Break

The girls are out of school for the week. I keep forgetting and planning to do stuff during the day without them. Silly mommy.

We started something new in our family. We have always read the scriptures as a family before we ate dinner but yesterday we decided that after dinner clean up and dessert (our usual routine) we would all read for twenty minutes together. Not aloud but all of us sitting quietly reading in the living room. It was great yesterday and we will see how it goes as the weeks wear on.

Today Cyrus didn't have school so we went to a park and fed the ducks together. We had a picnic and played frisbee and Cyrus and Carolyn threw around a ball for a little bit. Hannah roller skated and we played at the park. The park had one of those really great old metal slides so mom and the girls made a train and zipped down the slide. Kids these days with all their safe, slow plastic slides and no swings, don't know how much fun playgrounds can really be.

We made a list of jobs that the kids can do to make money--things that they usually don't do like washing out the garbage cans and weeding the garden and washing the walls, etc, etc. It is so funny to see the difference in my girls--Carolyn is so goal oriented--she decided that she wanted a new jump rope. I told her she had to earn the money, so she set to work to do all the jobs she needed to in order to get her rope. Hannah on the other hand had no desire to do any of the jobs. She didn't care until Carolyn had earned enough to buy her rope then Hannah was so upset that she didn't get one...but that didn't change the fact that she didn't want to work. I guess maybe it will take Hannah really wanting something to get her up and moving. Katie just makes a mess when she decides to do one of the extra jobs. I have contemplated paying her to stop helping around the house. Unfortunately, I believe to heartily in kids knowing how to work.