New Discipline approach for the new year

Oh, how I have MISSED this laptop! Our one dog thought the power cord looked tasty......so I've been laptop-less!!!! LOL!!!! Tee hee.

Ok, so seriously now, you know how it is. Every so often, ok, way too often, you sit back and realize, When did I lose control? When did this chaos set in? Yep, it's that time again! Back to school, end of summer, I want to get back in a decent routine time!

Now they're getting older on me (how dare they!) and the old standby time-out and stickers not so effective. Now they're 9,8,6 & almost 4! They want PRIVELEGES!! SO here's my new plan!

Based loosely on the Dilley Discipline Ladder....only I'm silly and have this bee theme going on...LOL Blame it on the cute clipart I found ok? SO we have the Hillman Beehave Beehive!

Ahhh.....it's a thing of beauty! We kept the separate Chore Chart system,. as that really works well and all the kids are real clear on it. I re-did the old hand drawn house and family rules as well to keep with it. I'll letcha know how it goes!
So keep your fingers crossed for me! LOL! Its nice to be able to have them all know exactly what they can/can't do, and all i have to say is "Well, go look at the chart and see where your bee is at" and no more arguing over is so and so allowed to do this or that!

Happy day!!

Well today was a very happy day!! We got our sweet girl back home!! Bridgett is home safe and sound and doing wonderful! She was so happy to be home, her little stubby tail was wagging so much I thought she'd fly right up in the air! Even our little desk troll, Chester Chihuahua, came out to greet her with tail wagging! Seems like even the newcomers, knew she belonged here and it was a shrieking, wagging, petting butt-sniffing happy reunion! ha ha ha! We humans, were doing the shrieking and petting, but not the other stuff, that was the dogs of course! ha ha ha!

We also found out about a cool contest going on, that we can possibly win financial support for our dog rescue!! So I'm of course including a link to go and vote for Hubbard's Hounds dog rescue!!!! We sure could use the help after all the medical bills we've had lately and the new dogs coming in! So come on now! Go and support the best dog rescue ever!! ha ha!

More good things......had a 504 meeting with my son's school today, and it went really well! I was pleasantly surprised to get not only a lot of good feedback, but actual interest and support from the administration!!! It was so nice to see his teacher and the counselor getting excited about ideas and suggestions to help my son succeed at school!! They actually listened to me and liked the ideas I brought to the discussion and the special B.E.A.R. binder I made him to help with his organization!! Actually looked at it and everything! It sure was a nice change from the awful school district we pulled them from two years ago! I was left with a very positive feeling and actual hope for the future of my kids!! Now all we need is his diagnosis of Asperger's to come thru and we can get more services and accomodations in place for him!!!! yay!!!

All in all, it was a very positive day and I'm so glad!!! it's been such a rotten week!!! My best friend Cindy has to have her leg amputated, so its been really stressful, and I'm her health care proxy so that's kind of scary to even think about. But she needs me, and she's my pal, so I need to suck it up and be there for her!!! So Sunday think of her, keep her in your prayers please!! We'll be at St. Joe's hospital in Syracuse.

Serenity Horses

ok, so here I am! I told you I would be back with great pics of our visit to the horse farm!!!! here they are!!!!!!!! This one is Gayla, the wonderful lady who owns the horses and invited us to come and see them!! She is sooooo nice and her daughter Jocelyn too!

They have the most beautiful view, and the horses are just so amazing!!!!! The two young stallions were the ones who really were so friendly and great with the kids too!!!!

The one named Indy, was just so sweet with Johnny, and to our surprise, Johnny really bonded with him too! he was snuffling his hair, and blowing on his head, and nibbling his shoelaces, and Johnny was petting him, stroking his nose, and talking to him!!! It was really neat!!!!!!!!

Julianna, all whopping 24lbs of her, I thought would be really scared and intimidated when I saw how huge these horses were, I mean, their head alone was bigger than her whole body!!!!! But to our suprise, after a few minutes, she warmed up and was babbling at them, feeding them flowers, and shoo-ing flies off their faces for them!!!! She actually said "Hello Neigh-Neigh!" and she's never ever said "hello" before!!!!! It was really good therapy for her and for Johnny too! And even I got a nice back massage from one of the horses!!!! Right before she nibbled the back of my neck with her velvety lips and gave me major goosebumps!! ha ha ha! It was so amazing, and Jenna and Jasmine were just thrilled, cause you know, they're little girls + horses = happy little girls!!! Jasmine kept getting her hair nibbled, her shoe strings nibbled and her face kissed!!!!!!!

I have tons more pics too! And I know Gayla took a bunch too! The two young stally's even let the kids sit on them! And Juli and Jazzy and Jenna were hugging their giant heads......I couldn't believe how tolerant these horses were!! They have awesome personalitites too! I was so suprised to see how they were all so different, just like dogs or people!! Indy and Johnny really made my whole day though with how they spent like the whole two hours together practically!!!!! I loved how into it the girls were, and how Julianna really opened up with the horses! We are definitely going to have to make a trip back there again soon!!!!!!!