Last week and this week the boys have been at VBS.  It's has been kinda nice with them gone.  I can spend more time with the little ones.  But I don't like having to rush around in the morning making sure they are feed, dressed (in clean clothes that match), and have done their chores.  And then I don't like them finishing their chores after lunch when all they want to do is play.  So, the kinda niceness of them being gone isn't worth sending them away often.  One week was plenty, two weeks is pushing it.  I could never send them to school and do it 10 months. 

With all the things going on around here, we havn't done one second of school.  I wrote up my list of extra chores for them to do, and now I can't find it any where!  We did rearrange the chore charts a bit.  Princess C now has one.  She loves it.  She doesn't always love doing what's on it, but seeing it makes her proud that she's now a big kid.  (Although, if you ask her if she is a big girl, her answer will be, "No!  Me small girl!")  Her chores are:  Empty the dishwasher (low, plastic dishesand silverwear), brush teeth, and put the dirty laundry down the laundry chute.  She will be 3 at the end of August.  3 is when we started paying the boys 50 cents.  Every year after that, they get a 50 cent raise along with more chores.  Here is D's list:  Make bed, bring down dirty clothes, wipe mirror a.m., clean up after breakfast, dog food and water, clean yard, sweep dining room after breakfast, wash, fold and put away own clothes, take garbage out, clean up after lunch, set table, clean up after dinner, wipe mirror pm, bring down dirty clothes pm.  He also has to sweep back porch and down stairs 3x's a week and take the recycling to the curb.  He tends to forget the simple things so we had to write down everything for him.  We also have a list of how he needs to take care of himself:  brush teeth am, cream on am, brush teeth pm, scrub finger nails, shower, cream on pm, brush hair.  He will be turning 9 in a few days, so I need to come up with a new "older" chore for him.  Here is N's list:  brush teeth, make bed, pick up animals and blankets, front porch shoes, back porch shoes, bathroom garbages, fold clothes, sweep kitchen (4x a week), kitchen garbage bag, set table, empty dishwasher, kitchen recycling, brush teeth pm.  And once a week bring in recycling.  He's going to have to inherit some of D's chores because Princess C has been taking over some of his.  His b-day isn't until December, but maybe we will have to make summer the official chore change time since we (supposedly) have more time to train them.