There's Nothing Like a Good Compliment!

Elyana had a homework assignment: pay one compliment to a family member.  After explaining to her what a compliment was, I asked her to give her sister a compliment. 

"Mikayla, you have a nice mom," said Elyana flatly.

She is sharp as a tack, that's for sure.

Free Bowling

We are trying out an incentive program for Mikayla for good behavior. After having had too much of preteen drama, we sat her down for a good talk. We discussed what we feel is disrespectful, what aggravates us, and what we expect.  It really helped having that discussion because there were some incidents where she wasn't aware that her behavior was disrespectful. Since then, we have placed a behavior chart up on the wall. She receives a sticker if we didn't have any incidents for that day. A whole week of stickers entitles her to doing something fun on the weekend with mom, dad, both, or all four of us. We are in our third week of enjoying each others company again while enjoying good behavior. We surprised Mikayla for her first weekly reward by going family bowling.  We didn't tell her where we were going and had her guessing the whole way to the bowling alley.

There is a great deal going on in local cities that enables kids to bowl for free all summer (May1-Aug 31). Go to www.kidsbowlfree.com. The only cost is shoe rental. An adult is required to come with them, so there would be that cost unless you signed up 4 adults for the summer for $25.  We plan on bowling a lot this summer. Great idea on days where it is rainy or too humid to be outside. May 1st, we began our summer of free bowling.

Mikayla's First Time on a Horse!

Thursday evenings in May, Mikayla is taking horse riding lessons through a community education program. I love all of the community education programs Rochester offers. It gives the girls a chance to try so many different things. She was a bit nervous on our way to the stable, but once we were there, she couldn't wait to just climb on. I was a little disappointed with the instructor/owner. There were no introductions of the instructor, horses, or assistants. It was just, let's help you up on a horse. Walk your horse around the arena while we get everyone else on.  Mikayla caught on immediately how to control her horse and was a natural!  Elyana was so proud of her big sister that she wanted photos of Mikayla printed out to show her class the next day.