Who's this big kid?

Waiting for his dental cleaning, I looked over at my 9 year-old and this is what I see. When did he get so grown?

Planting our seeds

In their Valentine's baskets, I gave each boy a seed starting kit. This morning we sowed our seeds. Glad to have good natural light in our house. Hope they sprout!

Little Chef

Here's my little chef making the family breakfast. I love this kid!

Chores

These chore charts are working so well! The boys are now responsible for their own laundry. Carson is 100% independent: wash, dry, fold & put away! Cameron did most of his work, but I helped him fold. Now, who's going to catch me up on my laundry?!

Now that's a Valentines box!

Looking for boxes to make Valentine box at Family Dollar and came across this Super Bowl display. The boys were thrilled when they said that we could take it. They decided to make a rocket. This thing is bigger than I am! I don't think we'll have any trouble fitting our Valentines into the box this year!

Homemade Chore Charts

After recently rationing media time to four 15 minute tickets a day, I was reminded how well kids respond when they understand what expectations we have of them.
I made these homemade chore charts today. I just used materials that I had: cardboard, stickers, colored masking tape and clothespins. I told them they can earn four extra 15 media tickets a day after they finish their chores. They were workhorses! I tried to make the chart simple and clear and they seemed to appreciate how easy it was to use and what was expected of them. Score 1 for the mommy team!

Year of the Snake

I took the boys to a Chinatown Festival to celebrate the Chinese new year. Cameron has been so excited leading up to it and telling everyone happy Chinese new year for two weeks now. We did so much:
They had their name written in Chinese on rice paper in calligraphy. We enjoyed wonderful performances. We explored a Chinese market. We ate a Chinese meal. To top it all off, the boys each received red envelopes with a dollar bill for good fortune in the coming year. We definitely need to make this an annual event. Such a great day!

Writing

I love that the boys are now able to do the same subjects (just different levels). Here is writing in our homeschool.