Parenting Idea

Our class today was on Teaching Children Responsibility and Work. It was awesome. I can't begin to give you everything from the class, but I only hope to just give a little bit that can maybe help. I am basically going to just quote her. "We need to start giving our children responsibility and teaching them hard work at a young age. The best time to teach them to work is before the age of 11 years old. The best way to do this is by getting involved and helping them do the work. It will take a lot longer to do the task with them verses just doing it yourself, but we must not let this dictate wether or not we have our children work. The problem with children now days is that we feel like they are worked too hard. When they get home from school we think they need a break because they have been working all day at school when in reality (compared to back in the day) school is more play then work. Don't do all the work while your kids are napping or at school. Save the work and do it with them when they get home. So next time the dishes need unloaded or loaded wait for the chance to teach your children that responsibility. Next time the laundry needs folded wait and do it together with the children. Give them the chance to work hard. We need to do large family projects every few months. (ex. clean garage together, paint a room, do the garden, etc.) Train them to do exactly what you want them to do and show them how to do it. Throughout the week have them do their daily chores, but on Saturday have that be the day they work really hard."

Jackson

Jackson is such a joy to have in our family. He loves to give kisses and hugs. He has a great rhythm, anytime music comes on he starts rockin and movin' his shoulders back and forth. It is so adorable, you can't help but crack up. He is our blonde hair,blue eyed baby that we thought we would NEVER have. Don't ask where he came from please.
Loves Daddy like crazy (which I don't mind). It is nice to say, "Here sweetie, he wants you."He is always ready to give you a big huge grin.
Born to fish!

Halloween Fun

Grandma Holloway came up so we decided to have some Halloween fun. We made Bat-O-Lanterns. The kids loved it. They got to spray paint, cut, glue, tape, and everything you usually don't want them to get into. They turned out really cute.

Parenting Idea

So Aaron and I are taking a parenting class. I decided to post a small note on what I gained from the class. Hope it can help out someone. This week we talked about Competition vs Cooperation. It was awesome. She said we need to be careful breeding competion in our home. Kids will inevitably face competion out in the world and we can not stop that, but we can control the competion in our home. Instead of saying, "The first one ready for bed gets ice cream first!" say "when everyone is ready for bed, we can have ice cream." Make our home a WIN-WIN situation. Have games where everyone wins: (i.e. family score rather than individual scores). Like if you go bowling say, "if we get a family score of 300 we can go for ice cream." Yes kids will learn there are losers and winners out there in the world, but we need to make them feel that at home they will always be a winner. I will be posting some thoughts about past lessons later.

Fun Times

We went to the Discovery Center and that have some really fun stuff. These are glasses that distort your face. It was hilarious.
Fun with Bubbles.
Then we went to Tablerock which overlooks all of Boise. They had cool caves to hike around too.