Random Ramblings

Random things today!

If you haven't read my post about the slow evolution of my horrible, entitled kids to decent kids, please go check it out here.  I talk about the way we creatively pay our kids to work around the house.  I think the person who wrote this piece entitled "How to talk to your kids about the "M" word" was inspired by my post.  ;-)

Notice he says that the kids should give 10% of their money to charity, 50% to savings, and 40% for spending.  That is what we do with the boys.  The boys have to work hard to earn their spending money and so far our method has worked brilliantly.  The house is much cleaner, I am much happier, and the boys have their own spending money for toys/ice cream/adventure.  Best of all they really understand the value of a dollar.

It has been really interesting how the boys view money.  Imp, 5, wants to spend all of his money on the first day of the month.  Duke saves his money and is very particular on what he spends it on.  Hobby Lobby has a great science toy aisle and they have weekly coupons for 40% off.  So once a month we go there and the boys decide on a toy/craft/art supply to purchase that day or something they might want to save for to buy later.

Duke encourages Imp to get something Duke wants and it works most of the time. Imp "picked out" the Robot Arm Wooden Construction Kit with Water Hydraulics yesterday and they spent a few hours putting it together.  What a great toy!  They have been picking up and moving all sorts of things and Daddy taught them other places hydraulics are used (car steering and breaks, some construction vehicles, etc.).

Duke bought an Electronic Playground 50-in-one which is similar to what I played with as a child.  He loves doing the experiments and we try to read the book and understand what is going on electrically with each project.

They don't get toys every month.  They have purchased books, used their money for rides at amusement parks, bought ice cream, etc.  Now when they see something they want to do or buy, they have to decide if they can afford it and if they want to spend their hard-earned money on it.  Most times they pass, which makes me happy.

This is Duke's CC class. They have to memorize a history timeline that starts at the beginning of time and goes to current times.  The boys and girls had a contest to see who could put the history cards in order.  Notice how the girls (right) laid them all out neatly so they could find everything.  The boys threw them all in a heap, crawled over them, tossed them in the air, and generally made a huge disorganized mess.

But the boys won the contest.  :-)

This week we went to one of our local parks to do some exploring.

The weather was perfect and we had a picnic and did quite a bit of hiking.  I took this photo with my iphone and edited with a new action I am releasing tomorrow.

Finally, I have really strange kids (if you don't already know this by reading my blog).  We were grilling some fajitas (I need to post my husband's recipe, it is amazing!) and Imp was busy with his chalk and rocks and created this strange display.  Notice over to the right he wrote 666 666.  Yes, it looks like some witchcraft/satanic display (insert scary music here).  By a boy who thinks the movie Nemo is scary and thinks witches are ugly rubber battery-operated toys with crazy hair and big noses at Walgreens during Halloween.

I asked Imp what in the world he was doing and he said something about wet areas/dry areas and rocks couldn't burn from the grill and the numbers were where you started the game.  It made absolutely no sense.  I asked him why he wrote six's and he said he likes writing them.  As we figured, we were not raising a little warlock, but just a creative (if slightly nutty) kid.

So yesterday the chimney sweep was cleaning our chimney. He went outside to climb on the roof, and I noticed him staring at Imp's "art" for some time.  I hate to think what was going through his head, but he certainly finished the job quickly!  ;-)

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.


Do you want to download my favorite CoffeeShop Actions or Design Elements in one convenient zipped file AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures.

For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.