Job Chart

I look around the house right this moment, and things are pretty good. Dishes mostly done, main level pretty clean and uncluttered, table polished, etc. But there is no hope of it staying that way for long. And it is depressing and HARD work some times. In full disclosure, we have a cleaner come to our house once a week who cleans and vacuums from top to bottom, and STILL it is hard to keep up with the clutter. So imagine how happy I was when last week Hilde asked if she could have a Job Chart. She made it herself, and we put 5 things on it:

1) Clean bedroom
2) Clean playroom
3) Wash dishes
4) Wash vegetables
5) Sweep kitchen

Every time she does one of these she can put a sticker on the chart. Once she has 30 stickers, she can get a treat (yet to be determined). Saturday morning Dave came in and said "Guess what your children are doing." It was quiet so I figured they must be watching a show or doing puzzles. To my surprise, Hilde and Enoch were making a job chart for Enoch. His had essentially the same things as Hilde except instead of wash dishes he had clean windows. I know this will be the first of a zillion experiments on how to teach the kids to help clean the house, and to teach them responsibility, but right now it is fun. And although we already have them clear away their dishes after meals, put away their laundry, and clean their rooms, I realize there are many other things we could have them do. Here is a list of some ideas for age appropriate chores.

What do you have your kids do? What age were they when you first started "chores". What do your kids like/dislike doing? What is the one chore you HATE and the one you secretly like?

Recent happenings

Phinn is starting to want to exercise his legs. He loves it when Hilde takes him on a walk like this.
Hilde dressing up as Belle. She is at the age where dressups are harder to find, but she LOVES them.
I think this kid is going to have blue eyes. In person they are beautiful, clear, and slightly lighter than Enoch's.
Phinn wore a cute little three piece suit to his Uncle Matt's wedding. Here he is with Grandpa. Two of my favorite guys. The suit made it through the wedding, but about 20 minutes later Phinn spit up ALL over it. He wore PJs to the reception.
The time difference was killing him. Just look at how tired he is!

6 months and growing

January 20th - Happy 6 months to Phinn. A half year already?? Where has the time gone? It was harder to get the pictures done this time. He is definitely more mobile, rolling around and scooting backwards all over the place. He gets up on his hands and tiptoes and rocks back and forth until his momentum carries him backwards. Unless, of course, it carries him forward, and then he does a faceplant on the floor. He loves to chat and is starting to get interested in food. He and Enoch crack each other up with loud squeals that hurt the ears of everyone else. He sits in his high chair now and joins the family at the table. Bonus for him, but not so great for mom who has to spend most of dinner time either feeding or entertaining him. Luckily he can entertain himself with a spoon just long enough for her to eat.
Hilde constantly asks to hold Phinn or play with him. She really loves being the big sister.

Some action shots:

Dinnertime

On December 19, 2009, we gave Phinn his first meal. Rice Cereal. He was mostly interested in the spoon and playing with the new texture in his mouth and on his tongue. But he did enjoy it. Since then we have tried oatmeal, rice cereal with banana, rice cereal with apple and banana, squash and carrots. And this little guy now LOVES to eat. But I am sure you can't tell it by the adorable cheeks in these pictures.

5 Months

On December 20th, Phinn turned 5 months old. Honestly, time is going by amazingly fast and he is growing at an incredible clip. Although they don't have well baby check-ups here we haven't been concerned because Phinn is doing so remarkably well. This month he spent a lot of time playing with hands and feet, looking around, and making connections with all of us. He loves his siblings and is laughing harder these days at their antics. We all love constant entertainment and believe me, he gets it. He is also doing some serious teething and will gnaw on anything in reach.



Such a happy baby, full of smiles and really a joy to be around.

This is the Phinn fan club. Nobody loves him more than these two, except maybe his parents.

Christmas Celebrations

Now that I have sufficiently recovered from the Holidays, it is time to write about it. As you can imagine the whole month of December was one big countdown as the kids got more and more excited for the big day. Their smiles were huge, eyes were bright, and excitement level was over the top. But first, for the adults.....Christmas Eve Dinner.
I consider myself a decent cook and a better baker. But I consider myself blessed to have married a chef. I don't mean that tongue-in-cheek. If Dave ever invites you over for dinner, especially one that he is dreaming up menus for weeks in advance, the only answer is YES. Honestly, you don't want to miss it. And for Christmas Eve he picked a Mediterranean theme, food that Jesus might have eaten. He single-handedly made about 14 things for our Christmas Eve dinner, many of them fun and interesting appetizers. I won't get it all right, but you can see from the pictures some Feta Cheese, spiced nuts, mixed olives, hummus, pita bread, orange and black salad, lamb kebabs, chicken tagine, haloumi and grape salad, and the list could go on and on. It was FABULOUS, STUPENDOUS, I am still thinking about it...



On Christmas morning the kids tore through the gifts at a steady, constant clip. There were a few breaks for the bathroom, to feed Phinn, to look closer at an especially interesting gift, etc. but they didn't want to stop until they had seen everything. It was a blast.
Enoch loves cooking and pirates so much, that this was the perfect gift for him.



Phinn mostly just enjoyed watching everyone else and taking the occasional nap. That was fine with Hilde and Enoch since that meant they could open his presents as well as their own. Bonus.

Sleeping bags for all 3 kids! A huge hit. Hilde and Enoch have been sleeping in theirs in the igloo tent, on their beds, on their floors, all over the house. Lots of fun for years to come.
Then, the time for me to cook arrived. In the High family, my grandmother makes Ebelskivers. So we have decided that this is our family's traditional Christmas breakfast. With my new Nordicware pan, these turned out perfectly. They are basically a round pancake. Some were plain, and others had jam or slices of apple inside. You could hide just about anything in them, super fun. My grandma always makes ham to go with these, but I made scrambled eggs instead. Maybe next year...


So, Christmas around here was fabulous, but I was glad to be back to a little more peace and quiet after it was over.

School Play

For this years school nativity play, Hilde was one of the leads. She was the innkeepers wife and she was sassy, cute, and knew all her lines and everyone else's. Oh, and her accent was dead on - she is getting more English by the day. We were very proud of her, since this time last year she was terrified to say the two lines they gave her. Well done sweetie. Enoch was a sheep. He didn't have any lines, and when it was his time in the spotlight, he was searching the crowd for us. We'll have to post a clip of the video in the future, but here are some pictures of the big day.

In the pictures below you can see Enoch with his arms up to shield the lights as he searches the crowd for us. Or technically, for Phinn.

Finally, the baby Jesus arrives.
Lots of singing and cheering to celebrate the birth of the King.