How To Get Kids to Help...

If you really want kids to help sometimes you just have to let them use their toys to do the job!

Amazing what you can get the kids to do when you let them use their toys! We get all kinds of help with yard work and gardening thanks to the thrill of hauling anything in a Tonka dumptruck!

Then there is this beauty.....well I wouldn't call it a beauty but it is rough, tough, and industrial for a reason.

This wagon is built from a great kit we found in the Northern Tool Catalog. This wagon makes it so easy to get the kids to help with things like hauling firewood, hauling animal feed from the car to the feed storage, toting around yard plants for spring planting, we've even use it as a way to move heavy appliances, and so much more.

The other cool part is how much fun they have with it, they love this wagon. It goes pretty fast and it is QUIET, I couldn't stand how loud the old fashioned red wagons were when you tried to take the kids for a walk in it.....oh and the handle is nice and long for adults too.

We have went through about 3 wagons before finally settling on the idea we needed something tougher than the typical red wagon could hold up to. This one has an 800lb load capacity and I don't think it is going anywhere. The cost of the wagon kit at about $70 has been far outweighed by the many uses we have found for this workhorse of a toy!

So there is one of our tricks to getting kids into helping more. Oh and the other trick is they don't have a choice if they help or not.:)

Embarassing Mom Moment #1

So I thought I'd share a scarey embarassing moming moment with you.....it starts with 3 of my children playing outside (#4 was yet to be realized into the plan of our lives). So kids are outside playing in the backyard. The older two were supposed to be keeping on eye on littlest one (you know where this is going don't you....no it's worse trust me!) anyway I am on the phone with Mr Wonderful and I was talking while watching out the window...but then I have this pesky habit of pacing while on the phone......so after 10 mins on the phone watching out the window occassionally I would check out the window as I passed by and all was well. Then just as I was hanging up from Mr. Wonderful about 5.2 mins passed since the last time I checked on my kids someone knocks on my front door.........I open it and it is a neighbor 2 houses down she is holding my 18 mo old son (the youngest) and says "Did you lose something, is he yours?" I of course went weak in the knees thinking what on earth why do YOU have him?.........turns out the Spud Man decided he had to grab something from the front yard and opened the side gate for a second got what he wanted in the front and went right back to the back yard...... forgetting to close the gate....picture quiet little 18 mo old contemplating his escape then double the speed......Tobers heads out the gate .........older siblings keep playing unaware.....Mommy talks on the phone unaware........Tobers starts running down street having a great time......giggling all the way on an adventure.......neighbor gets into her car in her driveway.....starts to back out of her driveway and notices in her rearview mirror a small child just having a good old time running along (can we say thank God she looked in her mirror and has a long driveway?) anyway she scoops up my son and says he looks like a ************* (insert out last name) so she guessed and took him to my house (it made sense we WERE the only neighbors within a couple blocks who has small children). You know what the worst part was (aside from having my neighbor bring back my child that I evidently was incapable of watching) was that he had the WORST snotty nose ever and it was all mixed with a VERY dirty face, and of course he was filthy dirty because he had been playing in the dirt with tonka's in the yard. I wanted to die! I mean I sat there and recounted for the entire day and several days after that how differently it could have turned out and how lucky and blessed I was that he was alive! Imagine if he'd have kept going any further and she had not brought him to me how scarey that would have been calling cops and trying to find my lost boy.....or even worse not realizing he was missing soon enough and having the cops look for me!...I still have nightmares.....someday I will tell you all about my recurring nightmares about not being able to save my children in emergency situations.........needless to say the kid go so many extra kisses and attention he was miserable for days afterwards!