.

I have for awhile now wanted to make each of the kids a chore chart. Me and Hubby put our heads together and thought up a plan. It will cover the child's daily routines, chores and activities where they can earn rewards by completing their daily duties.

Each child will have their our weekly routine chart. At the top will be the child's name, the name of the month followed by each day of the week and the date and beside it a list of daily routines they need to accomplish. Next to each routine is 7 boxes for each of the days and a field where they can place a square in it once that routine has been done that day.

Examples:

At the bottom of the routine chart will be an 'Activity' area where we can put certain magnets such as holidays, gymnastics, MOPS or birthdays which i can place on the correct day so they can know what activities will be happening that week.

Example:




This activity area will also be where they can place their reward activities they have earned and decide which day they want to do them on. Special activities we don't do everyday like: Go For A Walk, Go To The Park, 1 Movie Rental and Popcorn, 1 Movie At Theater, Bowling, Zoo Day, Sidewalk Chalk, Finger Painting. Each one you will have to earn a certain amount of points to earn. Some will be big prizes needing more points while others smaller and needing less points. This hopefully will help them learn how earning, spending and saving works. They will get a point for each chore they accomplish and if they finish their routines for the day.

For example:



We are making them out of metal so we can use thin wood to make the magnets. Hubby is hand making the frames for each of them and then we will paint them bright fun colors for each of the kid.

So we will have three charts, one for Anabel, Abby and Matthew (thinking ahead).

Then we will have a separate one for the 'To Do's' Of the day that each person needs to do. These are the added chores above what they normally have to do each day.

Example:







It will force me to be very organized!

So a few things....

If you have been around Matthew you might have heard the sounds he makes when breathing sometimes. I did some look up to see possible reasons for it. The closest i have found is:

Deep raspy sound: A blockage in the trachea (which is in the neck) makes a deep raspy sound during breathing. This sound is rarely due to a blockage, because the trachea is pretty big. More often, it is caused by a harmless condition called tracheomalacia, in which the tissues of the trachea are soft and flexible and make noise when the infant breathes in and out. This doesn't really cause significant trouble with breathing. This noise is louder when the infant is lying on his back and improves when he is upright.

Also i read this usually corrects it's self by 18-24 months of age.
Everything i looked into about asthma (which was the first thing that came to mind for noisy breathing) does not seem to be Matthews problem since all the symptoms/warnings signs are not what he is doing. So that's a good thing.
I haven't worried about this to much since he has never seemed to have trouble breathing, no gasping or anything, just loud when he breaths.

Did i mention he snores too? lol

Secondly:
Matthew has be quite the drooly baby for the last couple of weeks. I was noted commenting a week or so ago on my babyfit team about how Matthew has been biting me while nursing. Well tonight i was holding him and he found my arm. He sat there gnawing on my arm for sometime, drool everywhere, running down my arm and soaking his clothes. He seemed happy sitting there chewing on me, not like he was hungry which usually involves hyperventilating type grunting/crying.

So the thought jumped into my head 'Surely he's not teething already? He's only 8 weeks old!'. I looked it up and read typically teething starts about 3-12 months of age.
I mentioned this on my babyfit team to see what the other ladies had heard or thought about it. One lady said her pediatrician looks for teething at their 4 week appointment because babies can start that early.

I feel so unprepared for him to be teething this early, so i hope that is not what it is.

I felt like i was learning him pretty well and we were getting into a routine but the last couple of days his naps have become very short and he wants to stay awake almost all day it seems. He also has been stay awake quite late. The other day he was awake from 9 - past midnight. Last night he crashed about 11pm... tonight is earlier 10:40pm.

Then later, after quiet time (since we did away with nap time) Abby did pass out next to me again so i took Anabel in the craft room to do some crafts. While we were at the park she had gathers some pine cones and i told her we could bring them home and make some crafts out of them, so that is what we did!







Then after Abby woke up i brought her in and i did a pinecone craft with her as well.


Instead of a ladybug she wanted to do a dragon fly. She hated the flash on my phone when i took the picture LOL


Now the girls our down for bed and Matthew is asleep. It's been another good day :)

Literally 10 minutes after we came inside Abby fell asleep on my arm and it was probably 5 minutes after that that we noticed Anabel was asleep on Daddy also.



Matthew followed soon after :)

I bought 4 little packs of magnet shapes at Dollar Tree. A simple cookie sheet made the perfect surface to play on.

Lining up all the triangles

5-19-13

 

 

 

Later that night:

 

Should be a busy next few days.

Tomorrow would normally be a short day for Bob which makes me a happier Wife, because there is no weights after school. But tomorrow is Bulter Colleges first spring game and Bobby is taking some of the high school students to the game. So there is a break from when Bob gets off to when the game starts but he needs some special art supplies that ne needs to get before next week roles around and the stuff is in Wichita. He’s thinking of running to Wichita to get the supplies in the that time he has in between work and the football game. Upside is that if he does run, he is taking both the girls with him which will be nice.

If he does go and take the girls, that might be my time that i need to run to the store because i need to buy groceries badly.

Today i wrote up the ad matches for the week and tonight i wrote up my meal plan and shopping list… so besides going back through and making sure i have all the coupons that might go with my items, then i am ready to go shopping.

Then Saturday Bobby has to work the swimming meet in the morning and thinks he will be done maybe around 2pm. After he gets off we are heading to Wichita to do some leisurely shopping. I want to go to the Habitat Restore for a few things and then i am hoping Bob will take me to Kohls. I am in real need of bottoms… pants and shorts cause having this baby, i upped a size or two. I know it’s probably the last thing Hubs wants to do is go cloths shopping but I'm not sure when I'm going to have him with me, in Wichita any time soon. We will see.

But in the evening we are going to some football game. I guess the El Dorado band is doing a drumline competition at the half time so we are going to support. They had a special deal on tickets where you get a family pack and it includes hotdog, chips and drink for 4 people. Normally i would not be to happy about going to watch some football but Bob said we wouldn’t have to stay the whole time…. and at least this time I'm not running solo, Bob will be with me… which will be nice.

I’m hoping Saturday will be a nice time out with the fam and not stressful. I had a pleasant time last time i was out on the town and that was me by myself with all three kiddos so surely this would be easier :)

It seems like Matthew has been sleeping a tad bit longer lately. I’m just hoping it continues! I think it has to do with him eating more.

He’s been letting me lay him down as well, which it has been nice to get a break every once in a while. Today after a good feeding and diaper change he went to sleep and let me lay him down. I somehow got a burst of energy and i got up and did some house cleaning during nap time. Good thing too cause the house has been getting bad.

I was able to clean the bathroom, sink and toilet.

The i moved onto the kitchen and put a load of dishes in the washer, cleared the clutter, hand washed the remaining dishes, put away all the dishes, cleaned all the counters. Then went through the spice cabinet, emptied it out, cleaned the cabinet. I had some repeat spices in there that i took out and put in the stock pile and i also refilled some of the spices. All in all the spice cabinet is so much nicer now!

Then i cleaned the clutter in the living room and dinning room. I washed the coffee table and the kids chairs.

Then i swept and mopped the floors (kitchen, bathroom, dinning room and living room)

I am so proud of myself for getting all that done!

and before all that i helped the girls do some schooling. Anabel worked on her school book while Abby worked on ABCmouse.com and then on some printed work where she did some tracing.

So i feel like a huge accomplishment! It’s the most i have done since having Matthew. I hope this can keep up and i can continue to get stuff done.