Army Wife Network, pinterest, & getting caught up!

Its been one of those weeks where the kids and I were so busy I wasn't sure if we were coming or going.  Luckily, if I can get through this week, the busyness starts to ease off. 

One of the highlights of my week was being able to go to the Army Wife Network field exercise.  It was a blast.  Tara and Star are wonderful and I'm going to try to catch their weekly talk radio that happens on Mondays at 8 Eastern.  The website is http://www.armywifenetwork.com/  In addition to being a great event, we received lots of freebies including their new book 1001 things to Love about Military Life.  I haven't had a chance to start reading it, but can't wait.  I've thumbed through it and it looks good. 

They have also given me a lot of good ideas for care packages for Danny.  I put two together tonight.  One in honor of St. Paddy's day--everything is themed green.  I was also able to incorporate something from pinterest into his box.  The kids did a craft for him.  We made shamrocks out of their hand prints. 

 I'm telling you I absolutely LOVE pinterest.  It made my day go so smoothly!  How you ask?  Well, I adapted some of the chore charts and such into a system for us and the kids spent the morning/early afternoon getting a long and cleaning the house.  I didn't have to do hardly any cleaning (okay I had to show them how to do some things, and I did do the living room and part of the kitchen).  They did the whole upstairs, they swept and mopped everything down stairs, they dusted, they did the dishes--it was sooooo nice to be able to do bills, and paper work stuff and not have to worry about EVERYTHING like I normally do.  Part of it is the pinterest inspired plan, and part of it is me finally getting over my control freak issues.  As long as they do it and do it well, it doesn't matter if it wasn't done just like I do it.  It was very freeing today :D. 

Okay, so now that I told you how helpful it was today I will show you everything.  First, I purchased the saving, giving, spending jars to help the kids realize there is more to having money then going out immediately and spending it.  Here are the jars.

I wrote church on one jar, but let them decide what we should write on the other jars.  They both are so into legos right now that they picked the same thing.  I had to put a heart on Bryce's so we'd remember whose set is whose.  The kids really like using them. 

My next step was to finish creating the chore system.  There is a bit of overlap.  The first thing is to teach my kids that they have to work to earn money.  So I've got magnets that list chores with money value on them.   But I didn't want to stop there.  I wanted to create a way to get them to clean parts of the house without money--as their contribution to being part of the family.

 I also wanted to have a checklist of sorts so that they knew what was expected when I said to clean a room.  The kids haven't been consistently expected to do chores so I needed something to help keep us all on the ball.  I found something on pinterest and decided to create it. 

There are checklists for every room, outside, and the stairs.  I laminated them so the kids can check off what they have done as they go.  I also can cross out the parts that they don't need to do that week.  It worked out great! 

I also found something to help me keep track of what needs to be done.  It printed one for every month, but I figured I was already laminating so I'd do this sheet also.  Both of these projects can be found pinned to my pinterest boards.  The best thing about it--other than the fact that the kids did so much today & got a long while doing it--is that is easy to keep up.  It just hangs on the fridge. 

It was a great day!  The kids did so much to help me that I was able to get caught up in so much stuff and do my homework (mostly) for my American Sign Language class.   But now I'm exhausted from actually getting something done ;) so I better go catch some zzzz's.