First, I took a picture of our tree fort to date. Paul, with some help from the children, made a platform, monkey bridge, rope ladder, and a bucket with a pulley over the Christmas break. We hope to find an affordable slide sometime and put up a railing. I cringe when Annmarie gets up there or the neighbors. The neighbor girl thought the bucket was for her and it has since broken off the pulley rope. It was meant for transporting things up to the fort, but not children. However, it did provide a few days of usage when the children would lift tools up or snowballs to throw at Paul.
Also, I started a new thing for the new year. We too, like Claire mentioned, have been in the dinner rut. So, I made up a new job chart for the new year and a new idea called the "dinner roll." Every Sunday evening when we gather for family council we go over everyone's weekly activities and calendar them. Then the children each have a day where they get to do the "dinner roll." They roll a die and depending on the number they roll they get to chose one part of that dinner for their night. I have included a snapshop of our chart to illustrate this better.
So, the children have a say in a specific part of dinner and I can better schedule dinner and my grocery shopping trips. It has been fun. Before we started this we sat down and explained to them the "balance of powers." This was perfect because over the break we took the children up to the state capitol building. They saw where the state legislature meets and since election time they have been interested and asking lots of questions. We explained Mom and Dad's veto power (role as the executive power) and they are the power of the people (legislative power) if something was a little too much, near the end of a pay period, having friends/family over, etc. and told them we would try to communicate them the reasoning for the veto. For example, last week Bianca rolled a main dish. She chose homemade noodles. Paul received a noodle press(?) for Christmas from Mom and Dad and we had made them once over the break (I should say Paul and the children did). So, Thursday night came and the noodle fest begun. Luckily, Bianca did most of the noodle pressing, but it was a lot of work. No homemade noodles every week was a add on to this week's dinner roll recommendation!I find that I sleep well most nights if I really tire myself out during the day (like Saturday's super cleaning fest). That isn't news to many, but for me going up and down the stairs the many times a day and cleaning and keeping up with laundry and snow clothes, that is doing the trick. I try to just rest rather than take a nap in the quiet of the afternoon. I must take my prenatal vitamin or all is lost. I am now 29 weeks and next week will start going to the doctor every other week. We are still looking for a name for "Peanut-elope" (Peanut just sounded a little too masculine). Give us some ideas. We are working on some family history, so hopefully that will help inspire. I really want this last one to have my grandparents names involved somehow. My great-grandparents were and have always been a big source of inspiration for me.
Great-Grandmother Esther Elida Johnson Shelberg
Great-Grandfather Elmer Frank Shelberg
Grandfather Wesley Elmer Shelberg
I was thinking something like Ellslie. We like Eliza too. Esther for the middle name. Something like that. You can all play that baby shower game where you take the mom and dad's name and make a baby name out of it or something! Online baby shower-Woo-Hoo! Affordable and everyone can attend! The husbands all get to make the dessert!
Really, I am done now. I love you all! Here is one last picture of this morning's soldier saving the princess. She looks quite distressed. :) Don't mess with him, he has a machete.
Love,Candace
1 comment:
I enjoy reading your blog. The kids seem to enjoy playing in the snow. I did too when I was little but I've grown out of that. I'm trying to think of a name for you.
Our love to your family.
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