Marble Reward System

So I have two kids who love to play lego on 360 but do not love to do chores! I must be the ONLY parent who deals with this! yeah right.......

Anyway I found a great system that so far seems to work! YAY :)
Here it is:

I start out every week giving my kids and "allowance" of marbles. They get 10. Each marble is worth 10 minutes of game time. In order to have more game time they have to do their chores. Since they are both different ages, the chores differ a bit but not much. Each time they do a chore they get a marble or two depending on what chore it was. We homeschool, so doing school work, without complaining, gets marbles also. Extra marbles for doing things when not asked. Gold "special" marbles for excellent behavior. A gold marble is an hour of play!

They lose marbles for bad behavior!

So now they have marbles and want to play......

I let them count out the marbles that they have. We count by 10's since they are for 10 minutes each. I ask them how much they want to play and let them decide. The most they can play at one time is 40 minutes. I set the timer for them and take out that much marbles. After 40 minutes they have to turn game off and find something else to do. They may come back after 20 minutes or so to play if they have enough marbles. All game playing stops by dinner time. They can still earn marbles for the next day though :)

They can roll their marbles over to the next day but the same rules always apply- no more then 40 minutes on and at least 20 off. Since this is like an allowance they are allowed to spend their marble on stuff but they lose them from their jar and would have to work to get them back.

Today is our first "real" day doing this. Mason was looking for things to do! :)

Christmas Pics...a little late :)

Just had to put this one on here of Dillon

After Christmas Mass Mason opening his and Dillons RC trac

Dillon posing with his new gift

MENUS!!!

Finally!
I havent finished planning four weeks of meals for us. That is such a relief!
Its nice to know that i wont have to "search" for something for dinner, OR that i forgot to lay some thing out to thaw.
Plus.....
I have picked out only healthy and yummy food for us. This should be interesting. I will let you know how it goes :)

(If you read my last post, that was one of my goals!)

:):):):)

New Year...And New Goals

So Christmas is over.....

Boys had a ton of fun visiting family. Todd and I enjoyed actually spending some time together as a family. i really miss him when he is at work all day :(

Goals for this year:

Lose weight (ha, that seems like the same goal every year!)

Move to a bigger house that we can FIT IN!

FINALLY get my furniture from storage. Yes, we have furniture stored in two seperate storage units in TWO seperate states!!!

A move FROM arkansas would be nice as we sure do miss being closer to family.

Be more "green." I have switched to cloth diapers this past year. LOVE IT! I have also started making reusable snack and lunch bags for all of us. My next project is reuseable produce bags for shopping at the store.

Recycle more

Plan menus so im not "searching" for dinner every night. Also with a house full of boys my grocery bill is not the cheapest. LOL

........those are just some goals. I have plenty more, just not enough time to list them all....

Moatly I plan on (trying) updating my blog at least once a week for my 2 followers! heehee

One day i may even change the Valentine back ground that i have had up since last Febuary!......oh,wait-isnt Valentines coming up?Maybe i will wait a little while longer :)

For Amee and Anuj :)

Mason flying a Kite

Dillons 2 yr old pics

Boys at Bass Pro Shop

So here are some recent pics of the boys. Mostly for Amee and Anuj! Miss you guys.....

Hopefully we will meet up again in about a month or so.

Hello.....

Florida!

Getting ready for our trip to sunny, warm Florida. Todd is excited to go see family but not to go to Florida. Says its too hot and muggy. I agree, but........
Kids are super stoked to visit baba and dedo. They have started packing some toys today already. Mason keeps saying that he is going to play with Blake, his friend. I keep telling him that although Blake is a friend he is also family and his cousin. His reply, "Thats too much mommy!" So funny. It will be a crazy, loud, long......... I mean nice family trip. Cant wait. May even pick a day to take boys to beach, sure there will be no swimming. Too cold.....brrrrr

Until later.................