Chores, How Sweet the Sound...

We started a new chore chart today along with new "ways of doing things" altogether. We're giving our kids more responsibilities. Giving them more choices like with their chores, they get to choose amongst themselves which chores they do and when they do them as long as they are done before dinner or football practice which ever comes first. If the chores aren't done they can't eat dinner until they are finished. Sounds kinda harsh but I was pleasantly surprised at how positively they responded compared to when I harp and yell and harp and grrrr. Their rooms is another area where we've told them that they don't have to clean their rooms if they don't want to BUT their room does have to be clean by the end of Friday. If it's not clean then they don't get to participate in family activities or they can pay me or each other to help out. I gave the suggestion that keeping it picked up will make their Friday much easier but that it was totally up to them. When we presented these new ways of doing things to them they actually seemed prouder of what they were doing, like cleaning their room. (They have all been keeping their room clean and I haven't said one thing.)

One of Meme's chores was dog DOOty...(Our back yard is absolutely horribly awful!)
Austy got sweeping and cleaning up the driveway and cleaning the bathroom... Isn't he cute.Ah-Ha! I found Abbie in the van?! She finished her chores early and decided to chill out in the van for some reason?! My sweet girl...

So that's what's going on in our house today, gotta go. Football practice awaits us. It's a family affair, you know.

I don't think I mentioned actually, last year during football practice I used that time to grocery shop, run errands and/or cook dinner. Not this year. Austin informed me while heading to one of his first practices this year, "Mommy, you could miss something that you'll never get back." How can I miss a practice after hearing that from my 10 year old sweet boy!? It's very important to him that we're there to see him do his thang, so there we sit, dedicated and proud;) My little Pop Warner stud.