An Evening of Reward

We had a busy day yesterday around here.  Some yard needed to be finished getting mowed, Jonathon asked us to get his trench he dug filled back in with dirt, I had asked the boys to move some wood from the backyard, and then the regular household chores of laundry and getting the house clean for Sabbath were all needing done.  After I got the yard mowed, I decided to see who else was working hard.  

 She does pretty good, but did miss a few articles I had to keep reminding her to get.

 Good thing it's at her heigth.

 Of course we have to try on some of mom's clothes while we're doing it.

 Such a happy helper.  

 I gave this job to Benaiah, but Alegra was wanting a break from shoveling dirt, so I regave this job to a girl who would actually get the cement swept off.  Benaiah did do a couple other sidewalks for me though.

 Our hard working dirt shoveler.

 Then I found Josiah in the house reading a book while all other work was going on.  Now, I am very thankful that my children love to read, and summer reading programs offer prizes for reading, but when there's work to do, you better be doing it!  So, I told him to get the wood taken care of.  Now I thought he was crying because the wood was heavy and he couldn't do it, but I knew if he'd just do it, he could.  

 So, he sat and cried and fussed, all while I said that he had to do it no matter what.  AND that he was going to be working the rest of the day too if he wanted the reward in the evening.

 Then little brother comes along with his big wagon and gets the job done lickity split.  Hmmm, I'm thinking that piece of wood wasn't as heavy as someone was making it look.  So, now you see a little difference between our boys.  I have one who loves to be inside reading and playing games and is a whipper snapper at learning things.  I have another who is a hard worker outside and loves to carry wood and do "boy" things.  The question I'm trying to figure out is, "how do I mix both of their strong points into both of them".  

The rest of the day they all worked well, helping clean the house and fix supper.  So, when Jonathon got home, we ate quickly then headed to some friends' house...by van and by boat.  On a nearby lake, we have friends that live on opposite sides.  We decided that it would be fun to borrow the one friend's boats and sail across the lake to our other friend's dock to visit.  So, we did just that.  The girls took the kayaks, and we took the canoe.  It was pretty windy, and I was a little nervous about them taking off by themselves, but they did great!

 We sailed right in to our friend's dock to some happy children awaiting our arrival.  We tied up our boats and walked the plank up to their house to visit a little.  We then decided to leave our 2 littlest there and take their 2 oldest girls with us.  So, we loaded back up and paddled back across the lake.

Their girls thought it was so neat to be on the "other" side of the lake.  What a fun time!  We put our boats away, went back to our house to pick up some strawberry shortcake, and took it back to drop off girls, pick up our children, and eat dessert with friends.  It turned into a late night, but boy did we all have fun!  They have a reward jar for when they work hard and help in the garden.  I'm looking forward to more fun adventures with these children this summer!  AND the other family had worked hard in their garden too, so it was a double family reward.  Yay, for hard working children....and children learning how to work hard.  : )