Making It Count Tuesday :: Artistic Fun!

It's Making it Count Tuesday! Every week, Sarah and I are co-hosting the Making it Count Tuesday link-up. Start with any one of those fabulous ideas you have found online. Then, do it. Make it. Cook it. Create it. Take it from the screen, give it life and let it bless your world. When you're done, snap a photo, write about it and share it with us.  Make your time online count.

I have two this week -- I've been spending less time online over the past few days (hence the lateness of this post), but really making our time count.

First I found this cool idea for painting with light over at Rocket Creek a couple of weeks ago. It looked like fun. When we went out this weekend John and Thomas both got some glow sticks to play with so it looked like the perfect opportunity to give it a try. The only problem was when I slowed the shutter speed on the camera, it stuck every single time. I would have to turn off the camera to get the shutter to close. Very frustrating and kind of scary; I hope my camera isn't breaking. So our pictures didn't turn out quite as good, but here is one fairly decent one we got.

Our next project also started at Rocket Creek, which led me to Tinker Lab and the egg carton challenge. On Sunday afternoon I put an egg carton in front of Olivia and challenged her to make something out of it. She looked for a few minutes and then gave me a list of supplies to fetch from the art cabinet. While I was gone she cut the carton in two and fitted the pieces together to make the body of a dragon (dinosaur?). The idea took off from there.

She added green and red paint ("It looks like a watermelon, mom!"), red ribbon, and googly eyes to complete her monster. I helped by putting everything together with brads -- the glue just wasn't cutting it. It turned out pretty cute. I love the creativity involved.

But now I have 3-demensional art to store. I can't be the only mom out there frustrated by 3-D art storage, right?

For more great ideas, head on over to Sarah's to check out the other Making it Count Tuesday posts. Be sure to link yours up as well and let us know how you are making your online time count.

My New Project :: Real Mom Resources

If you are an especially astute blog reader you might have noticed the new blog button that seemed to magically appear in the sidebar yesterday. That's my new project, and I am really excited to tell you about it.

First, click over and check it out. I'll wait.

I so hope you like it! I remember a couple of months ago I was searching for blog posts about a specific topic and couldn't find what I was after anywhere. My searches were only turning up one or two good results (and my friends can tell you I am normally good at searching).

I love ideas on Pinterest, but the search function there is pretty bad. A search engine is fine, if you don't mind wading through those sneaky ads and don't care that you are getting content tailored by your reading habits and not really the entire Internet. Sometimes I am just looking for blog posts, though, and it is difficult to get search engines to narrow the focus even if you do put the word "blog" in the search.

So out of my frustration came inspiration. I know bloggers like to link up their articles. I know blog readers like to easily find things to read by specific topic. It seemed like a match made in heaven, right? I certainly hope so.

Now I am asking for your help. If you are a blogger, please link up your content -- the site is dead without it. And if you are interested in a little cross-promotional love, then let me know by shooting me an email at pam (at) realmomresources (dot) com. I have a Featured Blogger plan that you might be really interested in, and it is easy to do. I will email you the details.

And if everyone would subscribe, read, comment on the original blog posts thanking the writers, and share this with friends -- online and in life, then I would really appreciate. My goal is a rich site full of goodness that a mom can really use. With your help, I think we can get there!

Wordless Wednesday :: Pool Party!

Making It Count Tuesday :: The Chore Chart Edition

It's Making it Count Tuesday! Every week, Sarah and I are co-hosting the Making it Count Tuesday link-up. Start with any one of those fabulous ideas you have found online. Then, do it. Make it. Cook it. Create it. Take it from the screen, give it life and let it bless your world. When you're done, snap a photo, write about it and share it with us.  Make your time online count.

It's an age-old question. How do you get the kids to help out around the house? Do you assign jobs and then turn the screws until they get them done? Do you pay for chores or not? For the past number of months we had been doing a family clean-up. Each morning we would all get dressed and have clean-up time. During that time the kids did not have assigned chores, but instead I would tell them things to do and then badger them until they got finished. It worked okay.

We had tried assigned chores in the past, but it never seemed to work out well. No one wanted to do their own chores, so I was constantly switching them around. Or one of my chores would be dependent on them finishing one of theirs (like with dishwasher duty), and they never did it fast enough to suit me. The non-assigned version was working better, but I didn't care for the badgering and was falling into a trap of doing things myself to just make it easier. Enter the chore chart.

The idea is nothing new, but I was inspired by Nony over at A Slob Comes Clean, back when I was devouring her site for inspiration. I stumbled upon her chore chart and pay-per-chore system and thought it would work for us with a little modification. So here is what we've been doing.

I made a lovely, hand-drawn chart listing down the side a number of chores that the kids are capable of. Like Nony, I give what is basically .10 per chore, but you don't receive payment unless you have ten chores completed. So each time they complete a chore I put their initial in the box. Then when they have 10 initials I highlight them with a marker and pay out a dollar. I do all of this immediately. When the chore is done I initial. When they have ten I pay. This is so I don't forget to initial, and they don't get discouraged waiting for a specific "pay day" to receive money. Money given on a regular basis equals happy workers. The other thing I don't do is nag. Sometimes I ask who wants to earn an initial. Most of the time I let them choose to do the chore or not. Occasionally I don't give them a choice and just tell them to do it; they still get their payment. Sometimes I don't remind them at all. Whether they earn an initial is totally up to them.

It's really working well. They are mostly excited to earn their money. I don't nag. If they have an "off" day, they usually get it back together by the next day, and I don't say much. So far they have each earned about $3-$4 dollars. Since it was working well, I broke down and made a printed copy on the computer. I eliminated the "day" designations from my original chart and just have a row to write in their initials. When the chart is full, I will take it down and hang up another.