Simply Craig

The boys (Wes and Dawson) are off to scout camp.  Mr. B.T.C and Nathan just left on a hunting trip to Utah.  That leaves me and the girls home alone.  Get ready to shop until you drop girls! This is gonna be a fun week! Late night movies, pizza, chocolate cake and popcorn.  Afternoon and late night swimming.  Shopping bags galore. New shades of lipstick.  Yep, that pretty much sums up the week.  Now hide the Nordi bags girls Mr. B.T.C is coming home:)

We just sent Dawson off to EFY for the week.  He's gonna have a blast!

If there's one thing I've learned as a mom, it's this... Getting children to consistently do their chores can be exhausting. They get bored with the routine. They complain. They forget. Or sometimes they simply decide they aren't going to do them. Sound familiar? After one too many frustrating days, I decided I needed a different approach. I wanted to spend less time nagging and more time noticing the good things my children were doing. So, after a little brainstorming (and a trip to Staples), I created a chore system that completely changed the atmosphere in our home. Instead of assigning chores each day, I made helping around the house a choice. Here's how it works. Every child has a laminated  Personal Responsibility Card  listing the things they're expected to do every day: make their bed, brush their teeth, keep their room picked up, complete their reading, and other age-appropriate responsibilities. These aren't considered chores. They're simply pa...

Yep... That's me. And no, I don't mean physically. Trust me. I've had  f-i-v-e  kids. Enough said. I'm talking about the kind of  hot  that makes you wonder if your flip flops are actually optional because your feet might melt to the pavers before you make it across the patio. Living in Arizona, I expect hot weather. But wow... This heat wave has taken things to a whole new level. It's the kind of heat where opening the front door feels like opening the oven to check on dinner. The kind of heat where the steering wheel becomes a weapon. The kind of heat where you sprint from one air-conditioned building to another and somehow still break a sweat. So, during these scorching, blazing,  hot-hot-hot  days of summer (have I made my point?), we've learned to get creative. At the Craig house, summer survival usually means finding somewhere... anywhere... cool to escape the heat. Now picture this... An ocean view. Cool mist rolling in off the water. A gentle breeze...