"Old Toys" Store

For those of you who are unfamiliar with my parenting style...a drill sergeant may seem harsh, but you can't argue with his results.  That is where I have found myself the last several weeks.  I think the girls are just testing me, so I fought back.  After BEGGING them for a week to pickup after themselves, I had had enough.  I gave them 10 minutes and anything they couldn't pick up in that amount of time was going in a trash bag.  I was not messing around!


 Now my problem was what to do with all of this stuff.  The first several days they didn't even seem to be affected by this.  So much so, we had to have a second round of trash bag clean up.  I told them they needed to straighten their acts or they weren't getting anything from Dad and Mom for Christmas either - which might have been a little harsh, but that is just how DONE I was!


Then I had an epiphany!  Several months ago we started a chore chart for the girls.  Each one had chores they could do based on their age.  The plexi-glass frame served as a dry erase board allowing them to mark off their chores every night.  At the end of the week, they would get $1 if they did ALL their chores ALL week.  They did very well the first several weeks, but lost interest and I didn't stay diligent about getting them to do it.  However, we are now going to try to pay them $0.20 a day for doing their chores.  That way they are motivated each day.  At the end of the week, we will let them "go shopping" in their very own "toy store".  Each toy will cost them $0.50 - a week's pay.  Oh, and they were told, if they leave them out again, any toy can be confiscated again.

We bought tiny piggy banks in the $1 bargain bin at Target and wrote their names on them with paint pens.  (I even bought an extra bank for each of them in case the first one got broken.)  When the girls remembered they still had some money from a couple months ago, they got so excited and wanted to know if they could buy a few toys now.  So we cracked out the money and let the process begin.  We'll have to see how this goes.

Hopefully, the next post will be a more organized "toy store".  Digging through all those bags to find the one thing they have asked for is a chore within itself!

"Give Thanks" - Thanksgiving Handprint Plate

We are on day three of our Disney Countdown Chain.  So far, we have bounced around the room like Tigger and played freeze dance to Disney music (kind of like musical chairs, but take away the chairs and add dancing - if you move once the music stops, you are out).  Today we even ate an apple in honor of Snow White.  I usually take one apple and divide it among the three of them, so to have a whole apple to themselves was quite a treat.  Especially when they would pretend to swoon after every bite.

As much fun as this has been so far, there are other projects we are preparing for the holidays.  I saw the neatest Thanksgiving plate from Painted Zebra.  Unfortunately, they are in Missouri, so I decided I would try to make my own.

I used:
White plate from the Dollar Tree
Paint (ceramic paint works best, but I just used what I had on hand)
Paint brushes in varying sizes
Transparent ceramic paint

Start by painting a pumpkin the middle of your plate and brown accent marks around the edge.  Let dry about 15-20 minutes, and paint a second coat for more vibrant colors.  Then paint your pumpkin stem.

Once dry,  liberally apply paint to a sweet little hand and help place it on the plate to form the pumpkin leaf.  Check your spacing; our 5-year old's hand was almost too big.

Once the handprint has dried (15-20 min.) add accents and any desired wording.  Finally, paint two or three coats of clear ceramic paint over the whole plate with a soft brush - allowing each coat to dry four hours before applying next coat.  Place plate in the center rack of your oven and turn oven to 320 degrees.  Once temperature has been reached, allow to bake for 30 minutes.  Allow the plate to cool in the oven for 1 hour.

If you have the money, and are in the Kirkwood, MO area, I would leave this to the experts.  However, this is our version of a fun Pinterest find.  Happy Crafting!

Disney World Countdown

With our impending "year of poverty" upon us, the Henderson family is having one last Hurrah! (mainly because we already had the trip planned when we found out Troy made it into nursing school).  Our trip did set up a really fun conversation when we got the acceptance letter.  I was able to say "So, you've just been accepted in UAB'S AMNP program!  What are you going to do next?"  To which Troy emphatically responded, "I'm going to DISNEY WORLD!!!"

Taking a 5, 3 and "turning 2 while we are there"-year old to Disney for the first time, we wanted to do something to help build anticipation.  I looked on Pinterest for some ideas of Disney countdowns.  While I was able to find some great ideas for the countdown itself, I couldn't find a varied list of activities for each day.  So, I decided to combine the GetAwayTodayVacations chain with the Vermillion Rules chain.  I also used some of Vermillion's activities with some I made up myself.

Our list of 30 activities is as follows:
Bounce Around the Room like Tigger
Dress up as your favorite Disney princess
Sprinkle a little "pixie dust", think a happy thought, and fly around the room like Peter Pan
Watch your favorite Disney movie
Name the character you are most looking forward to seeing in Disney World
Name the ride you are most looking forward to riding in Disney World
Pretend to take a magic carpet ride with Jasmine
Make phone number bracelets
Eat an apple in honor of Snow White
Color a Disney picture
Sing your favorite Disney song
Work on your Autograph Book
Wear Disney pajamas to bed tonight
Have Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast
Play the Disney Princess Memory game
Play Disney Monopoly
Read your favorite Disney story
Make Disney hair bows
Make Mickey Mouse Cookies
Play freeze dance with Disney music
Get new Disney stickers
Play Pluto's dog bone hunt
Eat Disney gummies
Have an Un-birthday Tea Party
Like Lady and the Tramp, have spaghetti for dinner
Play DisneyJr.com for 30 minutes
Make Mickey Mouse Ears
Go look for buried Treasure
Put together a Disney puzzle
Do the "Hotdog Dance" from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

*Now, this list was made based on what we already had available and the fact we have three little girls.

First of all, I printed out my list using Disney font (Waltography) and cut them into 8.5"x1.25" strips.  I then cut out thirty 8.5"x1.5" strips.  I used three different colors for our three children - that way they each get to remove their own color and there will not be fights over who gets to remove the link that day.

Now, if we had a working printer at our house, we could have just printed the list onto the colored paper, but that would have also taken planning to put the red ones on a page, the white ones...etc.  However, being the weirdo I am, I did have to sit down and plan activities around our calendar because some activities are more involved than others and might require more time to accomplish.  So...I sat down with every calendar we had to figure out what needed to come what day.

 Then I was able to glue the activity to the red, yellow and white strips alternating for each girl.

Next, my little assistants helped staple the links to one another to make the chain.  (I did keep my master list next to me to make sure the activities stayed in order through each step.

 For the final piece, I took a black strip that was 8.5"x1.5", measure out 1/2" on either side of the center of the strip, and using an X-acto knife, cut a 1" slit horizontally across the center.  Then take 1.5" circles cut from the same black paper and inset through the slits.

Place a small amount of glue on the piece of the ear that sticks through the bottom.  Bend that little piece flat against the bottom of the strip to secure the ears and make them stand up.

 Finally, attach the black strip to the  last activity link (which if red, looks really cute with two white hole punch dots as the buttons on your "Mickey pants").

This list also has given me material to post for the next month.  I'll let you know how the countdown goes and include instructions on any that may seem confusing.  Now we just have to wait a few more days to begin the countdown.

And So It Begins...

I've never done a blog and never really followed one steadily either.  My husband has just been accepted into nursing school where he will be a full time student for the first of three years in the program.  We have three toddlers, so I can't afford a job that would put them all in daycare.  As a result, we will be moving in with my parents and are referring to 2013 as our "year of poverty".  God bless wonderful family that is helping take care of us.

However, I thought I might need an outlet over the next year.  No one may ever read this, but it will be the only therapy I can afford.  In the almost nine years of our marriage, God has taken us down some pretty crazy roads.  There have been times we were lost and confused.  There, of course, were others that made us wonder why God has chosen us to bless so abundantly.  In our last "time of wandering", I happen to find myself studying Aaron (Moses's brother).  It became a great source of encouragement!  The Israelites were lost and wandering in the desert, but they were never alone.  No matter how they felt that day or how confused they were, they simply had to walk out of their tents and see the pillar.  Whether day or night, smoke or fire, the pillar was there.  It was the presence of God always with them.

I thank God that in the midst of great confusion, His presence has never left us.  Especially in this next year, we may not know what we are doing each moment, but we know we will be chasing pillars.