Disclaimer: This blog post is all about my girls...my wonderful daughters. Yes, I too am blessed with boys...my wonderful sons. I promise one day soon, to feature them in their own blog post as well (that is if they'd even let me!).
These beauties...and they are beauties, inside and out. They are kind, smart, clever, creative, imaginative, problem solvers and well...just plain old sweet.
One of daddy's girls...both have him wrapped around their little fingers!
Never a dull moment shopping.
Or eating out...
Sweet sisters...
They make me get in pictures too...
Summer selfies!
On Thursday, for no particular reason, the girls decided to have a picnic upstairs. I was in the kitchen, piddling around, when they invited me. Who can turn down a lunch date like that? Did I mention they made and organized everything? I was completely a guest. And Savannah's room is just lovely for a picnic.
We brought up The Talking Jar. I believe that was Lorelei's idea. I made this jar at Carson with the counselors one day. They had a nice little make and take for parents. The jar is filled with neat little questions. We answered things like: Where's you favorite place to go? (Savannah won the best answer there...home!) name 3 friends and tell about them, would you rather be rich or famous? (we all said rich, but we'd give to others!), if you were an animal...what would you be? We had great conversations and lunch lingered. I highly recommend The Talking Jar!
Being girly girls, after lunch Savannah and Lorelei had planned to do nails and make-up. Of course, I had to join in!
Honestly, these unplanned, at home, totally FREE moments, are some of the best quality time with kids and wonderful memories.
This week Lorelei has been really into helping around the house. We started with a summer chore jar to earn some money. She gets a quarter here, dime there, for helping out. I reminded her some chores you don't get paid for, because they are part of being a family and working together. But some chores are worth a little extra. Lorelei then suggested we make a "Grab Bag" like we teacher sometimes have at school. This is such an easy, motivating, practically free and fun idea!
Here's how:
1. Get a bag you already have, cute tote bag, small drawstring bag, a gift bag, whatever works! We selected a Tinkerbelle drawstring bag we had.
2. Have the kids cut some index cards or colored paper into squares or rectangles. This is not the usual 4 hour, spend a bunch of money, curse a few times cause it's impossible, Pinterest project! Ha!
3. Have the same kids write in marker, some of their favorite at home activities, treats, or even a few that might cost a little money and take place outside of home. Here's a few my girls came up with:
Choose a day to go to the pool, make a sibling do your chore, pick an activity to do at home with mommy, pick a game for game night, pick a friend to come over, choose what's for dinner, have a picnic with mommy and a sibling, 2 hours of t.v., pick the movie for movie night and my favorite, a date with mommy.
Now of course, all of this can include daddy too (or instead of!), but this deal was between me and the kids. You could come up with another one for daddy or have him add his 2 cents on some of the cards.
4. Here's a tough step...place cards in bag. Wheew! You might need a nap now! Grab bag is complete!
When might kids get to pick from said Grab Bag? Well, we decided you could go to the grab bag if you did a bunch of chores without being told, or were particularly kind to a sibling, or maybe helped mommy make dinner, or maybe just because! My kids are really pretty good about behavior, they can be crummy listeners and fight a bit with each other, but overall, I won't be using the Grab Bag for behavior motivation, but that might be a great reason too.
Here's our grab bag...
Since it was Lorelei's idea and she'd been working so hard on her chores, she picked a card first. You can make the kids pick blindly, or let them choose a specific card. I figured it was Lorelei's idea, so she could pick a specific card. She picked "a date with mommy". John had a great idea for what I should do with her. I told her it was a secret and we'd go this morning.
She was up and ready by 9:30. She said "what about breakfast?" That was part of her secret date. We headed out and ended up here...
John has the best ideas! We brought home some donuts to share, too. She had asked if part of our date could be shopping (she is a girly girl!). We headed to Books A Million first.
The Boyen Bunch does love books! We also went to Hallmark, another favorite store of Lorelei's. We were only gone about 2 hours, but isn't it about quality, not quantity. I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to have a date with one of my kids. Jonas is planning to work super hard this week on helping out so he can go on a date soon.
Now what am I gonna come up with for the boys!?!? ;)
Have a super Saturday...
These beauties...and they are beauties, inside and out. They are kind, smart, clever, creative, imaginative, problem solvers and well...just plain old sweet.
 |
Never a dull moment shopping.
 |
 |
| Ready for a picture anytime, anywhere. (this is in McDonalds!) |
 |
They make me get in pictures too...
 |
On Thursday, for no particular reason, the girls decided to have a picnic upstairs. I was in the kitchen, piddling around, when they invited me. Who can turn down a lunch date like that? Did I mention they made and organized everything? I was completely a guest. And Savannah's room is just lovely for a picnic.
We brought up The Talking Jar. I believe that was Lorelei's idea. I made this jar at Carson with the counselors one day. They had a nice little make and take for parents. The jar is filled with neat little questions. We answered things like: Where's you favorite place to go? (Savannah won the best answer there...home!) name 3 friends and tell about them, would you rather be rich or famous? (we all said rich, but we'd give to others!), if you were an animal...what would you be? We had great conversations and lunch lingered. I highly recommend The Talking Jar!
Being girly girls, after lunch Savannah and Lorelei had planned to do nails and make-up. Of course, I had to join in!
Honestly, these unplanned, at home, totally FREE moments, are some of the best quality time with kids and wonderful memories.
This week Lorelei has been really into helping around the house. We started with a summer chore jar to earn some money. She gets a quarter here, dime there, for helping out. I reminded her some chores you don't get paid for, because they are part of being a family and working together. But some chores are worth a little extra. Lorelei then suggested we make a "Grab Bag" like we teacher sometimes have at school. This is such an easy, motivating, practically free and fun idea!
Here's how:
1. Get a bag you already have, cute tote bag, small drawstring bag, a gift bag, whatever works! We selected a Tinkerbelle drawstring bag we had.
2. Have the kids cut some index cards or colored paper into squares or rectangles. This is not the usual 4 hour, spend a bunch of money, curse a few times cause it's impossible, Pinterest project! Ha!
3. Have the same kids write in marker, some of their favorite at home activities, treats, or even a few that might cost a little money and take place outside of home. Here's a few my girls came up with:
Choose a day to go to the pool, make a sibling do your chore, pick an activity to do at home with mommy, pick a game for game night, pick a friend to come over, choose what's for dinner, have a picnic with mommy and a sibling, 2 hours of t.v., pick the movie for movie night and my favorite, a date with mommy.
Now of course, all of this can include daddy too (or instead of!), but this deal was between me and the kids. You could come up with another one for daddy or have him add his 2 cents on some of the cards.
4. Here's a tough step...place cards in bag. Wheew! You might need a nap now! Grab bag is complete!
When might kids get to pick from said Grab Bag? Well, we decided you could go to the grab bag if you did a bunch of chores without being told, or were particularly kind to a sibling, or maybe helped mommy make dinner, or maybe just because! My kids are really pretty good about behavior, they can be crummy listeners and fight a bit with each other, but overall, I won't be using the Grab Bag for behavior motivation, but that might be a great reason too.
Here's our grab bag...
Since it was Lorelei's idea and she'd been working so hard on her chores, she picked a card first. You can make the kids pick blindly, or let them choose a specific card. I figured it was Lorelei's idea, so she could pick a specific card. She picked "a date with mommy". John had a great idea for what I should do with her. I told her it was a secret and we'd go this morning.
She was up and ready by 9:30. She said "what about breakfast?" That was part of her secret date. We headed out and ended up here...
John has the best ideas! We brought home some donuts to share, too. She had asked if part of our date could be shopping (she is a girly girl!). We headed to Books A Million first.
The Boyen Bunch does love books! We also went to Hallmark, another favorite store of Lorelei's. We were only gone about 2 hours, but isn't it about quality, not quantity. I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to have a date with one of my kids. Jonas is planning to work super hard this week on helping out so he can go on a date soon.
Now what am I gonna come up with for the boys!?!? ;)
Have a super Saturday...
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