Random Things of March

I finally finished my new schedule! It's been a long time coming. I think the last one I had on the fridge forever was from Feb. 2011! So we definitely needed a new one. Our schedule helps us in so many ways. The kids do so much better with routine. And I don't get blamed or argued with about what comes next. My friend Laura told me about this with a timer, she'd say, "Oh, the timer just rang. That means it's time to clean up. I wish we could play longer, but the timer said it's time to clean up." And the kids would just agree. It works the same with the schedule. "The schedule says it's time for school." And look at that, yes it does. No arguing with the very official looking document on the fridge. The kids are also very excited to have a new schedule, because I put their new pictures on it and it makes it personal to them. There's no doubt this schedule belongs to them their face is right on their. Except for poor Pella, I completely messed her schedule up on here. Oops. I'll have to fix it later.

Eben and Kivi were out in the garden beds helping me till the soil and Eben started digging up carrots left over from last year. They got so excited to find them, you'd think they found gold. They found a whole bucketful of carrots, which were way sweeter than when we harvested them in the fall. Are suppose to leave them in the ground all winter? Eben said, "I have to admit it Mama, this gardening stuff is way more fun than I thought it was going to be."

I started putting Pella in cloth diapers. I started cloth diapering, not full on hard core, just when I feel like it, and never out in public, when Opal and Jasper were in diapers. I knew I didn't want to do newborns, because they wet them all the time and we already do a ton of laundry around here. So now that Pella fits the small size, she gets to wear them. I don't know what my kids will think when I tell them they wore hand me down diapers. It sounds gross, but they get washed, and I'm cheap. They just make their little booties look so cute and ginormous! Pants barely fit over them. Or in this case, they don't at all.

Another new thing we started doing recently is our change to big cups! The Bigs and the Middles all drink out of glass mason jars now. I put hair rubber bands on them so they know whose is whose. Eben is red, Kivi is green, Jasper is yellow and Opal is pink - this is true for many of their things. Those are their colors. I was going to do a reward thingy for if they drink their whole water cup in one day, but they drink a ton anyway and I never got around to the little incentive chart. So maybe I'm off the hook! Either way, they are way cute to look at on the table and I don't have to keep getting up and down to refill cups through the whole meal.