love Love LOVE

I have just been away for a week with the boys in the Hunter Valley in NSW.  We had a great time and I have so many things to share with you.  But first I HAVE to tell you about a surprise that was waiting for me when I got home.

If you've know me for more than a few minutes you'll most likely know that I have a thing for windmills.  Not pretend, toys windmills but real ones.  When I was growing up there was one here on the farm, it didn't function anymore and had been long replaced by a (more reliable) diesel engine.  So when the old windmill fell down there was no real need to fix it up again.  However, since returning to live on the farm, life on a farm without a windmill just hasn't felt right.  So there has been a longing for a windmill outside my front fence.  Not to function but to simply create atmosphere.  

We recently went to a clearing sale (read op shop for farmers) as there was a windmill advertised.  Apparently working windmills are extremely sort after and it sold for ten times my budget.  Really it is just for looks!!! I had decided that my love and desire for a windmill would just have to wait for 10 or more years until we had less other expenses (and I was trying hard to be ok with that...but it wasn't really working).  It turns out all that farmer chit-chat at these clearing sales is well worth it.  One of Scott's farmer friends rang and told him that they had an old one we could buy - for our exact budget!!!!  The wonderful man my husband is, kept it a surprise and I came home to this. 

Oh how I love that man (& my windmill).

Sticker Charts

Stickers are great rewards.  They are cheap, I can buy them by the 1000 and the kids love them.  We don't use them all the time, just sometimes when I see something happening that I think could be better and so we work on that one thing with stickers as our incentive.  It is good for me because it helps me remember what we are working on at the moment and it is good for the kids because it is visual and they love stickers.  

At the moment we are working on morning jobs in a reasonable amount of time.  

(I use a timer to help them know what is reasonable)

But the best thing is I've been inspired by my artistic friend and my sticker charts have changed from 

boring printed A4 grids

 to a large poster with kid inspired drawings.  

We have a digger loving boy, a wannabe pilot and a farmer in his spray coop.  

This is much more fun to look at and add stickers to than the old one.  I also love that one starts at the top while the others start at the bottom, apparently it is much harder to be competitive with each other when you have to keep counting all those small stickers.

Thanks Art House Mum for your inspiration.

Character Lessons

This month we are looking at

I'll (hopefully) show you some of what we did at the end of the month.