It's May!

I found this cute tutorial for making May Day baskets at Skip to my Lou (a GREAT site!)... I thought to myself that those sure would be cute and relatively easy to put together - I'm not that crafty, but I can most definitely cut and glue! And then I thought about who I would give them to... quickly I concluded I should give some to my girl's I visit teach, because I was naughty this past month and never visited *sigh*. Then I got curious about May Day and traditions surrounding the holiday, so I searched online and found this-

"In some parts of the United States, May Baskets are made. These baskets are small and usually filled with flowers or treats and left at someone's doorstep. The basket giver would ring the bell and run away. The person receiving the basket would try to catch the fleeing giver. If they caught the person, a kiss was to be exchanged."

Hmmm... looks like a good excuse to doorbell ditch to me! So, Emma and Becca helped me finish put them together, by attaching hershey kisses to the flower centers and then filling the cones up with more chocolate. It kind of turned into a 'one for the basket, one for me, one for the basket, one for me' type activity... it was a yummy activity. Then Emma helped me doorbell ditch - I think she liked this just as much as Disneyland. She giggled the whole way running from the front doors back to the car. I told Emma, 'it's not nice to ring someone's doorbell and run unless you are leaving something nice'. :)






Last week the weather started to get unwelcomingly hot... like 95ish. But this week it cooled down, so it felt very lovely outside - we decided to eat lunch on the back porch and this made me realize we do not do this often enough! We should be eating outside everyday while the weather is nice... especially because it makes clean up so much easier, particularly in regards to Jake - I practically need to put a tarp under that kid when he eats. (You see in the pic how he's basically wearing a bib shirt? It's most definitely necessary).


Becca also spent some time today practicing her bubble blowing... hmm... she's not that good at it, but it was cute to watch her try. :)


Oooo! I recently found the neatest thing! It's called My Job Chart. I stumbled across it when searching for chore chart ideas for my kids. I've NEVER gotten my act together in having specific jobs for the girls to do. I mean, I've always casually had them help with things each day - and for the past few months, I've really started expecting that they clean their own room each day after quiet time - it's been a headache to enforce, but has also been awesome, as I don't really clean their room anymore. BUT, I wanted them to do MORE, particularly Emma... and I wanted it to become routine. SO, I was thrilled when I came across this website. Basically, you can set up a list of jobs for each child to do, and set up rewards. The girls can then sign on to their own account (Emma can do this on her own, but Becca needs me to sit with her and do it) and view the jobs they are expected to do that day. They can check off the jobs they do as they complete them (or just at the end of the day). It tallies up the points they have earned (which are determined by me), and they can then spend their points at the online rewards store. I've just put up things like extra TV time, computer time, mom time (where they can choose an activity to do with me), making cookies, etc. It's really fun! And you can print out weekly charts to put up on the fridge that list off the jobs the kids should be doing each day. I thought it was pretty cool, because it means I don't have to commit to certain jobs and rewards for a long period of time, but it can easily be changed up as we need it to. So, we'll see how long this system lasts for us, but for now, I'm thrilled to finally be doing SOMETHING.

Emma decided to do one of her 'extra jobs' today and set the table for us - she did a good job! And she was proud of herself... can you tell?


This post is random. :/ I found these 'sleep masks' in the dollar bins at Target last week and the girls LOVE them, especially Emma. And I think they are pretty funny...



Emma was still awake when I took this picture... she was trying not to giggle
Have I ever mentioned how much I love Jake? :) He's so fun. This morning he had a serious case of the giggles, so I got out the camera. This video showcases his personality quite well. Towards the end of the clip, he bonks his head into the camera and falls over... then he just lies there for a bit. This is his thing lately - he often will fall and then he decides to take it as an opportunity to hang out on the floor on his back for bit... he's cute.