Home Help

Some very dear friends of ours have an Au Pair. I wrote all about it last June.

I mentioned at the time about looking at getting a local university student in to care for the boys 2 afternoons a week. Well low and behold, we did.
As of the end of February we have had a loving young 3rd year student collect the boys from school 2 afternoons, bring them home, organise afternoon tea for them, assist them with their basic homework needs and then just generally be here until we get home at 5pm.
And the amazing thing about it.......it actually works for our family. Tuesdays before Judo are now so stress free and relaxed, everyone has eaten before Judo so no trying to serve dinner to 2 very tired boys at 7.30 at night! Chores are completed so no racing around the house getting frustrated because nothing is getting achieved. I am loving it.

We made sure they had their own car, in good condition with all the current insurance needs. We were not too fussy in whether they were studying childcare or not, we didn't need someone with that specific skill, although it was very easy to gauge whether they knew about children or not.
The person we chose is 20 yrs old and is the 2nd oldest of 5, with her younger siblings currently being 10 and 12, so got the immediate feeling she has been around younger ones for a few years and understands them.
We purchased 2 new carseats for her car, as both boys are still in seats and will in fact remain in some form of safety seat for at least another 6 years! Both seats will grow with the boys, both have backs on them at present but have the ability to grow to booster seats when they just need that little extra height to use the seatbelts in the car. So even though this was an expense we just had to carry, it was a worthwhile one. When she finishes at the end of the year, then I am sure we will employ another next year, even then when we purchase a 2nd vehicle ourselves then we will need seats in that car too.

I was very sensible and actually made a contract up between us that we all signed. She was happy with this and I feel this made us all comfortable with where we all stand etc.
I organise dinner for the nights she is here and then she just has to do a small amount of preparation work to serve it to the boys. If rice or pasta is involved then she cooks enough for us as well.

Money wise, then we are paying 60c more an hour than we were paying putting them into after school care for the hour, but the benefits so out weighs the money. The boys are more relaxed, they are at home enjoying their own surroundings, they have eaten at a sensible time of day therefore have more energy for Judo and they are getting their homework finished, which sadly did not happen last year very much at all, mainly because being at after care 4 days a week they got very tired and were not interested in homework at 6pm.

The plus side of this is that in the 3 weeks she has been here Alex's teachers are already commenting that he has come along really well with his reading etc because he is getting his sight words better and following through and this is showing in class. This was an area of concern for all at the parent teacher meeting last month we had to discuss our aims for the year. Alex is not as high in the reading levels as they would have expected and so therefore work needs to be done more around this area, so to see some improvement already is awesome.

Oh and the other thing....the boys love her!

Pizza

My 2 go on about having pizza for dinner quite regularly.

We are lucky enough to have a Pizza Hut all of 300m round the corner, but we do not use it!

I keep convincing myself that the next visit will be good and each time it gets worse.

So the last time we went, I decided that if I ever think we should go again, then I will kick myself. I just have to keep remembering that 'It will not work, it will not get better there!'

It doesn't really matter though, because we make awesome home made pizzas.

So I do have pizza on our menu at least once every 4 weeks.

Tonight was one of the nights, and with my trusty sidekick, we had homemade pizza for dinner.

We even manage to make it so everyone gets their own individual pizza, so everyone is happy at the end of dinner.

Doors and Heat

We have an old house and a heat problem as I previously mentioned.

We have a doorway between the dining room and the living room and have decided that we need to place a door there as the dining room gets cold. This in turn is making it difficult to heat the living room.

In the garage is 3 old doors that Steve has found and he is sure one of them will fit the doorway.

So he got them down last weekend and proceeded to strip them of all metalware so he could consider sanding them to get rid of the green.

Of course he had little helpers to make the day go smoothly along.

They did lots of work on the doors, but did one little thing backwards.....and that was that they did all this work on the door and then decided to see if it would fit!

Of course 1 of the doors was way too big and the other too small.

So the whole day could have been utilised slightly better, had they measured the doorway first.
So am not actually sure when we will now have a door in the doorway!?

Special People

I was checking out a blog I follow and there was this post on there.
It made me realise that there are really some very wonderful people out there in the world.
Go check it out and read what was written.
Maybe it can put us all on a mission for the rest of the year to try and do somethng like this, maybe not so big, but just a little something for someone.

Volunteering

All of my family (mum, dad and brother) have always been people to join in. Must be a trait for our family.

My dad, when life and work will allow, is a member of Rotary. In the past I remember him being in Wapakoneta Lions, Ohio and also Wapakoneta Optomists, Ohio.
Currently in Dubai he is part of the Hash House Harriers, in fact he holds the top position in the section he is part of!

My mum, is the same, I remember her being part of the Kuwait Players (Amateur Dramatics) A leader in my Brownie pack and any other thing that needed help with.
She played Lawn Bowls at one stage and was on their committee.
Lately she has been in Inner Wheel which is part of Rotary and she has also held high positions, President etc

Myself, I have also joined in with things as my time has come to that stage in life.
I have held committee positions on professional organisations when I was working fulltime.
I have been involved with Parents Centre Inc NZ for the past 5 years, volunteering, and I am currently President of the Hamilton Branch

And now I have noticed that my brother has joined in the family trend. He has taken part in work activities, mountain biking, relay walking etc, he has just become a Volunteer Firefighter where he lives, and he also coaches Soccer for his sons team.

Seems my family are joiners and helpers.

Gibbing the Wall

We had a horrid piece of partical board up in the kitchen that was very old and not good at all.

We got a gib stopper in to make all the seals nice, but he said he could do it even better if we could replace the board with proper gib board.

So Steve had the pleasure of removing said board and replacing it with a nice smooth board that will give the wall a much better finish. And we want that seeing as we are going to be painting the kitchen and the previous owners had it wallpapered.

As always Steve had 2 little helpers in this project who are always ready to climb the ladder and generally get in the way!

Our Little Helpers

Ben and Alex have both decided that they are big enough to have little jobs around the house.

Ben gets the rubbish bin from the road every week and puts it back where it lives.

 
And Alex goes and checks the mailbox everyday, when he remembers!