Girls Night 7

Not too exciting, but enjoyable all the same. We watched "Love's Enduring Promise" and packed for the weekend.

When it Rains, it Pours

First of all, let me preface everything by saying that I am not complaining. Despite everything that's happened today (and despite the crazy headache I have) I am completely happy. From everything I'm going to tell you, it doesn't sound like it's been a good day, but it actually has been.

So, here's what's been going on.

1. Marcus got a fever yesterday afternoon, and he had such a hard time sleeping, both from the fever and his horrible cold. He didn't want me to set him down, even in his sleep, and I finally brought him to bed with me, but sleeping with a 20+ pound kid on your arm all night is not fun, so after a while I slid my arm out from under his head. The only reason he didn't wake up (that time) was because Callie the Cat was laying on his legs, so I think he was happy to be able to feel her breathing instead of me.

When he woke up this morning, he had green gunk in his eyes, and you could definitely tell that he wasn't feeling well. Really, the hardest part of him being sick is that Brian and I are taking off for Seattle tomorrow for Jeremy's wedding, and we were really hoping to leave him behind. It took us forever to decide that it would be okay (and probably good for him, though not so good for my poor mother who will be watching him) to leave him, and now that he's sick I don't know what to do. It would be so hard on him to be left, but there will also be other little kids and babies there, and I don't want to get them terribly sick as well.


2. While I was showering this morning, my neighbor came over and left a note with Alyssa saying that she saw a school bus hit our garbage can, which in turn, hit our car, and busted the tail light. So I took some pictures and called the school district. They're taking care of everything.

3. We found ants in our kitchen and dining room this morning. I found the ants just after getting off the phone with the Director of Transportation and just before I did a mad rush around the house to clean everything up before he came over to look at the car. Cleaning up involved sweeping everything, and spraying Home Defense and the perimeter of our living area. Darn those ants!

And 4. (Although the day isn't over yet.) Ethan found the cube of butter I was softening while I was taking a few moments to myself, checking everyone else's blogs. Pretty soon I heard, "I icing, Mom! I icing!" Translation: I'm ice skating, Mom! I'm ice skating! Yep, he had smeared the butter all over the floor, and was slipping and sliding all over the place.

It has been a crazy - insane day.

I Hope This is the Start of a New Trend

Marcus only woke up once last night! Woo-hoo! I started forever ago trying to get him to sleep through the night, and he would make progress, but then he had four teeth come in, we all got the flu, and tons of crazy things happened so that he would go back to waking up four, five, six times a night.

So the main thing that I've been doing is putting him in bed when he's not completely asleep. He smiles and rolls around a bit (that's the part about all this that I love), then when he starts to get upset, I pick him up, love him, and set him back down again. After a few times of this, he gets tired and goes to sleep. So, he's learning how to fall asleep on his own, but he's also happy in his crib and he knows I'm there and that he is loved.

And last night I set my alarm for 6:00, because I want to start getting up before the kids, and being able to take a shower without two little boys running around the tub, so I could be better prepared for the day. And he only woke up once last night, and I was able to get up able shower by myself. Hallelujah!

Girls Night 6

We made (and tested) chocolate truffles and bath salts. Actually, we didn't test the bath salts, which you can probably tell from looking at the choclate around Alyssa's mouth.

Lesson Learned - It's Hard to Kiss in Ski Goggles

For most of Brian's and my married life, Brian's wanted to take me skiing, but each winter I've either been pregnant, we've been too poor, or we've had a baby that's too young to leave for a whole day. So up until this winter, I had never been skiing before in my entire life, and since this winter I am definitely not pregnant, we got a $100 debit card from one of the doctors Brian worked with, and Marcus can play at Grandma's all day long without crying too much, I gave Brian a ski trip for his Christmas present. The only problem, is that the only day we could go during Christmas vacation, is was 54 degrees and raining in the mountains - not a very good day for skiing.

But this last Wednesday, two for one day at Bluewood, the weather was perfect. We dropped the kids off at my mom's house, picked up some doughnuts from Yokes, and went on our merry way. The merriment came a little bit from the doughnuts, but mostly from the fact that we would have a day together, after being apart for so long, without children.

I never thought that skiing was a big deal. I knew a lot of people enjoyed it, but I really didn't feel like I was missing anything spectacular. But now that I've done it, I've got to say, skiing is so incredibly fun! My dad was actually a ski instructor when he was in college, so he showed me a little of the basics before we left, and also told me what not to do to break my legs. And Brian was a wonderful teacher on the mountain.

When we got there, we put our skis on, and went straight up the mountain. I barely knew how to maneuver well enough to get on the ski lift, but up we went. (By the way, I became very good friends with guys operating the ski lifts, because they would have to slow it down or stop it for me to get on. Learning to get on those things is harder than learning to ski. Also, ski lifts are terrifying! Sometimes you're up forty or fifty feet in the air, just hanging there, with heavy skis on your feet and no seat belt!)

First we went on Country Road (the green trail on the left), which wasn't very bad until I got to the switchback turn about halfway through. The first time down, I really didn't know what I was doing, and I kept ending up going faster than I wanted to, feeling out of control, and then the trail would level a bit, and I would slow down, and eventually stop. Brian would either go in front of me or behind me, giving me instructions and encouragement as we went. It was one of those times when he was behind me that I rounded a curve, looked ahead a bit on the trail and noticed a sharp, downhill turn. "There is no way I'm doing that," I thought, and being the brilliant skier that I am, I veered into the wall of snow on the side of the trial and crashed. This happened just after Brian rounded the curve, so he saw me do a flip (he swears I did a flip, but it didn't feel like I did) and land on my back. Luckily, I didn't have to call my dad at this point to tell him I had a broken leg. I inched my way to the turn, then down the mountain.

Things started getting easier toward the bottom of the hill, and I felt like I was at least a little more in control of things. So next, we used the platterpull and did the bunny hill one time. (The bunny hill at Bluewood is just the last little stretch of Country Road, and it's pretty flat, so I did it to just get a better handle on things before our next run.)

The next run, after holding on for dear life up the ski lift, went a little smoother. Needless to say, I was a pansy. I snowplowed my way down the mountain, especially slowing down every time I thought I might be approaching that deadly turn. But snowplowing made it easier for me to keep my balance and speed under control, and it also helped me transition to being in control when my skis were parallel, too.

So we went on Country Road a couple more times, then on Triple Nickel (the green on the bottom right) a few times, then we went to our car to eat our picnic lunch with Max, the resident ski dog, who was huge. The picture doesn't make him look nearly as huge as he really is.


After that, Brian convinced me to go down Tamarack Trail (the blue one coming from the top), which was easier and more tame than Country Road, until you get to Tamarack, which is a steep bowl of icy snow and death. Okay, so maybe it's not that bad, but when the trail gradually ended, and we were standing at the top of that thing, I was scared. While I was standing there, contemplating taking off my skis and hiking back up the mountain in my clunky boots to get to Country Road, a family came by with a little boy, who must have been about seven, and he just stood at the top, bent his knees, gave a little push and went flying down. And I just kept standing there, planning where I would build the igloo that I would live in until spring.

This is when Brian taught me to not go straight down, but to angle across the mountain, which I did, very slowly, until I got to the other side. "Now you've got to turn around and go back the other way, " Brian said, "Put your skis together, go straight down for just a bit, then turn...Carrie, what are you doing?"

This is what I was doing: I sat down, flat on my bottom, and flopped my skis in the opposite direction. Then I took a few minutes to stand back up again. I did this a couple times, crisscrossing across the bowl, until I was brave enough to attempt turning around standing up. When we got to the bottom Brian said, "I'll bet you were thinking there for a while that that was the only way to get down the mountain, weren't you?" Uh huh.

Overall, Tamarack Trail was my favorite, once I got the hang of it. After that first run we had time to go once more, and I didn't sit down to turn around, not one single time.

When we were through, Brian and I clunked back to the car, took off all our snow gear, and drove back to the Tri-Cities. The kids had had a wonderful time playing with cousins and hanging out with Grandma Roses all day, and Brian and I had had a wonderful time, too. Skiing is fabulous fun.

Girls (and Cranky Boys) Night 5

We finished up Alyssa's Valentine's. We switched the suckers to pencils, and used pipe cleaners for the antennae.

Girls Night 4, Blushing Butterflies

Last night Alyssa and I started to make valentines for her kindergarten class. This year we're making butterfly valentines, that we found on skiptomylou.org.

This picture is what the finished project is supposed to look like. Alyssa wants to add antennae(s?) - any ideas on what to use and how to attach them?

I was impressed with all the ideas that Skip to My Lou was showing. They have a few more fun valentines, and they're all free to print. Alyssa really wants to make the bath bomb. She went back to the computer quite a few times while we were waiting for the butterflies to print out, just to look at the fizzies that the bath bomb makes.

The greatest part of girls night was having Brian come home! Yesterday was his last day of this rotation, and in a week he heads to Walla Walla, which is a lot closer to us than Portland or Tacoma, so we'll be seeing a lot more of him. He really enjoyed working with Dr. Bruce. He saw a ton of paitents each day, and he worked really hard. There was actually one sweet little old lady who came in to see him, and she asked to have an epesiotomy. He looked at her, and she started to describe what it was, and he said, "Oh, you mean a something else." She hadn't realized what she had said, and they had a pretty good laugh over that. Then she confided in Brian that ever since she's been a patient of Dr. Bruce's, her goal has been to make him blush, and she's never been able to do that. So when Dr. Bruce walked in a little while later, Brian looked at him, and said most seriously, "She'd like to have an epesiotomy today." And it worked. Dr. Bruce blushed, and the sweet little old lady was thrilled.

FHE Fun

Tonight we made ice cream sundaes, used the leftovers to put together an ice cream pie to eat when Brian is here, and danced to this fabulous song. 'Nuff said.

Edited to Add: I guess not 'nuff said. We danced to it over and over and over....Family Home Evening is still going on...

Mercy Me! Mercy me!

Up until my little sister, Kimmy, came along and started tripping up the stairs, falling down the stairs, tumbling down steep hills while longboarding, etc., I was the accident prone child in our family. I'll give you some examples:

Age 2:
-Fell while "skating" in the bathtub and knocked out a front tooth. It didn't grow back until I was about 8 or so, and when it came in, it pushed the tooth beside it back, so they're both a little crooked.

-Tried to follow my older brothers in jumping off the top bunk of their bed and broke my leg.

Age 5:
-Put our station wagon into neutral and jumped out of the car while it was rolling down the hill at my grandparent's house. It was actually going pretty fast, and my head scraped along the pavement, scraping the skin clean off my head. It took 56 stiches on my scalp and 3 on my ear to fix me up. (Oh, and the car was stopped by two well placed trees just before it would have hit a huge propane tank and blown up the whole neighborhood. Pretty cool.)

-Pulled a board loose while climbing a fence with my brothers and got a nail stuck in my knee. That one hurt.

-Fell on my head while hanging in the backyard. It only took a few stitches to fix that one.

I think Marcus is our accident prone child. The kid is not quite fifteen months old and he's already been to the emergency room twice, because of the circumcision thing and the car accident. Plus, he just keeps getting hurt. He's constantly trying to keep up with Alyssa and Ethan, and he loves to climb, climb, climb!

Last week the vacuum was at the top of the stairs, and Alyssa took the electric cord and wound it down the banister as part of something she was imagine-playing. After a little while, I told her it wasn't such a good idea and told her to clean it up. As she was pulling the cord from the top of the stairs and it was flying back up the banister and whipping this way and that, Marcus just happened to come around the corner and get whapped in the face. He had a square shaped bruise from where the plug hit him, along with a nice cut along his eyebrow from one of the prongs. I almost took him to the emergency room for stitches, but it wasn't very big, and a butterfly bandage actually closed it up pretty god and it's healing nicely.

Then, tonight while we were at Michael and Tallia's house for our Chinese New Year celebration, Ethan and Asher were climbing up on a bech and jumping down. Marcus wanted to join them, but instead of climbing and jumping, he climbed up, stood up, lost his balance, and fell backward, hitting his chin on the bench. At first I thought he was just bonked, so I just loved him. Then I saw the blood. It bled a lot. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but he's got a pretty good gash on his chin, a smaller cut just below that, and he's missing a huge chunk of skin inside his mouth, just under his lip. Once things settled down, and we were able to clear enough blood out of the way, we decided that the cut on the outside was closing up pretty well on its own, and didn't need stitches. We gave him a glass of water, and I held him, and he was back down and playing after just a few minutes.


But man, that kid sure does play hard.

When Life Gives You Lemons

Today Ethan peed on the floor, on the couch, on a dining room chair, and one time when he flushed the toilet it completely overflowed, leaving poop infested water all over the bathroom. Marcus left the mop on the floor and I stepped on it, snapping it in two. (He is always getting out our mop and broom. Always meaning always, not just occasionally, frequently, or nearly every waking minute of the day. Always.) I had such plans for this today, and when things started to go wrong, I really wanted to call my sister to complain about life in general and have her tell me that it was going to be okay, I was doing a great job, yadda yadda yadda....

But instead, I told myself that I was going to make the best of things, so I toweled up the lake in the bathroom, Lysoled the floor, and went downstairs to build a fort with the kids. We had a blast! Then after dinner we made a huge mess of both the kitchen and dining room baking Hong Kong Egg Tarts for my family's Chinese New Year celebration tomorrow, and that was fun, too.

Girls Night 3, Berry Good Friends 'til the End

On Thursday Alyssa and I watched the very, very first episode of Strawberry Shortcake. We both love the Peculiar Purple Pie Man of Porcupine Peak. Ya ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ya ta ta ta - yeah!

Birthday Boy

A couple of weeks ago I asked Ethan what he wanted for his birthday. I think he inherited my taste buds, because his quick answer was, "cake." He didn't want just any cake, though, he wanted a "Lightning" cake, that is, Lightning McQueen. Any mention of any birthday over the next couple of weeks brought a question from Ethan: "Lightning cake?" Yes, Ethan, we'll get you a Lightning cake. He was very excited for that cake.


Ethan's birthday is today, but most of the celebrations took place yesterday. Brian came in Friday evening, and yesterday we had a relaxing morning and a very yummy breakfast. It had snowed a tiny bit over the night, and it was snowing while we were eating, so we decided to get geared up and go sledding. I think we took longer getting ready than we actually spent sledding, but we had a lot of fun. There was just enough snow, but other than a dad and son we were the only people on the hill. Ethan loves sledding! The minute he's at the bottom of the hill he says, "Again?" and starts walking up. He doesn't like to be pulled up to the top; he likes to walk all by himself, even though it takes a long time. He also wanted to pull the sled up one time, and he wanted me to get in so he could pull me up.



When we were done sledding we popped over to Dairy Queen to pick up the Lightning McQueen cake, then we went home to get ready for his party. We had both of our families over, including all of the Great Grandparents, except Grandma Harris. (She's from California, and doesn't like to go out in the cold.) We had a Hershey Kiss walk, and we played Pin the License Plate on Mater.


And then we ate the ice cream cake and a bunch of cup cakes. Ethan liked that part. A lot.

Then he opened presents, and the kids all played "Wack a Mole."


Ethan is the sweetest little guy. He is the perfect gentleman. He holds doors open for me, he says, "Yes, please," "No thanks," Thank you," "You're welcome," "Bless you," you name it. And he always (well, almost always) says, "Yes, Mom," or "Yes, Mommy" when I tell him to either do or not do something.

He loves cars (both the movie and in general) and train track sets. He's not into actual trains as he is into building the tracks.

Ethan is now just barely able to say his whole name. Up until yesterday is was "Ee - Nan," but now he's saying, "Eth - an." He's talking a lot now, although we can't always understand him. Sometimes it takes a few tries for us to be able to know what he's saying, but he's doing so good.

Ethan is definitely turning into a little boy. Everything he picks up is either a gun or a sword, and he loves to run around and play with his cousins, Derek and Asher.

Girls Night, Number 2

Last night we tried putting the boys to bed early, so Alyssa and I could have plenty of time to cut out lily pads with beautiful flowers for girls night. (That's what Alyssa wanted to do. I don't know why, but she did.) But the boys didn't fall asleep until 8:40, and Girls Night only lasts until 9:00, so we just read a Frog and Toad book together. We had a great time.

I'm seeing specific evidence at how important these girls nights are. This morning Alyssa is acting more grown up, and she's helping and listening more. It's so easy to forget that she needs this special time. She is so great, and I need to treasure her while she's still little.

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

He wasn't there tonight. Not a big deal. I did feel better about myself tonight, though. I didn't even have to give Alyssa the lecture, and she was very good. She made friends with other brothers and sisters who were there, and she had a great time. Marcus was actually interested in the toys tonight, up until he discovered that he could stand on top of the little table, so he was mostly good. Ethan, once again, loved his gymnastics class, and had wonderful time.

Things were going really well, then we headed to Alyssa's cheer leading class. At the beginning of class the teachers gave a lecture about being safe by not doing cartwheels and somersaults during class, unless they were told to. If they broke the safety rules, they would have to take a couple minutes break from class. Then they set up the girls by laying down their yellow circles on the ground and telling each girl, by name, to stand on a specific circle. All of the girls' circles were set up in a staggered fashion, about three or four feet apart. Alyssa's circle was on the very end, about seven feet away from the the group, because she's the one who's always doing the cartwheels and somersaults during class.

Alyssa did really well for the first half hour, and I chased the boys around the back of the room, trying to keep them occupied with hula hoops and train tracks, instead of brooms, snow shovels, and garbage cans. At 6:30, she started her carthweels, and was promptly taken out of class for a few minutes. She was given the choice to sit on the wall or back by me, and she chose to sit back by me so that she might persuade me to override her teachers' decision and let her back in class. While I was talking to her, trying to teach her (once again) about choices and consequences, Ethan disappeared into the bathroom and Marcus started running around with the broom. I was tired of getting looks from all of the other parents who were sitting there, not having to chase their children around the building, so I announced that we were going home.

So even though I tried to look the part of a great successful grown up, it didn't really work out in the end. Oh well.

Silly? Maybe

Last week we took Ethan to his first gymnastics class. Because he's turning three this week, he was able to be in the Kinderoo class for three and four year olds instead of the Toddleroo class for babies. He loved it. They had obstacle courses set up to take the kids through. They had a trampoline for the kids to jump on, ramps for them to roll down, and bars for them to hang from. It was fabulous for Ethan. Not so fabulous for me.

Alyssa is in a cheerleading class, which is perfect for her temperment and energy level. When she saw the older girls doing kartwheels on the balance beams and flipping around the uneven bars, she spent the entire forty-five minutes of Ethan's class begging to be put in gymnastics. I told her no, because we had just barely signed her up for this semester of cheeleading, but she conitued to beg. And Alyssa can beg. Boy, can she beg. Marcus wanted to be playing on the trampoline and ramps and bars with Ethan very bladly. He kept trying to run into the gymnastics area, and he would grunt and cry and scream every time I thwarted his attempts. Like I said, not so fabulous for me.

So at the end of the class, I was at the end of my rope. I hulded Marcus into my arms, started stuffing him into his coat, and grumpily ordered Alyssa to please stay in one spot so I could gather up the boys and all of our things. When I was finished zipping up Marcus' coat, I turned to tell Alyssa it was time for her to head to the front door while I waited for Ethan to be done, but she was gone. She was all the way over on the other side of the gym, watching flips and summersaults. I stomped to her side and started to pull her toward Ehtan's class (which was now letting him out), telling her to please put on her coat, stay with me, do not leave me again, listen to what I say, whydoesn'tshelistentomedoesn'tsheknowthatI'minchargewhattheheckamIdoingthisallforanyway?

I was in this fazzled, horrible state when I saw someone I recognized. I won't give his name, to save myself some embarrassment, but I'll tell you that I knew him from elementary school. He went to school with me all the way through graduation, I assume, but I didn't take huge note of him in elementary school and didn't take note of him much at all after that. I saw him sitting there, happily, with a cute little girl sitting on his lap. He was handsome, which surprised me a little. He had a "tail" on the back of his neck when he was a kid, which I found gross even back then, and here he sat, hair nice, clean shaven, handsome, and nicely dressed.

And there I was, toting three unruly kids around, yelling at them, and bumbling my way to the entrance. Granted, he probably didn't notice me, and if he did, I'm sure he didn't recognize me, and if by chance he did, he probably doesn't even care. And I don't know why I care. I'm happily married to a wonderfully handsome guy, so it's not like that. I guess it's just that when you see people from your past, even if they played a tiny, insignifigant role in that past, you want them to think the best of you. He was putting his best foot forward, which didn't seem all that difficult from looking at the well-behaved cutie on his lap, and I definitely was not.

So today I have my hair pulled up. I'm wearing makeup. I plan on wearing a cute shirt and some good shoes. I'm going to give Alyssa a lecture she'll never forget on the drive over. I'm going to go ahead and chase Marcus around and try to engage him with the toys, like I did last week, because there's not much I can do about him right now. I'm not going to do those things for this guy, but for me, really. For my confidence and self esteem. To prove to the world and the people of my past that I have grown up, that I can be beautiful and poised and put together. And even though it may be silly, hopefully it'll help me feel better than I felt last week. And then again, maybe it all doesn't even matter, anyway.

Let's Get it Started

I've got all of my charts up on the bulletin board so I can keep track of my goals. There's a Chapters of the Book of Mormon chart, the printouts from the 100 Push Up Challenge and the 200 Sit Up Challenge, and there will soon be a temple chart.

I've been keeping logs of Marcus' progress with sleeping, I just haven't put them into his blog. Last night he only woke up once, then another time I heard him call out, but he went back to sleep on his own. Yea!

I did the initial push up and sit up tests last night, too. I was proud of my eleven push ups (and those ain't girly push ups niether!) because when I did this in the fall I could barely do seven when I started. I was also proud of my thirty-three sit ups until I saw that it put me in the lowest category. I was trying to make sure that I did each sit up right, and I could probably have done more, but I didn't think I was doing quality sit ups at the end, and that's why I stopped. They're actually crunches, because realy sit ups aren't supposed to be good for you, but even then if you try to do crunches right (keeping the control in your body, holding for a second at the top) they can be pretty hard. Well, at least I have plenty of room for improvement!

Brian Jacks, Schmott Guy

Brian called this morning and said, "Guess which one of your husbands passed Boards?" Now the first question one might ask is, "How many husbands does she have?" and the next, "How many of them took Boards?" The answer to both of those questions is: one.

"Yea! Congratualtions! I knew you'd do great," I started, continuing with, "When did you find out? I'm so proud of you!"

To which Brian said, "It's me, by the way." So how many husbands does he think I have?

So Brian passed Boards! Yea-diddley-yea! He couldn't talk long, because he was getting ready for church, but he did say that there's a few sections in the test, and you don't have to pass all of them in order to pass, but he did pass them all! Yep, that's me bragging. He's a smart guy.

Just For You, Honey

Look what I've been doing today!



And here's the best part. Your Atwoods have their own special section all of their own. The rest I kind of organized, but you'll want to go through it all when you're here.


I put up a few more shelves (actually, I moved the ones from the play room into the storage room) and organized a little bit. Marcus helped a lot, which is one reason things are going slow. There's still a lot more to do, but I kind of lost my momentum when I had to put Marcus down for a nap and take a shower. But yea! for progress!

Heaven, All Wrappped Up in Chocolate

I love chocolate covered cherries. Brian knows this intimately. I made sure to drill it into his brain when we were first married, and now I seem to get them every year for Christmas. Queen Anne are my favorites. I know, they're just the ones you get from Winco, but I've tried more expensive, luxury versions, and they just aren't as good.

I love to eat the bottom off, and then you have a sweet little chocolate cup filled with creamy, sugary liquid and a nice plump candied cherry floating in the middle of it all. It's beautiful.

This year, Brian came home with a semi-large heavy box, which he wrapped, wrote my name on, and placed under the tree. But before he put it under the tree, he had me hold it and shake it to guess what it was. "Ten pounds of chocolate covered cherries," I joked, but from holding and shakng it, my guess was actually something ceramic-y, like a serving platter or something. I don't know why Brian would get that for me, but it's what it felt like.

On Christmas morning, when I opened that box I found fifteen boxes of Queen Anne chocolate covered cherries. Fifteen boxes! That's just over six pounds! I couldn't believe that I had been so close.

You can probably guess what we took to our New Years Eve party: a platter of chocolate covered cherries. And you can probably guess what I go for when I want to indulge in something wonderful after the kids have gone to bed and my husband isn't around: Heaven, all wrapped up in chocolate.

Girls Night

Alyssa and I are starting to have a Girls Night every Thursday after the boys go to bed. It's amazing how helpful a little girl can be in getting everyone ready for bed when she knows she's going to be able to have a party after the boys go to sleep! Girls Night lasts until 9:00, so the sooner we get the boys sleeping, the more time she has to have fun.

Tonight we put together a chore chart for her, because she's been asking about ways she can earn money. Her daily chores are making her bed and setting the table for dinner. And once a week she has to clean the dressing room mirror, take out the dressing room garbage, clean the bathroom sink, organize the bookshelf, and dust the piano.

It was so nice to have one on one time with Alyssa. She needs that extra attention sometimes. The boys still get extra loves because they're younger and they're home more than she is, and she needs that, too. I loved having her sit on my lap, picking out the pictures for her chore chart, and saying, "I love you so much."