It was a nice week, for the most part. Although I’m not able to do all I want yet, I’m starting to hold the reigns again, which feels great. Jon still works extra hard to keep us all afloat. He’s pretty amazing! Here’s to another week of progress!

I took the plunge and redrew the lines on our “family communication center” in permanent marker. Some of the kids (mainly Andrew & Amy) use their magnets to keep track of their to-do items each day. I’ve been writing chores on the kids’ squares, too, which helps to remove me from the equation (i.e. I don’t have to tell the kids what to do all the time... I just say “go check your whiteboard.”).

We had the kids write up their own daily schedules to help with self-motivation. (The girls have no problem with this, but the boys have needed some direction.)

Family Schedules & Practicing

I added another whiteboard to the wall and wrote a scripture for us to work on this week. I’ve been unhappy with the increase in fighting lately, and am hoping to “try the virtue of the word of God” since it has a “more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than... anything else...”. We have memorized this scripture before (and it is included on the kids’ scripture memorization rings), but I’ve asked us all to focus on it this week. I think it has helped a bit, and we will use similar scriptures in coming weeks.

Music practice has needed help. The kids (and I) needed some visual accountability, so I printed out a chart for each child, which will last until the end of the year! That is very do-able! (Charts that need to be re-printed each week have been problematic for us.) The girls have their own violin charts, which they have to show to their teacher each week, so these charts are for piano practice, and the boys’ charts are for cello practice.

They mark their charts each day, which makes it easy for me to see who has and has not practiced.

I also wanted to set up a reward system for them (rewards, not bribes), so asked them all to write down rewards they would like to get. Then I chose some and printed them on a chart for each child. My hope is that this will give the kids an extrinsic reason to practice. They are required to practice every day (except Sunday) no matter what, but this is to help with motivation and excitement. We’ll see how it works. My main worry is that if one child misses and gets off schedule with all the others, then it may be hard to give the big rewards to only some of the kids.

Scripture Memorization

Unfortunately, this got swept under the rug a while back. It’s been bothering me that I haven’t kept up on this with the kids. So we put their Scripture Jars back in a prominent place and started reviewing them.

Andrew wanted to read some of his scriptures to Mark, who was somewhat interested (yawn).

Exercise

This week I started really slowly to “workout” which mostly entailed a bit of wimpy treadmill walking. The first day, my audience copied me by walking in place (hence the blurry picture from all 3 of us walking). The boys think it’s entertaining to watch me.

I’m frustrated with how little I can do physically, but at least I’m moving in the right direction. I laughed when my sister told me she “felt like a grandma” because of a recent injury which hasn’t permitted her to run her regular 30 miles per week. Wow! If she is a grandma, then I am a great, great, great... grandma! Can you see why I want to be like her?

I hung up this black and white poster for Mark on his changing table. He loves the contrast, but if he studies it too long, it’s overwhelming and he’ll cry.

Oh my word! Onesies so small, they only have two snaps! Love it!

Other Updates

While I was feeding the baby one day, Tyler spontaneously made my bed. So cute!

We are working on taming the “screaming beast” that Tyler has developed into these past months.

Mark is generally a great sleeper. I had one extra hard night this week, but at least I’ve been going to bed early. That’s new for me since I’m typically a night owl and have a hard time falling asleep. Now, falling asleep is no problem!

Tyler looks so huge next to Mark!

I decided that it’s time to move Tyler into a toddler bed. We aren’t under pressure yet to move the baby into the crib, so we still have the zipper crib as an alternative if Tyler climbs out of bed, but so far (4 days running), he has stayed in his bed all night and even during daytime naps. Someone pinch me!

Jon coached him that very first night to stay in bed until it was light outside, and that if he got out of bed while it was dark, he would have to sleep in his crib. He does not want to sleep in his crib again, so this is the perfect threat. Tyler talks about light and dark now, and it is so nice to have him get out when he is awake instead of screaming “Dad!!!” when he wakes up early in the morning.

We did, however, have to call Poison Control this morning for the first time in 10.5 years of parenting. Tyler somehow got the children’s vitamins open and ate an unknown amount. Thankfully, it wasn’t enough to cause serious damage, but it was scary knowing that Iron poisoning is the leading cause of death in young children.

Jon has been into this new video game lately called “Infinity Blade” (since he met the creator at the business plan competition which Jon’s company won). The kids get pretty excited about it with him.

Love this warm weather!

Tyler busted into the cinnamon while I was on the phone with my sister. There were some nice “cinnamon handprints” going up the stairs. At least it was a yummy-smelling cleanup job!

We enjoyed a visit from my aunt and uncle: Janis and David as well as Kristy and James who both graduated this week. We got them all to try out Dance Central. Kristy’s got some moves!

Jon’s parents and Barney & Mary visited Sunday night, which was awesome.

All four got to redeem a treat from the new treat bin today, and were pretty excited about it. I gave Tyler a ring pop since he has been staying in his bed at night (see below).

I’m also working on renewing/revamping our “Family Gospel Scholar” program where the kids earn trophies for “LDS degrees.” I’m 2 years behind in giving Amy her trophy, and Adam was close to getting his a long time ago as well.

Walking and nursing is when I’ve been catching up on General Conference talks since I missed most of them in the hospital.