Dealing with Fears

Evan has this funny fear, it's not a every day fear, but it keeps bubbling up. He tells me "Mommy! Fire Alarm SCARY!!!!" This morning I caught him shooting the fire alarm until he proclaimed it dead, I then had to take him downstairs so he could shoot and kill that one as well. What a funny kid.

CTR

Well our Christian boy is getting all grown up, he is 4 1/2 and we love him. But he still is naughty at times and the whole time out thing is not so much working any more for him or us. We decided to take a different, more positive stance. It all came about when our next door neighbor let Christian ride her bike with training wheels. It was love at first ride! After that Christian was not interested in riding his trike, he would ask permission if he could go over an ride her bike instead. He followed every instruction and was so obedient. One day he rode that bike for an hour and a half! Of course I was thinking well we are going to have to get this boy a bike for his birthday. But Dan felt like instead of being a gift it should be something he earned, so he doesn't feel like just because he has a birthday he gets anything and everything he wants. We came up with the idea of creating a CTR chart. Christian needed to earn 10 stars for 2 weeks for a total of 140 stars. He earned his stars by choosing the right which could include, listening and obeying, sharing, doing what he's told the first time, making his bed, eating his dinner, etc. We took this kid to Walmart and showed him all the bikes he could choose from, he tried all of them but kept gravitating to the bright green jeep bike. He rode it for a good 20 minutes int he store. We then said, okay say good bye to your bike. The kid was thoroughly motivated! And the next two weeks really were magical. He really did do great, sure he had his moments of naughtiness and when those happened we would take a star off the chart and put it in time out, and he had to earn it back. Then we would talk about why we choose the right and how it makes us happy and when we don't choose the right it makes us sad. Seriously the best thing ever, I think we may do another chart because it worked so well and we were all a lot more happy! I'm proud of the kid, he earned that bike :)


Of course the day we went to go get the bike after he earned it was pouring rain, so we let him ride it around the house to it cleared up.


Christian with his completed chart, all 140 stars!


Us at Walmart when we initially picked out the bike


Finally the rain stopped, it was freezing but he had to go out!

Home Depot

Did you know that The Home Depot does a kids craft day every month? Well they do and the best part is it is all FREE, well because they are hoping if they got the parents to the parking lot for the free stuff they just might wander in and buy something as well :) Well we went, we got orange aprons and made a cool orange car, and they had an ambulance, fire engine, and medical helicopter there. While we were there time was up, and it was time for the helicopter to take off, and it was so cool to see it go. We almost all fell over because of the powerful wind the baby stirs up. The kids were in heaven!

Some Spoiling

While browsing the toy section at Walmart, Dave and Lara couldn't help themselves, they HAD to get these capes and masks for the kiddos. I don't know what do you think, do they like them? :)

Rough Housing with Katie

When Katie comes over the boys always have a good time. Usually it goes like this. Ding Dong -"Katie is here!!!" then she comes in and puts her stuff down says hi to me and then they are off to the races teasing each other, rolling around wrestling, chasing each other and they all have a great time and are totally worn out by the time she leaves. We love our Aunt Katie.

This kid loves to color!

Please don't forget to note the iron man glove and green boots :)

First Day of School

Christian started his second year of preschool with Miss Cathy. About the middle of July he would say "Mom, I bet Miss Cathy is missing me!" He has loved all the summer fun, but he really does love school and his teacher. After I picked him up from preschool he got mad at me because I guess some of the mom's stayed and took pictures of the kids in the classroom where we just took first day school pics at our house. I told him I was sorry I didn't take pictures of him at school and we could do it next class time. And he just said "no mom, just remember for next year." Ha ha this is a good kid.

He wanted to do a silly face first


And after much coaxing a normal Christian smile. I cannot believe how fast he is growing up!!!