The kids and rewards!

Kyle and I were just talking about how much we love our kids. Each of them brings something different to the table. Gideon is my little Blonde BombShell. He is so sweet and handsome to boot. I laugh when he talks about his friends at school and all the girls that chase him everyday. He is very sensitive to others feels and loves to get things right. We had some Christmas money to get a few games/toys for each the kids on after Christmas Sale shopping and the game he wanted the most cost too much (they only had $10 each) and he had the option of getting, but that cami would not get her horse and would have to wait. He said "No mom, I don't want it then. She can have my money to get her horse". His response was so fast....he didn't need time to think of what his answer was. I was so touched I put my $10 item back and let him get his game. Gideon loves to draw and I love his fun pictures. He also loves to create stuff with Legos. Kyle made him a Lego table the built together a week ago.  His best friend is a inactive boy named Johnathan. He is the sweetest kid with really big teeth and kind of small, but I am so glad they are friends. Gideon always seems to go out of his way to be friends with the less popular kids and never thinks twice about any physical flaws they may have. He is still a little behind in writing and reading, but he flies by with math. He really enjoys reading the Scripture stories. and my most favorite thing about my sweet Gideon is his Love of Sushi. Here is a picture of him going to Kyle's and my favorite Sushi Restaurant in Vegas~Sushimon.

Blake Blake Blake. He is my SUPER independent boy. Anything he can do by himself....you better back off and let him do it. He is NOT a sensitive kid by any means. he could care less whether I was happy with him and he is fine doing things his OWN way......don't laugh mom. He loves to dress up and YES sleep in his dress up concoctions.....unless it is toy story PJ's and he wants to wear them all day. Hence the picture. Blake is super fun though. He has great sound effects and is very animated when he is a character. He loves to have any part of his body tickle scratched. I have to control Kyle on Sundays because I will look over and see Blake practically taking his shirt off so daddy can tickle scratch him. He does not give me lip kisses anymore and hasn't for about a year now. Well, I steal them sometimes, but he prefers kissing my check. He wipes grandma Kris's kisses off his lips. He likes to squeeze hug people and make a growling sound. Blake loves Buzz and Woody from Toy Story and Darth Mal from Star Wars. He loves to sit on the kitchen counter and help me cook ANYTHING. He loves singing Primary songs and his favorites right now are Scripture Power and Book of Mormon Stories. Blake is NOT liking the idea of going to Sunbeams instead of Nursery. It's funny because all 3 boys that transferred to Sunbeams cry when they are dropped off and the girls look at them like they are crazy not to want to be in Sunbeams.  Love you Blake!

 Cami is the Princess of the house. Ever since Hannah moved in her Princess preferences have kicked in. Anything with a skirt is a "Princess" dress. She wants to sleep in her princess attire as well. She is still obsessed with horses and has a momma horse, baby horse and a Jesse cowgirl she sleeps with every night. She is too the point where she will sit still long enough for me to french braid her hair and keeps he hair neat. We are potty training her right now and it is going well. She has 3 mini ponies as potty prizes and a miniature castle with unicorns for when she is fully successful. Her funny word right now is for sandwich~~she says Mamich and she refers to anything with bread as mamich. She is doing well in Nursery and has finally started staying in her seat for the entire lesson......even though she attempts to run up to the podium during Sacrament Meeting. She likes to look at books and gives LOTS of kisses and hugs. She like to hug Kyle and I together and practically squish our heads together. She is very polite and uses Please and Thank you often. She has sweet prayers that start out "Oh Father". She loves her church books and makes it a point to show me which pages have Jesus in them. She is so sweet and caring. This picture is for my own benefit. It was taken about 6 months ago and her hair is a disaster, but it makes me laugh.

 I have been meaning for a year now to make a reward chart. It is not exactly what I wanted, but it works. Plus Kyle helped me design the gems. It is so easy to point out to your kids when they do something wrong, but not as easy for them to remember you praising them on a daily basis. So I came up with a reward chart so that they could easily recognize me praising them when they do good things. They get silver (.25 cents) or Gold (.50 cents) pirate coins for chores done or extra jobs. The bee is a busy bee and they have another chart that has brush teeth, make bed, Pj's etc and when it is complete they get  a bee. They heart is for when they show exceptional love to someone else. The orange diamond is when they serve someone else......make a card, show service etc. The pearl are prayer pearls....whenever they say a pray. The Diamond is for spirituality....reverent at church, reading scriptures etc. The purple triangle gem is respect for others(mainly to brothers and sisters). The Emerald is showing respect for parents or elders.  The yellow gem is if they eat a good meal the entire day without fighting about it. And last, but not least it the Black dot......when they make a wrong choice to the point I am going to blow.....talking back...not listening repetitively, hitting etc. Once they fill the category up they get a prize or treat. Everything, but the work and good eater can roll over each week until it is complete. The good eaters get an extra special treat Saturday night (we had toaster strusells last Saturday) and they cash in their pirate coins Saturday night as well so they can get their tithing slips ready. Complete bees gets to pick from the prize box....I stocked up on ring pops, pencils, etc at the after Christmas sale (4ring pops for .25cents) The other categories get other prizes like icecream, playdate at the Artic Circle, scripture stickers and etc. It is not super easy to get gems and it has to be me caughting them being good not them telling me just to get a gem. It definitely is something I can't slack on, but it has been really good so far. I still need to add their pictures to them and I am going to have them bound.

I got the best deal the other day at walmart. They had coats and snow pants 75% off. I got Snow pants for me, Janel, Gideon and some for Gideon next year for $3.75 each! YEAH!!!!