: Dad, I hunger for Macaroni and Cheese. Bryan: Your mom is bringing you home a hot dog from Costco. Logan: Oh, I really hunger for a Costco hot dog!

I was explaining to Alexis in the car the other day about a client my sister was helping. I told her that she was selling a house for this man and he had a heart attack and stroke and died unexpectedly. The tricky part was that he and his wife had been divorced for years and he had been with his girlfriend for 25 years but she legally wasn't entitled to stuff...yada yada yada...Logan pipes up, out of the blue, and says: so are you telling me that if I don't get married I'll have a heart attack and a stroke?

I asked Logan what treats he wanted to take to school for his birthday, his reply: empty calories!

A new favorite is: That's akward!

A Year, Already??

Remember this picture? This is 4 day old Madelynn and her 3 week old cousin Codee.

Codee was 3 weeks early and weighed just over 5 lbs. Mady was 3 days early and weighed 10 lbs 7 oz.

Fast forward one year.....

These are the same two monkeys on Codee's 1st birthday.

Very difficult to get a picture of them holding still!
They are virtually the same size now and Codee is walking everywhere!


Cute little cousins!!!
It's funny that they are 3 weeks apart, because their mom's are 2 weeks apart!

The Other Xman

Bryan bought Logan these Wolverine claws for his birthday but couldn't wait two weeks to give them to him.

Logan is now FIERCE!!! He attacks everything with his claws.

I'm glad to see he is a Wolverine fan, after all that's who he's named after! (That's what happens when you marry a die-hard comic book fan)

Logan's Collections

Logan has a habit of picking up everything he finds on the playground....everything!

Emptying his pockets for laundry has become a very interesting venture.

This is what I found in his pocket the other day...

Mady Moo

Mady Moo's 1 st birthday is only a few weeks away, time for an update.

She has 6, yes 6 teeth, crawls EVERYWHERE, stands up, walks around funiture and even takes a step or two before it freaks her out and she quickly sits down. She only wants to eat big girl food, and lots of it. We haven't found anything yet that she doesn't like. She babbles all the time and "no"and "dada" are still her favorite words. Oh, and she's stinkin cute! ;)

Tennis Time!

The kids were playing Tennis yesterday when we discovered Jackson's weak spot....a tennis ball!

He snatched the ball up and ran.....and ran, and ran and ran.

The kids couldn't catch him!
When they finally caught up with him, they had to wrestle the ball away from him.

Brookie didn't like Jackson taking the ball....at all! It became her personal mission to keep the ball away from him.

Smart girl! She put the ball in a jar and little Jack Jack couldn't for the life of him figure out how to get it out of there!

However, Brookie also decided that no one should have the ball. No one.

They eventually got the ball out of her jar. She was heart-broken.

That dumb dog goes nuts over a tennis ball. It was very entertaining and hilarious to watch! Poor Brookie, the keeper of the ball, was ready for bed!

The Button-Pusher

I tried reading the paper on the floor the other day. Mady was having none of that! She quickly jumped on it, and began kicking and tearing it to shreds. Turns out news papers are a lot of fun. I think she may have set a record on how quickly one can destroy a news paper.

The power button on our TV is right at infant/toddler height and it is a pretty blue light! This combination makes it near impossible for the average infant to resist. Mady's favorite thing to do is turn the TV off when everyone is watching it. It gets a great reaction out of the whole family, everyone begins yelling, which only makes Mady want to push the button even more! You turn it on, she turns it off. It's a great little game.

I decided to try and out-smart said 11 month old baby.

I taped a piece of paper over the bright blue light.

She quickly pulled the piece of paper off the light.

I applied more tape to the paper. HA!

Nope, still didn't out-smart the baby.

She quickly figured out that you can still push the button through the piece of paper!

Another favorite game Mady loves to play is "turn the power switch off on the computer." That's a fun one. That one really makes mommy yell. It's almost as fun as standing at the computer desk and randomly pushing all of the buttons you can reach on the keyboard, or clicking the mouse. Those also get great reactions out of mommy!

Easter Egg Hunt

I know, better late than never!

Logan found 2 eggs :) he had a nice plan of attack, but when the siren went off he grabbed one then headed back to daddy. Bryan sent him back out and so he managed to grab another but by then they were all but gone. He was still happy with his 2 eggs tho.

Brooklyn had a difficult time understanding the whole "wait for the siren" thing. She wanted to get going and didn't have any interest in waiting for anyone or anything.

Brookie cleaned house with 11 eggs total! It helps to have your mom point out each egg and yell "pick it up, pick it up!"

Oh, aren't they just the best of friends. It appears so in the picture....aww, we'll just let you all believe that.

She was happy with her 4 eggs. By the time you get to the age 7-10 group, you have to run like crazy to get anything, so four is actually quite an accomplishment!

The Easter egg hunt went much more smoothly than I remember as a child. My mom has swore off Easter egg hunts for the rest of her life because of what fun we had when we were little :) The kids had a blast.

The Walk

Brookie walking Jackson....or Jackson walking Brookie...hard to tell, but still cute!

Sorry for the wait....

Sorry I have been at a blog stand-still for a while. I can't find my camera anywhere and I am so lost without it! So this will have to be a word only blog, and I know my ADD family has a hard time with no visual aids so I will try and keep it short!

Easter was......interesting. I suppose that's a good word for it. I worked Saturday night so I was awakened around 10:30 am by Bryan informing me that he had broken his hand. He's tired of me telling people about it so I will spare you, so I can spare his feelings. Anyhoo, our Easter was spent in the ER and taking care of a drugged-up daddy. It wasn't really what we had planned but I suppose you never really plan on breaking bones. We had a nice family day, regardless. And the Easter Bunny remembered the kids so I suppose that's the important part right? Well, aside from the Jesus part, I guess.....it's the important part for the kids...I'll just stop now.

Jackson has been a little naughty lately. I was trying to figure out the DVD player in Brooklyn's room the other day when Logan runs in and yells "Code emergency! Code emergency!" Me: "What, Logan?" Logan: "Code emergency..." Me (annoyed): "Logan, what does code emergency mean?" Logan: "Brookie is outside with Jackson." Holy crap! I run outside to find Brooklyn and Jackson across the street and down a few houses. When I yell for them, Brooklyn runs back across the street without looking and Jackson runs the opposite direction. He's lucky he is so dang cute, because if it wasn't for that little face, I would have just looked the other direction and let him keep running. Little turd.

The water levels at Shoshone Falls has been extra high for the last couple of weeks so we decided to drive down yesterday afternoon to see them. We probably live about, oh I don't know, maybe 5-7 miles away from the Falls. It took us an hour and a half just to get down there! There were soooo many people! I would love to post pictures but since I can't find my camera I took pics with my phone but I can't find the cord to my card reader to upload them. Just close your eyes and picture my cute little kids in front of a huge water fall.....see? Pretty, huh? Thought you'd like that.

That's about the extent of the excitement around here. I promise I'll post more, and hopefully visuals later!

Hilarious!