Our New Chore System

I have been looking for a good chore chart that worked good for us and have tried a few that failed and then I saw this idea on someones blog and so we tried it out and..... WE LOVE IT! So I thought I would share it with all of you encase anyone else is looking for a good system.

The system is centered around these pictures that you take of the chore that needs to be done. You take the pictures and label them and then lay them out each morning so the child can see them. Once a chore is finished they place it in their basket. If all the chores are in the basket at the end of the day they get a stamp or sticker for that day on their chart.

Here it is all set up, my girls each have their own 3 jars... tithing, savings and spending, and then their basket with the pictures in it.

On Saturday morning or Friday night after they have had a chance to finish fridays chore they get paid for all the hard work, or pay you for your hard work. We decided that we will pay them 10 cents per day that their chores were all complete. (we will increase the pay as they get older...probably) For the days that all of them weren't complete, and I had to do some of the chores, the child has to pay me for doing the chore for them... so I would get 10 cents from their spending jar. Its like they hired the maid for that day.

This is the chart

We have really loved this system, hope its useful to others as well.

A Day at the Lake

Yesterday my friend and I packed a lunch and headed to Lake Mead to play in the water. We stopped and asked the people at the toll booth things which beach was the best to play at and so he gave us directions to a nice SANDY beach.... we drove past this area a few times looking for our sandy beach but decided that this must be it.. (we were a little confused by the mans description of the area). We parked our selves on this not so sandy beach and spent the afternoon playing in the water.. the kids had such a blast... The water was so clear you could see the bottom of the lake. Look at these little baby ducks , the kids fed most of their lunch to the baby ducks.

Here the kids are floating on their "raft"

Meika found this thing (I am pretty sure it is an avocado seed) that she was sure is a duck egg and claimed it was cracking open and the baby duck was coming out.

Look how cute her little sad face is.

Meika and Cooper playing, you can tell by the way Meika is standing that she was giving Cooper a little bit of attitude right before I took the picture and stopped to pose.

Graduation Weekend

Last weekend Seth graduated from law school, and both of our parents came down from Utah to support him. We had so much fun with all of them in town, the girls were in Heaven with so many grandparents here willing to take care of them and play with them.We had a fun filled weekend, here is a little summary of what we were up to.

We all went to see Star Trek, the girls were very bored in the movie.

We played at the park, here is Grandpa balancing Meika

Here are the girls playing at the squirty park

We went to the outdoor movie at town square and watched Wall-e.

Here are all the grandparents.
Papa, Grandpa, Grandma, Nana

Sethie with his little girlies.

Seth and I with his parents, we really appreciate them driving so far to come support Seth, they are such great parents and such wonder in-laws. We love them and appreciate everything they have done for us.

Seth with my parents, we are so glad they were able to come up to celebrate Seth's graduation with us. We love them are are so grateful for all the love and support they have given us these last 3 years.


Seth with his boss & his wife Anthony & Miriam. We love them they are such kind people and have been so sweet to our family, but especially to Seth.

GO SETH!

Good job Seth we are all so proud of you!

Today was my second day in the Kitchen, yesterday was all the deep cleaning and today was the decluttering and organizing.
I am not posting a before of my pantry because it didn't really change much, I didn't even really do anything to it besides straighten some things up.




























Yesterday and today were really hard for me... I kept having to force my self to just get it done. I had to stop and take a few breaks in between cleaning so that I didn't go crazy.

Tuesday was the 2nd day of the cleaning party and it was the family room...I ended up doing the whole family room in one day which was a lot of work and took me along time... but our family room was SOOO clean. I cleaned every single thing in that room... starting with the ceiling fan and the high ledges to the baseboards. What a great feeling! I didn't take a before picture because I was too excited to get started and guess I just forgot.
I reorganized our movies and got rid of a whole bunch that we had duplicates of or never watched... When Seth got home I told him I alphabetized the movies (I was really proud of myself) and all he had to say was "that was a waste of time" so I guess he wasn't as excited as I was... but oh well. I feel great about my sanitary family room! :)

If you haven't joined the party yet, but would like to... go ahead join in!

On Monday I started the Spring Cleaning Party with Simple Mom, it has been a lot of fun and ALOT of work. I am behind on updating my pictures but this is day ones pictures, on day one the plan is to walk through your home cleaning up clutter or garbage...so here are my before and after pictures....I know, the before pictures are pretty nasty...





I had already gotten rid of A LOT of clutter things a couple months ago after reading Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui by Karen Kingston so most of my Day 1 clean sweep was in our bedroom and then just putting things away like toys, clothes, all that fun stuff to get ready for the real cleaning. More updates to come....
Is anyone else doing the Spring Cleaning Party? If so I would love to see some pictures!

Last Day of Law School

Seth had his LAST DAY of class on Tuesday and I think we are both in awe that it is really coming to an end. Seth has done such a great job these last few years going to school full time and working full time and still having time for his family. He wanted to go to Law School since he was in high school so I am so proud of him for accomplishing his goal!
I wanted to show some pictures of us around the time Seth started his first year of Law School. Right before we were getting ready to move to Henderson Seth broke his foot and had to have surgery. So we were a little bit handicapped with Seth on crutches and me 7 months pregnant, but our families really helped out doing pretty much EVERYTHING in our move. They packed us up and then drove our stuff there and unloaded and decorated our house!! We can't express the gratitude and love we felt for all those who helped us!

So here is a picture of Sethie at the doctor right before our move (Look how tiny Meika is!)

Here is our cute little Meika, I can't believe she was ever this tiny! She is such a doll! We had put curlers in her hair, thats where the big hair is from.

Here is a picture of me prego with Sienna. It looks like I have a beer belly but I promise there was a baby in there!

I can not believe how fast this time has flown by, now lets just hope all goes well with his finals the next couple weeks and taking the bar in july.

Going Private

I have decided to make our family blog private so if you would like to view it please leave your e-mail address in the comments.

Easter Morning

They looked so cute in their new little Easter dresses, and were so excited about wearing them. I had them hangin in my closet for a month or so and they were always begging to wear them. Once they were all dressed they ran out into the family room to show their cousins how cute they looked.

Look at those cute little faces, I could just squeeze them! I feel so blessed to have such sweet little girls in our home, they are so much fun and keep us busy with one new adventure/mess to another... we sure do love them.

I put the girls in the bath and came back to find the dog had decided to join them! I thought it was pretty gross, but the girls had so much fun washing her and Cinderella seemed to really enjoy it too. We have loved having our little puppy, she is such a little snuggle bug and is just so sweet. Meika and Sienna carry her around, wrap her up in things, snuggle her in bed and she just puts up with it...

The Last Few Months

I feel like have have not updated our blog for so long! So I thought I would do a summary of some things that I neglected to blog about.So this is what we have been up to from January till now.

(Sienna is so cute and seems to be growing up so fast! This is her modeling her new socks that Grandma Ballstaedt gave her for Christmas...its so cute that they come up to the top of her thigh)

I HAD A PICTURE HERE OF GRANDMA & GRANDPA BALLSTAEDT WHO CAME TO VISIT US.... but it got deleted and I don't know how to get it back! oops! We had so much fun with them and were so glad to spend time together.

(We celebrated Seth's Birthday on the 6th of Jan. We love him so much, he is such a great Husband and Father. We just really love him!)

(We had so much fun when some of the Ballstaedt girls came to Vegas to visit us. I love all of them and felt so lucky to get to spend that time with them! Here we are at Cheesecake Factory)

(We have been eating lots of frozen yogurt at Yogurt land at Town Square...DELICIOUS! We go there most Weds for story time)

(Seth and I went out for Valentines...Its always so nice to get out away from the little ones :))

(We celebrated my Birthday on March 6th... I had such a great birthday, my friends took me out for lunch which was so fun.... I am so grateful for good friends! Seth also took me on a really nice date where I got to choose everything we did... so we went to eat, went shopping and went to a movie... it was great)

( My parents came to town to meet some relatives and brought my cute niece with them. We were sad here little sister wasn't able to get out of her dance practice so couldn't come, but we sure do love Mckyna and LOVED having her come visit. One night we put the little girls to bed and made hair bows until 11:30 at night!! So fun!)

(Some newly found relatives from back east were in Vegas for a little vacation so we were all very excited to meet them. They are my Dads Fathers Cousins ...I think.... They were so sweet, we were glad to be able to meet up with them.)

Well there you have it... I know I left a lot out, but that is pretty much what we have been up to.

3 Gifts....

Here is what you do...

the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive,

at some point during the year,

a handmade gift from me!

What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise!

The catch is that you must participate as well.

Type up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going.

Then sit back and anticipate the arrival of your gift!

(Please leave your e-mail address in your post to me!)

On your Mark... Get Set... Go!!!