The things Children Say

  

My family loves cheese.  They get it naturally since I grew up loving cheese.

My father makes melted cheese for breakfast when we are there.  They are coming to visit in a few weeks and we are so excited.  My youngest daugther (the one on the left) was talking to him the other day and asked him to bring cheese when he comes.  He wanted to know why?  Because I want you to mak me melted cheese for breakfast.  He knows we can get cheese here at the shopette (military base  "grocery store") so he wanted to know why he needed to bring cheese.  She told him that the cheese here just crumbles you can't slice it so he needed to bring cheese that can be sliced.  The cheese we get has been frozen so it crumbles.  I just think it is funny the things they ask for, I could think of many other things to bring form the states than cheese.

The picture was taken on one of the hikes that the girls hae taken while here in Norway.  It is beautiful here and the water is just so clear.

We are just know getting spring weather.  Maybe we can put up our winter jackets.  I may keep them handy since last June you needed hats and gloves a few days.  

Have a great week.

Chores and Allowance

  

I have decided to tell about our chore list.  We have been having problems with getting children to do their chores.  So we are trying a new plan to see if it works.

In the picture the top item is the daily schedule.  There is one for each day of the week and each family member is listed.  I put it in a plastic sleeve and put a tab on each day.  You pull out the top, but it behind and the next day is up.  It is broken down by the hour.  We started with that for a week or so to fine tune it, add things or change things.  Once we got it right, we added the other charts.

One is a list of things to be done throughout the month, the other is a list of daily things and weekly things.  As you can see people have written their initials beside items.  They do that if they have done that chore.   For us now in Norway we use kroner, local currancy, to pay the children.  They get 1 kroner for daily chores, 5 kroner for weekly and 10 for monthly.  So far it has worked well and I really like it, the kids seem to like it too.

The children each have time in their schedule to do their laundry.  My children have been doing their own laundry for about five years.  When they were all homeschooled they each had their own day.  When the youngest two were three and four they got some help from others, but they could sort and put the items I the washing machine.  Whe we got here it was not as easy because the machine is different and it hold only about 2/3 the amount of a machine in the states.  Since things were different and no one except me knew what settings to use I was doing all the laundry.  Well I came up with a plan so that laundry could again be your own responsibility and the add to your schedule.  Here is what I did.

So now there is no reason that people do not know what to do.

So this is our new way of doing things and it seems to be working good for us.  I will say that the children know that during the time they are doing chores they can get them done quickly and then use that time for playing or something else.  They also know you don't do anything and you don't get any money.

Would like to hear any comments you have about our schedule and chore list.

Giveaway

  Please visit my friend's blog family, faith and Fridays.  She has a great post about menu planning and a giveaway.

She is a great wife and mom.  Look at her other post for great ideas.

New Skills

 

                                                              

               Gymnastics

Well this word and these images have been a part of my life since I was a girl.  Now they are part of my everyday life due to the fact that my two youngest daughters are competitive gymnasts.  So since I go to the gym often and always go to all their meets, I decided to take the plunge.  I decided to become a judge.  This may seem like no bug deal, but we live in Norway.  I asked their coach if they needed judges and what you had to do and guess what there was a class starting in a few weeks.  Little did I know it was all in Norweigian.  The girls and I have been taking Norwegian since October, but no way was I prepared for a class that required 12 hours of class time in Norwegian.  

I decided to give it a try.  The class was taught in Norwegian and I could follow some of what wa said.  Maybe it was because it had to do with gymnastics and that made it easier.  I would go home and spend hours translating the Norwegian gymnastics terms into English with the help of google translate and my daughters (who go to 12 hours of gymnastics practice in Norwegian).  The final class was to judge 3 girls in each discipline.  No problem I thought, then realized that some of the stuff had not been translated.  I made it through it with not many mistakes, but then the real hard part a written test, you guessed it in Norwegian.  With the help of the instructor translating some things I got through the test.  I had to wait a week to see if I passed and I did.  I was so excited and come to find out I was fourth in the class of 10 people.  That may not seem good to you, but with Norwegian not being my first language I was thrilled.  So now I am a gymnastics judge in Norway.  I have to judge my first competition on the 25th of May.  

Next on my list you guessed it to get my american judges certificate.  

I will let you know how things go at my first competition.