Allowance & Work

Looking for advice!


We feel like we're finally hitting the stage that we need to start coming up with a plan we can stick to for helping our kids find ways to earn and get money. Hayley is 6 1/2 yrs and is starting to get more interested in saving her money for things better than the dollar store. In the past we've let her do "extra chores" for money but now we have lots of questions...

-Should we start giving an allowance?
-How much?
-How often?
-What is it contingent upon?
-If we make it contingent upon doing basic daily chores...what happens if a kid has one bad day and 6 good days?
-We need to decide what chores are just part of family life and what chores they can earn money for...and how much?
-Right now we've introduced a split piggy bank--10%-tithing, 40%-college savings, 50% spending money. It's been accepted well so far. Any thoughts on telling your kids how much they have to save?

-We have great plans to teach about investing by matching their savings and letting them watch it grow--any advice?


I'd love to hear your opinions, thoughts, plans, book recommendations, mistakes, etc, etc.

Independence!

I love how these pictures capture the pure joy of learning a new trick or skill when you're not quite 2 years old and crave every little bit of independence...


Alice loves to ring the doorbell as we enter the house. I usually hold her and let her ring for a little while and then she screams in protest when I move on. On this day she discovered that she can ring the door bell all by her little own self!


Look how tall!
Nothing gets better than that! I can just hear her saying "Ha Ha, Mom!"

Fall is passing...

What can I say? I've become a seasonal blogger...

My last big update was summer. I thought I'd try to capture fall before it's over...

For the record, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the fall! I can't help smiling to myself when I drive down the road and see all the breathtaking colors smiling back at me! My kids have actually started rolling their eyes at me when I talk about the leaves as we drive...makes me feel like a real mom when there's some eye-rolling going on behind me!

Red and bright yellow (gold) are my favorites! Oh, if only leaves could just be dying all the time!

We've had Mr. Flu and Ms. Strep-throat visiting our home this past week. Above is sweet Maya smiling through a 104.5 degree fever!

Yesterday, Ryan stayed home from church with 2 sick kids and I muscled my way through a 2 hour primary rehearsal with almost 60 kids for our annual program at church. When I got home we decided it was time to get out and enjoy a few leaves even if Maya had to ride in the stroller under her blanket for much of it. Nothing like a few musty old leaves to help you feel better!


We decided to take a crack at getting a family snap-shot all by ourselves--thanks to our friendly tri-pod. It's the first family picture that we haven't had Maya ducking into my shoulder for cover...and me bribing her with everything under the sun to look at the camera. Why didn't we think of this before?!?! It's not that our shy little girl doesn't want to be part of our family it's that the person telling her to smile behind the camera completely freaks her out! I think we'll be trying the tripod trick more often!


(had to include the out-take...this is setting-up for the fabulous family shot!)



Our amateur photographer, Hayley, almost got an in-focus shot of us.

And in case you didn't know how you should kiss when your kids are taking the picture...keep it stiff!

The rest speak for themselves...cute kids!










Hope you're enjoying pretty leaves and mild days wherever you are!