chores

Ok. What are Webkinz? Soren has been on my back for two days asking what she can do to earn some money to buy one. She is so funny. She has tons of money in her purse; money that was given to her and some that she has earned with her car washes, walking dogs and kool-aid stands, but she will not spend it once it gets put in the purse. She really wants one of these things and I don't want to buy her another stuffed animal, so I decided to let her mow the yard for me.

She had to work really hard. I did not realize that it would be so hard for her to push the mower (it is not self propelled). I guess it is her height that gives her the biggest disadvantage. It took her 2 hours to mow the front and that was worth 14 bucks to me. Off we went to the mall to meet Pete for lunch, hunt down a beagle webkinz, and get the girls' hair cut. We were successful in two of our endeavors, but after checking with 6 stores we came home without a beagle. It did not take Soren anytime to find it on Amazon.com, so we ordered it.





With all of the swimming I decided to cut the girls' hair short. I think it is really cute and it will be so much easier to manage. We will call it an 'almost back to school' cut.

Have you ever made a promise (threat) to your kids that if they did or did not do something then this will happen? I opened my mouth today and then had to follow through with it. While I mowed the back yard I sent the girls upstairs to clean up. All of the toys were out because we have had a lot of kids over to play lately and it was time to put everything back in its place. I have trouble getting Reese to help clean up. She says "I can't" and that makes me REALLY mad. I explained to her that she would be helping and that if she said she can't then I would spank her and throw her toys away and then she really couldn't clean them up. After mowing I came in and almost everything was cleaned up. All that was remaining were the dress up dresses that hang in Reese's closet (there are A LOT of them). So I said to Reese, "come help me clean up all of your dress up stuff." Guess what came next...you got it "I can't". As soon as she said it she remembered and her eyes got real big. I walked over to her and as I was spanking her (hard, in my frustration) I asked her to tell me what I said would happen if she said that. Then I walked down stairs and got a large trash bag, went up stairs, made a pile of ALL dress up clothes and accessories and made her put them in the bag. I knew if I did not follow through on this one I would pay for it. Everything dress up is in a trash bag in my attic. She thinks it is in the trash. I will have to come up with a way to bring them back out once she shows me that she can help. I wish I had made a different threat, because dress up is what all the kids like to play when they come over. Anyway, it is done. I hate doing stuff like that, but she is really testing to see if we mean what we say and I cannot afford to make empty threats.