American Heritage Girls -- Our New Troop!

Our church is the proud new owner of an American Heritage Girl Troop! We are pleased to be able to offer American Heritage Girls Troop right alongside our Boy Scout Troop. We are having our meetings at the same place, day & time as the BSA so that parents can have kids in both programs on one night, save gas, and possibly feel more freedom to volunteer for either Troop.

American Heritage Girls is a Christ-centered scouting program available to girls ages 5 to 18.  AHG is a non-profit organization dedicated to the mission of building women of integrity through service to God, family, community and country. "The small, all-girl unit, within the AHG Troop structure, provides a nurturing environment ripe for learning and the building of positive relationships. The AHG program grows as a girl grows. The program structure allows a girl to be involved from age 5 to well into adulthood. This longevity of experience and consistency of messaging allows the program to be life changing to its members. Remembering that God has assured us His presence throughout our journey, we will endeavor to teach our nation’s daughters of the love of the Father through the AHG ministry." (quoted from AHG website.)

When Jo-Jo was about 6 years old, I started looking into scouting programs available for girls. The things that I was looking for in a program we not there, but there was a lot of things that we were looking to avoid. I had found AHG and looked into getting her involved with a local troop, but local was clear in another state. So, I looked into starting a troop at my then home church, but that didn't look feasible either, so I let it go.

Then 6 years later, April 2011, our Boy Scout Scout Master asked me if I had heard of American Heritage Girls. I told him of my research years ago, and liked what they had to offer. He asked if I would be willing to start up a troop in our church. after prayer and discussion with my husband, we said yes. He introduced my to JS, who I already knew from the girls field hockey class, and we began talking about it. Our Boy Scout Scout Master had already been discussing the possibility of our church doing the AHG program. She was already on board, and so the planning slowly began. We decided that we would do this together as Co-coordinators. It really didn't pick up speed until after the 2012 year began, because our family thought we might be moving and we were not sure where to at the time. God has other plans, so here we are starting an AHG Troop. Woo Hoo!

We got our Charter approval after 6 months of preparation, on Friday, July 6th. Most of the preparation was learning about the program, gaining interest, and preparing the deacons and the church for owning the Troop. Then the next few months was spent reading and planning the actual Troop and having to wait to charter until June. That was a long wait. You can charter mid-year, but the best start time for us was a fresh new year.

Our Troop had our first official Troop Board Meeting last night and it was awesome to see how passionate the other ladies are about our Troop. It has been my friend and co-coordinator JS and me meeting weekly for about 6 months preparing, so to get feedback from others was awesome! We made a few needed changes and we are ready to move forward with training.

We will be having training for the next few weeks for the board and then Unit Leaders. We are so excited to finally start the registration process for girls to join. If you are interested in finding a Troop in your area please visit American Heritage Girls website and find a Troop on the Locator Map. They would be more that happy to have your family. Read about AHG in the News.

How I Get My Kids out of Bed by 8 am

Last week we went away to a friend's house. During that time none of us got up at our normal wakeup times. We were hot and exhausted. Now that we are back at home, we need to get back into our routine. I set my alarm for 6 am all week to get my 2 hours alone time in before the kids wake up. They usually wake up around 7:30 to get started on their Morning Routines.

Today this did not happen. My weekday alarm on my phone was not on, from last week's trip. The weekend alarm was on. It didn't occur to me that the weekday one was off after hearing the alarm all weekend. I got up at 9am and the kids didn't roll out till 9:30. Needless to say, Morning routines did not go well this morning.

The kids were talking to Jo-Jo about breakfast so she came to me and asked what was for breakfast. I took out my menu and it showed muffins. Well I was behind on my stuff, they were behind on their stuff, so making homemade muffins for breakfast was not going to happen today. I had not ground up the flour yet. When you add that process to making the muffins process it would have taken 45 minutes instead of 20 minutes. This was not going to go well today.

I told Jo-Jo, "Today was muffins for breakfast, but being that we all got up so late, we can't have them today. So, go ahead and make some eggs."  She sadly says back to me, "OOOOkkk, What is for breakfast tomorrow?" I looked at the menu and said, "Smoothies and pancakes." She runs out of the room yelling back at me, "OK". Then she announces to the rest of the kids, "We are getting up early tomorrow!" She then explained why they needed to get up early and decided that they were going to set the alarm clock upstairs for 7:30am.

I love my Menu! Thought this was worth sharing today. Have a Blessed Day!

A Day in the Life of our Family - Our Daily Routine

Planning out our day is the most important thing we can do for our family. It allows us to spend more time doing the things we love to do, instead spending all that time on figuring out how we are going to get it all done in a day. Our Family Contribution Chart is a big part of our daily routine as well as our school lessons. How did we do it this year?

I used a combination of Managers of Their Homes and 5 Steps to a Successful Day. A few years ago I picked up the Managers of Their Homes and went through the process of laying out the day for each person in our home. It was wonderful to see all the things each of us had to do each day and how we all fit together like a puzzle. When the kids were resting, I would have free time. When my schedule said "work with Stella", her schedule said "work with mom".

This year at convention I had the privilege of listening to a few sessions with Sue Pruett, The Charlotte Mason Girl. She compiled an E-book on the 5 Steps to a Successful Day. I was surprised that this E-book turned out to be useful for any family, homeschool or not, Charlotte Mason style or not. I used it to fine tune the Managers or Their Homes schedule. It was such a blessing to our family because there is a system of prioritizing our tasks through the day and cutting out the task(s) that will not fit in our day.

I change the name to routine, because we seem to be more accepting to flexibility in a routine than a scheduled day. Schedule means a list of items, a program, a timetable, a production plan, to plan for a certain time. In my eyes, schedule means this is what I have to do at this time. (Example: In a schedule Breakfast is at 9am and the morning routine needs to be finished before we eat breakfast. That can turn out really bad on a day when we all are not feeling well or we get up late.) Routine means a prescribed and detailed method of a procedure, habitual; regular.  I look at a routine as a checklist, with a few scheduled things in it, like meals or appointments. We take a break from the routine for the scheduled task and then go back to the routine after the task is complete. (Example: In a routine, morning routine happens before breakfast, but if we get up late, we stop our morning routine and eat at 9, then continue working on our morning routine.) Now, if we have issues with a child continuously getting up late too often or every day I do say, to that child only, that the morning routine must be done before breakfast to get them motivated. Then I allow for flexibility again once they show that they have regained the habit of getting out of bed on time.

Below is our Daily Routine: This Routine is not meant for everyone to adopt exactly, but feel free to use it to create your own routine. The priorities in our family are probably not the same as yours. Check out the above references on how I came up with this routine for our family. It will help you with your day too.

Routine Fall 2012

This is how we are going to work our days this year. It does change on occasion like all routines do. We will be inserting Field Hockey and our Library Day into the week when we know the days and time for them. I am so ready to get started on our new year. Just waiting for the expersts over at Well Planned Day to finish building the digital planner and then off we go. Hope you gleaned some good information from this post. Let me know in the comment section below.

Menu Planning - Made Easy!

This is one of the things that can set off our whole week if I don't take the time to get it done. This can be very time consuming, but I have found some short cuts that I'm going to share with you.

I am currently making my meal plan for July. About a year ago I downloaded a Monthly Meal Plan from a blog that I frequently read called, Confessions of a Homeschooler. The information from this blog is time saving!So, I open my June Meal plan and make changes to meals that are already there. I am a firm believer in not reinventing the wheel. A common phrase I use is Work Smarter not Harder. The menu already has Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for Monday through Friday. It has only dinner listed for weekends, but I changed mine to include Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for all 7 days.

Here is another variation of a Monthly Menu in fill-in PDF style. This is a sister blog to Homeschool Creations which is another blogger I follow. .

We eat different foods each season and we change our menu slightly each month to include new favorites or old favorites. This is something Jo-Jo is going to start learning about this year. She loves to cook, and she is old enough to learn to organize meals. This is not something she should have to learn on her own after starting her own family.

After finishing our menu I make a weekly shopping list based off these meals. (Saves us a ton of money!) Then each shopping list is hung on the fridge, so that items can be added as we run out of them, like bread, or toilet paper. These days I use Cozi App on my phone to enter in my shopping list for the 4/5 weeks and shop with the list there. The only problem I have had with this is making sure my phone is charged enough to use it...lol.

If I have time I pre-print the next month and write changes on it as we go, so updating it is a breeze.

As far as preparing the meals, I prep lunch (if needed) and dinner before/after breakfast to free up our day. This of course is the plan, as life happens this does not always happen. Usually because I don't have an ingredient, if the store is our of it. Prepping ahead helps us get dinner on time (4:30-5pm). We ear early so that the 3 days we need to be places by 6, we don't have to change our routine. Things get crazy when we change our routine. People in my house get very grumpy too...lol.

Hope this post has been a blessing to your family. Please comment any questions or comments below. I would love to hear your feedback. Thanks

Handling Chores in Our Home

We don't have them. What?! Let's define chores: a task, a routine or troublesome one. Wow! No wonder my kids didn't want to do them. They are negative by the very nature of the word. Why do we have kids doing chores anyway? Our mom's did all the housework when we grew up right?


Not in my mom's house. We had "chores" like drying dishes, vacuuming, cleaning my room, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, hanging clothes on the line outside, bringing them in and folding all of them, taking care of our dog and what she left in the yard, pulling weeds and harvesting the veggies in the garden, cleaning the pool, sweeping the floors. We mowed the yard, but got paid for that one. There was no allowance for "chores" in our house growing up. Mowing was a job, therefore we were paid.


Come to think of it we did a lot in our house as kids. I guess the difference was that all my friends had chores too, so it was nothing new. Today, that is a different story! Our kids think they can sit on their rears and watch us do all the work. Ah, nope. But... we don't do chores either.

Stella and Jo-Jo playing a game

My children have what we call a Morning Routine each day. It covers the things they need to do to take care of themselves and their chosen animal. This routine is completed before breakfast (except 1).


Get Dressed
Make Bed
Brush hair
Brush Teeth (actually done after breakfast)
Feed & water animals


Let's see what is it that our children have to have, as the law might say, Food, water, blanket, pillow, a few outfits, shoes, maybe a brush or tooth brush, school supplies (negotiable), and a few other things. My point is that going out to eat, having desserts and snacks, tons of toys, allowances, extracurricular activities are some of the things they don't "have to" have. They are Privileges.

In our home, my children have the privilege of living in a nice house, big enough to fit us comfortably. They have their own things, toys, desks, beds, bikes, sporting equipment and opportunities that we bring them too. Homeschool Group, church functions, parties, etc. In order for them to continue these extra privileges, they need to be contributing to the family that makes them possible.

If mom and dad are doing all the work, there really is no time for any of those privileges. We sat down and explained this to the kids, and they each have an equal share of contributing to the family as I will list here in a minute. Let's define Contribute: to give a share to or participate in; to bring together or unite, collect. Ah, now that is a better way to visualize the things we need to do together as a family for our home. We have chickens, rabbits, cats and a dog. They need to be cared for or we can't keep them. We have a nice house, to keep it nice we need to take care of it. We all enjoy these things, so we all need to help maintain them. 

Jo-Jo (in blue) with friends at Awana Bible Quiz 2010

Family Contributions for our family...

Jo-Jo (13)

Before Breakfast
Give water to the chickens

After School

Clean school desk
Collect Eggs (after 2)
Sweep dining room & living room

Stella measuring up to our enormous Suflower

Clean Bedroom

Clean surface areas of the bathroom (counters, mirrors, floor, outside of toilet)
Empty Dishwasher (Wed and Sat)
Help mom with dinner (1 week per month)

After Dinner

Clear & Wipe table & counter load dishwasher
Put leftovers away
Wash Dishes
Put Dirty Clothes in Laundry
Put your own Clean Laundry Away
Sort Laundry (only fold your own clothes)


Scoop chicken Coop if needed (Sat)
Complete schoolwork (Mon - Fri)

Stella (8)

Stella after dance program

Before Breakfast
Give water to the Rabbits


After Lunch
Clear & wipe table & counter. load dishwasher

After School
Clear rabbit poop from hutch if needed
Dust 1 room each day
Sweep Playroom
Clean school desk
Clean bedroom
Empty Dishwasher (Mon and Thurs)

Help mom cook dinner (1 week per month)

After Dinner
Dry Dishes
Put Dirty laundry in hamper
Sort clean laundry (only fold your own clothes)
Put laundry away

Complete schoolwork (Mon - Fri)

Spidey at Cub Scout Family Camp

Spidey (7)
 
Before Breakfast
Give food and water to the cat


After Breakfast
Clear & wipe table, load dishwasher

After School
Clean kitty litter
Tidy Laundry room & sweep
Sweep Kitchen
Clean school desk
Clean bedroom
Take out Trash
Empty Dishwasher (Tue and Fri)

Help mom cook dinner (1 week per month)

After Dinner

Brie hugging her kittens

Put Dishes away (with Red)
Put Dirty laundry in hamper
Sort clean laundry (only fold your own clothes)
Put laundry away

Complete schoolwork (Mon - Fri)

Red (5) (with help from mom and siblings)

Before Breakfast
Give food and water to the dog

After School
Clean surprises the dog leaves in laundry room as needed

Tidy Front door area where shoes & coats are kept

Sweep hallway & stairs
Clean school desk

Red - at soccer (goalie)

Clean bedroom
Take out recycling

Help mom cook dinner (1 week per month)

After Dinner
Put Dishes away (with Spidey)

Put Dirty laundry in hamper
Sort clean laundry (only fold your own clothes)
Put laundry away

Complete schoolwork (Mon - Fri)

Stells & Red at the park

Dad

Head of House
Master Electrician - at work (6am - 4pm)
Farmer - Feeds chickens & rabbits
Launder - washes the laundry when mom doesn't get to it (often, most of the time)  I love him!
Landscape Artist - waters gardens in evening, mows, weed eats
Carpenter - builds whatever we need
Jack of all Trades - fixes all the things we break, anything that really has to do with outside the house
HVAC guy - installs & uninstalls air conditioners
Assistant Scoutmaster for Boy Scouts but also takes Spidey to Cub Scouts & activities with that

I don't think I can put all the things my husband contributes to this family in words. He does whatever needs to be done. I would not be able to do this without him. But you get the idea. Just showing some ways he contributes to the family even outside of being the provider of our income.

Mom

Cook - Prepares meals

Our carrot & a chicken

Manager of our home - make sure the kids are behaving and doing what the should be, character training the kids
Organizer - Makes a monthly menu
Food shopping (with 4 kids most of the time)
Researcher - foods (whether we can or can't have them), homeschool materials etc.
Spiritual head of house
Taxi - church, activities, sports, soon to be American Heritage Girls

Teacher - we homeschool
Accountant - pays the bills (yuk!)
Maid - cleans toilets & shower, mops and waxes floors, picks up debris all over the house, cooks, bakes

I think it is hard to put what mom does into words too. We as parents do whatever we have to do, to get it all done. Even the kids do much more than what is on their list by volunteering to help out around the house. Especially if Rita's Italian Ice is on the menu...lol

Donut, one of our rabbits

Does my family LOVE to do family contributions? Nope. But they understand that things must be done and to enjoy all the blessings that God has chosen to give us. We need to be glad and rejoice in the Lord for those things as we work. We usually will blast the radio as we work and sing through the morning. It lightens things up a bit. 

As far as allowances go, we do give our kids a weekly allowance. The allowance is based on what we think they can handle. Not too much that they can buy a video game every week, but enough for them to buy a little something, or save up for that video game. We use this opportunity to teach them to tithe, save and how to spend wisely.

After a day of strawberry picking for homemade jam

Jo-Jo - $6
Stella - $4
Spidey - $4
Red - $4

We do have some rules

Spending:

1. Mom approves item before purchase, until they know what they can and can't buy (example: no candy, movies, Rate M games - stuff like that)

2. If mom is not with them and they have to ask whether they can or can't buy something, the answer is NO. Wait until mom is there if you are unsure, to keep from wasting money on something you are not allowed to have. Mom will take it.

3. There is NO borrowing money, from anyone. Mom does not loan money, nor friends, dad or siblings. If you do not have the money on your person, you do not have any money. Don't ask.

4. You are responsible for your own money. If you are careless and lose it, mom does not replace it.


Giving :  at least 10% (tithe). if you want to give more, that's fine.

Saving: Jo-Jo picked $1.50 to save, so at least $1.50 each week goes in a "save" bank.

If you would like information on getting a Family Contribution chart for your home, check out  this blog from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I got my chore chart from there. I also got some other ideas from Erica that I will expand on in another post.

Then I converted our chore chart to a Family Contribution Chart after watching the Positive Parenting Solutions sessions. The PPS is a program that I bought a few months ago to better understand my kids and what they were trying to say with their "behavior". I found out a lot about me and my kids. It has truly been a blessing to have in my home.

Hope all this information helps your family find common ground on contributing the functionality of your household. If this has been a blessing to you, please pass it on to others.