Mother's Day

Let me start off by saying I think my husband is the greatest.  He is teaching my children that it is important to celebrate holidays, and it is not just a time to give gifts, but to give of yourself and talents. 

A couple of weeks ago, Tom and I were talking about Mother's day.  I asked him if he had anything in mind, or if he wanted ideas.  He said that he had an idea, but wanted to hear what my idea was.  With much thought, I said I wanted him and the kids to make my picture shelves.  Very inexpensive and I wanted to display all of our family pictures.  Tom went above and beyond what I had thought.  It started Friday night at 11pm, he stayed up and painted my stair - wall.  When I woke up on Saturday, I was very surprised.  He took the boys to get wood, and in about an hour made the shelves, they put finish on them and they hung them Saturday.  BEAUTIFUL! The kids picked out pictures from our files, had them printed, and Tom and the kids went and found frames ( best frames are at Goodwill).  We filled the frames with the pictures on Mother's Day.  I love it.  We also had fun finding our wedding picture, that was with other pictures from when I was younger.  The kids had fun laughing at the hair styles that my mother had, and ofcourse the hair that Tom once had :) 

Tom and the kids made dinner and dessert.  They did such a wonderful job.  Everything was YUMMY!  Here is the picture of the dessert that Tom did, they look as good as they tasted!

How to Make money...at 8 years old

We are planning a family vacation and the kids would like some spending money.  Tom and I have said there is plenty of extra jobs to do around the house, they just need to ask. 

Eli came to me and asked if he could do a job.  "Sure, how about earning $2"  Eli was excited, $2 was alot.  The job was to wash out and dry all of my Bountiful Baskets - not hard RIGHT?

It started out at 2$ - when we started to put out all 180 baskets Eli looks at me and says "Boy this deserves more than $2"  Thinking I was smart, said "Ok Eli, how about a penny per basket"  It took about 10 seconds for the response I did not think I would get, I wanted to hear Ok, but I heard this instead " Mom that is only $1.80" (darn, he is good at math)  He then played the bargaining game, how about .10 cents per basket?   I don't think so!  5 cents?  I finally looked at him knowing that the $2 that I offered was off the table, I finally said, "Eli, how about do a good job, and when you are done, I will decide by the job that you have done, I will pay you accordingly"   He actually said, "Ok Mom"  It took him 1 hour to wash, and he was also very wet, and then he turned them all over to dry for 1 hour. He then had to stack them and put them away! 

What did he earn, you ask? Well with much thought and so excited I did not have to do it, We decided that his job earned him $5.  He was THRILLED! 

What did we learn?  Never put a price on a extra job, (at least don't tell them what you want to pay, let it be a surprise)  Pay them on how well of a job they did. In the end I think Eli enjoyed himself, and I think he will be ready to do it again this summer.