Summer favorites

I'm interrupting my break to give you some of Ella's favorite picks from her summer reading list, as a follow up to this post, and just in case your girls are desperate for some reading material before school starts back up again. :)

Baby Island (Ella loved this book, which is really fun, because I remember being equally enamored with this book when I was a young girl!)
The Year of Miss Agnes

We own Sydney Taylor's gem All-of-a-Kind Family, but this summer we discovered some other books in the series:
All of a Kind Family Downtown
More All-Of-A-Kind Family
and All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown.

Are you familiar yet with the Sisters In Time series? Ella previously read Sarah's New World: The Mayflower Adventure (1620), but this summer she also read:
Grace and the Bully: Drought on the Frontier (1819)
Rebekah in Danger: Peril at Plymouth Colony (1621)
Emma's Secret: The Cincinnati Epidemic (1832)
and Maggie's Dare: The Great Awakening (1744).

Another great series for girls is the Daughters of the Faith series. Last year we purchased two of these books for Ella (Almost Home and The Tinker's Daughter, which is the story of Mary Bunyan (daughter of John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress.)

This summer she read these books from that same series:
Shadow of His Hand
Ransom's Mark
Courage to Run
and The Captive Princess

I read one of the above books, too. I asked Ella to choose her favorite from the Daughters of the Faith series so that I could read it, and she chose Ransom's Mark, so I can vouch for the quality of this particular book, and all of the books in the series are written by the same author (Wendy Lawton).

Break

We've got a lot going on in the next several weeks, so I'm going to take a break from the blog.

Just wanted to let you know in case you check in regularly!

I'll be back at the start of September.

Blessings to you and yours for a wonderful rest-of-your summer!

~Stacy

Changing of the chores (Part 3)

I find boys and chores to be a difficult combination.

Is it just my boys, or do most boys get distracted from their chores? Arggh.

I feel like I have to remind them to stay on task every forty seconds. (Yes, I tend to exaggerate, but I don't even know that that's an exaggeration, some days.)

It's not that they're trying to shirk responsibility, it's just that they can so easily forget that they were even doing their chore, and begin distractedly playing some imaginary game or something.

When it comes to tidying the living room, that problem is magnified. Our living room is essentially our family room and play room in addition to being the living room, so we tidy it three times a day.

While my girls have the instinctive ability to see things, it seems my boys don't actually have that ability.

They'll walk past something-lying-on-the-floor-that-needs-to-be-put-away twelve times and simply wander around a whole lot, getting nothing done. It is truly painful to watch. They stay in the living room, but in general, a whole lot of wandering (off to play or climb or wrestle) seems to occur from both boys while Ella does the actual tidying.

I love my boys and I'm not trying to say they're daft, I'm just saying it's not their gift.

One day I had the brilliant idea (so clearly it came from the Lord) to make a game of it, so I told them we were going to pretend that I was the sergeant and they were the soldiers. I sat on the couch and directed them with my voice to a particular item, and told them exactly where to put it. And it WORKED!

That gave me the idea to make this a regular thing. So now when the kids tidy the living room, there is one "Caller" and two "Cleaners". The Caller gets to instruct, politely, the two Cleaners. And the Cleaners get to clean, cheerfully and quickly. We've been doing this for weeks and it is taking FAR less time to get this living room tidy. We rotate out the role of Caller, so that everyone gets their chance to be the "boss". And I have reminded the kids (and they now remind one another), that a good Leader (Caller) is also a good helper. (Ie: lend a helping hand, even if you are Caller for the day.)

Hooray for creative solutions!

I wish I had thought of this!

Ella, this morning: "Thank you for the note on the laundry detergent!"

Me: "What note? I didn't leave a note."

[Imagine her delight when she discovered it was from her daddy!]

Sweet Mark.

I wish I had thought of that!

Are there notes (or treats, even) you could leave out for your children today to thank them for doing their chores?

Changing of the chores (Part 2)

Did anyone notice in the previous post that Ella has been assigned the laundry chore?

As in The Laundry.

All of it.

Let me back up a minute to say that for the most part, we try to keep the same chores for our children. For instance, Isaias has been doing the garbage chore for a good long time, and I hope he'll still be doing it when he's a teenager. I like the whole idea of the kids taking ownership and responsibility over a particular area and diligently working at it, day after day- making it their own.

Ella has, up until now, been my primary helper in the kitchen (sweeping, emptying the dishwasher) along with her other responsibilities. I love that. But I also want her (and our other girls, as they get older) to become familiar with other duties around the house.

Hence, the laundry.

For this season, anyway- Mark and I have appointed Ella our Laundry Manager. Her responsibilities include sorting, washing, drying, and keeping the laundry room orderly. [The rest of us are still helping her fold, at least for now.]

It took me about two days, standing by her side, to instruct her how to work the washer and dryer. For a few days following that, she'd call me in occasionally to ask a question. But for weeks, now- she's been doing all of our laundry- three loads a day- and managing it quite well. At some point last week I scanned the laundry room to find the laundry ALL DONE. Empty hampers! And I raved about how she was better than mommy, even, at getting caught up on the laundry!

The only challenge for her has been figuring out how much laundry to put in, and whether what she loaded was a 'medium' or 'large' or 'extra large' load. But that knowledge will come with experience.

The only challenge for me (aside from being bested by my eight-year old in the laundry department ;)) has been something I've apparently taken for granted all these years: When you do the laundry, you know where things are! [And when you don't, you have no idea.] On several occasions lately, I have wanted a particular item of clothing for myself or one of the kids, and I had no idea if I should be looking in the hampers waiting to be washed, in the washer or dryer, on the clothesline, or in the clean hampers. Ella is getting better at remembering when she did what, so that's helpful.

I am so thankful for children who help with chores!


P.S. Ella *loves* her new chore!

Changing of the chores (Part 1)

We switched up the chores around here recently. We try to introduce any changes over the summer so that hopefully all the kinks are ironed out by the time school begins.

Here are our current after-each-meal chores:

Mommy:
Unload/load dishwasher
Sweep kitchen floor
Clean up little girls & wash trays
Meal prep

Ella:
Clear her own dishes from the table
*Chickens: food, water
Laundry: collect and wash/dry
Living room clean-up (with brothers)

Isaac:
Table: clear and wipe table, sweep beneath table
Living room clean-up (with E & I)

Isaias:
Clear his own dishes from the table
*Garbage: collect and take out
Living room clean-up (with E & I)

Adelia:
Sit patiently in her seat until mommy decides to get her out, without throwing food or tray or utensils on the floor, or taking her bib off, or trying to feed Audra, or kicking/hitting her older siblings as they pass by.

Audra:
Sit patiently in her seat until mommy decides to get her out, without throwing food or tray or utensils on the floor.

*Morning only

I initially decided that my dishwasher time would be used to train Adelia to unload/load the dishwasher with me, and I do hope to move to that at some point, but right now I'm keeping her contained during that time.

Grateful: Monday, July 12

1235 | Spending time this morning (every morning!) with my early-morning girl, while the rest of the house slept. Watching as she brought toys and books to my lap, seeing her discover things and express herself in cute little gestures and with sweet exclamations.

Words I heard her say this morning:

down
here 'go
dank you!
guy? (referring to Isaac's LEGO guys)
nigh-nigh (as she tucked the LEGO guys under a blanket)
bank-ee (blanket)
Jesuh? (because that's what we sing when we go nigh-nigh!)
horsey
cow
moo
dee-ya (Adelia)
mine
book
cozy
love oo
up boo (up)
nice
birdie
fye (fly)
wogee (froggy)

1236 | The blessing of my wonderful Ella, who invited the little girls to help her with her laundry chore. Having a few moments of freedom while the boys did their chores, I made a phone call to a dear friend who has been on my heart. Ella got the girls dressed- in matching outfits, no less- and took them outside. I peeked out the back door to find this:


{She pulled up those little chairs for the girls to have front-row seats as she took care of her chicken chore.}

I kept peeking, as I was on the phone, and spied this a few minutes later:


I noted that she chose our calmest hen for this endeavor, for which I am thankful. :)

She made one more trip inside with the girls to get them bundled up in sweatshirts (it's cold this morning!) and then headed back outside to play with them. How thankful I am for this precious oldest daughter of mine!