While I was out in Pennsylvania, Honey was holding down the fort here and taking kiddos to various places.  Little had the opportunity to return to a dance clinic she participated in last year and, once again, she had a ball.

Dancing for God’s Children is held at a neighbor church and is a fundraiser for missions.  Last year the money went to an orphanage in Haiti and this year it went to a children’s ministry in the Ukraine.  It’s SUCH a great idea – the girls get to learn simple and sweet routines AND be a part of God’s mission to the world.  Bonhomme, the church, is uber helpful with Little too.  Both years they have jumped to find a shadow for her and been overly communicative so that I would have no worries or concerns.  Basically, not only are the girls and the children in Ukraine blessed, so am I.  This is Mary – Little’s helper this year.

Honey took the little ones to see Little’s performance at the end of the day.  I’ll have to post the video of them watching (it’s still on Honey’s iPod).  So cute.

My friend Amy wrote me on Facebook and asked if we were “still” using chore charts.  I am here to confess that we have never started really using them.  I had the lists for morning routines and that worked with Bubba for awhile, but I have been on a mental quest to find something else to try with all three kids.

My “goals” were to teach the kids responsibility, train the kiddos in certain tasks, provide training opportunities for money, and reinforce the idea of family.  So, today we unveiled our new system and we’re going to see how it works out.  I created magnetic charts for each child; these are NOT chore charts but we are calling them “Responsibilities” because each child has responsibilities as a Kicklighter.  They look like this:

The plan is that each day, when they finish a task, they put a magnet on their board (Bubba has wiggly eye magnets and the girls have sparkly gems for magnets). At the end of the week or day (which ever is going to work better) we’ll count up spaces WITHOUT magnets and we’ll take that many buttons out of their button buckets.

The other aspect of the system is the financial side.  The kids are going to get an allowance because they are Kicklighters and we want them to learn to manage money, BUT I really wanted them to have an opportunity to earn more money as well.  They are so little, so money making ventures outside the home are a bit limited.  This is what I came up with:

The overriding rule is the mommy and daddy are rule makers on the button system.  We are free to give buttons for things that are not on this list; these are ideas to get them thinking.  The real world is full of ups and downs and there are consequences for bad judgments, so I put together a little list of ways to lose your buttons too.

This may seem a bit complicated but the truth is that I explained it to the kids this afternoon and as I read the ways to earn buttons KB let me know each one she had done over the past 24 hours and asked about her buttons.  Bubba took the list of ways to lose buttons and promptly went ahead with counting up all the buttons Little would need to hand over right away.  Little’s logical and precious response was, “I’ll save my buttons and I can get a new Barbie computer!” She then proceeded to jump right in and help me empty the dishwasher and added her two buttons to her bucket.

Another glimmer of hope is that later on, when Bubba responded to me in an ugly and disrespectful way, I turned to him and said just that!! “Bubba, would you like to say that a different way since what you just said was so ugly and disrespectful?”  His response? “Mom, are you going to take two of my buttons?”  Cha-ching!

This week we are home with a basically empty calendar and so we will have many opportunities to try the system out.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

On a side note, there are two men who work in the photo department at our Sam’s.  They now know me by name and have my orders pulled out and waiting when they see me coming in the front door.  Yesterday I picked up the latest print and one of the men said, “How are those charts working out for you? I really like the way you put those pictures on their to help the little ones out.”  I just started laughing.  The other guy said, “I am always excited to see what you are going to do next.”  Hilarious.  I am thinking about sending a print that looks like this:

 We actually got all the kids onto a rock for a group photo.  You can see everyone but Grace – her brother has her boxed out.  Still, not too shabby.

Then there is this one.  My daughter smiling for any cameras that may still be clicking away and EVERY OTHER kiddo is staring at the crying baby.  She has such a tender heart. . . when the cameras are off *wink*.

We’ve missed the last two dates but we’re excited about getting back into the swing – KB needs the playmates and mommy needs the conversation!