D.I.Y. Chore System

Hey Everyone,

I hope you all had a great day! If you know me personally or even read my blog, you probably know that I am a mother to a sweet little boy and I take that job very very seriously. There are so many people that aren't able to have kids, so if you are able to you are extremely blessed. As a parent, God is giving us the job of teaching our kids right from wrong, how to shine like Jesus, and the meaning of responsibility. Children of today will be our future of tomorrow and if they arent raised correctly, that could be devasting. I can't control the future but as a parent, I try my best to give little Tony the necessary tools to succeed.

The picture above is little Tony's responsibility/chore system that I created for him. Tony and I feel that little Tony responds best to visual rewards, so I chose to use marbles for him, but you can use whatever works best for your child. 

 The first step was making his chore list. I wanted to make his chore list something he could look at and check off as he did things. I took a piece of scrapbook paper from Michaels and wrote out all the chores he needs to do on top and on the bottom chores specific for each day. I then cut the paper to fit an old frame I had. I spray painted the frame blue so it can match his room decor. I put the paper in the frame and now it has become a dry erase board. He can use a dry erase marker to check off each thing he has done and then wipe it all off for the next day.

Like I said before, we use marbles as our visual reward. I just use a regular mason jar and blue marbles. He has the opportunity to earn three marbles each day, if he completes all his chores and has a good day at school. If he doesnt have a good day at school, he still has to do all his chores but he has to give me marbles out of his jar depending on what he did at school. Once he reaches the top, he has earned a new video game for his DS or his Wii. Not only does this make him work really hard to do good in school and keep up with his chores but he appreciates his new game so much more than if we just gave it to him for no reason.

He also has the opportunity to earn extra marbles on the weekends by doing extra chores from the chore bucket. I took clothes pins (from the dollar store), glued some pom poms (from Michaels) on the ends, and wrote chores on the back of them. They are clipped onto this bucket I found at Target in the dollar bin section. Once he has a completed an extra chore he drops it in the bucket. I check what he has done and for every extra chore he's done, he receives an extra marble.

The funny thing is he loves the system. He comes home excited to check things off of his list and he loves doing 'big boy chores.' He takes pride in his chores and is really excited when he has checked everything off at the end of the day.

What kind of chore/responsibility system do use for your kids?

Stay Fab <3 data-blogger-escaped-font="">
Sheri

I Believe You Can.... And I Want You to...

 Hey guys!

 I hope everything is going well. Last week I tweeted: Make prayer your first response not your last resort, not knowing my pastor and I would be on the same accord this coming Sunday. I tweeted it as a reminder to me and to share it with you all as well.

It's so easy to try do to it all on your own, or try to at least. We often get so caught up racking our brain with 'possible solutions' when we have a problem, before we turn to God. What we fail to realize is that without God, we are helpless, we ARE NOT able to do it on our own. For example, you realize you are going to be short on a bill; and you start thinking of all the people you can ask to borrow the money. We dont turn to God until all of our own options have run out. We could save so much time and effort, if we prayed before anything else. Of course, God won't drop money out of the sky, but he will touch someone's heart to be a blessing to you before you can even ask.

Any prayer is great and is a good start but it's important to pray with confidence and truly believe that God can and will do what you ask of him. More times than we not, we pray out of routine and don't truly believe. Try incorporating these phrases into your prayer life: I believe you can... and I want you too...

I was talking to my son about this and teaching him how to pray using these words and really believe what he is asking for. Tonight he prayed: 'God I believe you can heal my skin and allergies and I want you to heal me.' It's as simple as that. You let God know you believe he can do it and that you want Him to do it.

Prayer builds a relationship with God and opens the door for him to speak into your life. Dont get so caught up trying to live YOUR life that you forget to live the life God has planned for you, because believe me I can guarantee His life is much better. So tomorrow, as soon as you open your eyes Thank God for another day and believe him for strength to make it through the day. Don't forget to also incorporate prayer in your free moments during the day.

Stay Fab <3 font="">

Sheri

 

Weekend in Review:

Curry Festival and Other Fam Bam Shenanigans!

Hey Everyone!!

I hope you all had a fabulous week and an even better weekend!! During the week, we run a pretty tight ship over here. Even though we both make our own schedules, the week tends to be busy quite busy for us, so we take full advantage of the weekend. This weekend was a lot of fun and definitely jam packed with activities!

Friday afternoon was spent at the baseball field watching T and his team, the Yankees, play. I never really watched baseball growing up, but T has been playing for two season now and I actually really enjoy watching it. We are a super competitive family so we take our sporting events pretty seriously ;).

T at bat!

Headed to 1st base

Early Sat morning while the boys were still sleeping, I headed to International Mall for the Nordstrom Beauty Trend Show. The show was a runway style with beauty and fashion mixed together. They talked about all of the new products out for Spring/Summer in the beauty world! They had a lot of stations where professional artists from each brand could show you how all the products worked for your face, it was a lot of fun to attend!

After the beauty event, I came home to change and get T dressed to head to the 2nd Annual Curry Festival.  We didn't know it about it last year and by chance found out about this year. I am Jamaican and Indian so curry is a favorite food of mine and my boys. The food was amazing and we really had a great time!!

T enjoying a curry vegetable samosa

Always posing!

Mommy and T got henna!

After stuffing our bellies, we headed to the movies to see 42. We really enjoyed it and definitely had to fight back tears in some parts of the movie. T learned a lot and felt extremely blessed to be able to play baseball.

My handsome men! (I love dressing them alike)

After the movies, we relaxed for a bit and got ready for fight night. We are huge sports fans and boxing is no exception. Tony always jokes that I know more about boxing then most men lol. It was a really good fight between Alvarez and Trout. Canelo Alvarez proved to me and many other boxing fans that he is a very skilled fighter. His defense was impeccable and better than I've ever seen from him. He is now the unified champ at 154 ( he now has both belts WBC and WBA).

Sunday is usually a lot less busy. We went to church in the AM, had some homemade chicken and waffles (sooo good), and the rest of the day was spent relaxing, cleaning, and planning for the week. Later once T is in bed, the hubby and I will do a pamper night together (it's our Sunday night tradition).

I hope you guys had a great weekend and have a great week to follow!!

Stay Fab,
Sheri

Garage to Playroom 

D.I.Y.

 

Hey Everyone!!

I hope you all are having a great week. I have been a little under the weather, but thankfully things are starting to get better! As you may know from the hubby's twitter, the playroom is officially done, and I couldn't be any more happier with how it turned out!!! I will warn you, this will be quite a long post because of all the pics but if you like DIY type projects then keep reading :)! 

This all started with a weekend spent browsing pinterest (yes, yes pinterest posts got me too). My son's room has always been so crammed because of all his toys and now that he is really into reading, I wanted it to be more conducive to reading and relaxing. Our garage has been a sore eye since we moved into our home but it was just for cars so who cares right. When I told Tony about the idea he was totally supportive as long as it was MY project lol. I agreed as long as he helped me with the clearing out portion of the project.

First step, was to find all the things we stored in the garage a new home. We gave a lot of things away and put some things in a storage unit.

The next step, was taking care of the garage floor. The floor was in desperate need of care, so we started by pressure washing the floor to get off as much of the chipped paint as we could. Then, I had to take a paint scraper and get off all the loose paint that didn't come off with the pressure washer. Now it was time to paint! I used epoxy garage floor paint in midnight blue color for the floor and Turks and Caicos exterior satin paint for the walls. I wanted a bright and fun play area so my color palate is pretty huge ( as you will see) lol! It took 4 coats of paint on the floor because we couldn't get some of the paint off and it took two full coats on the walls. I also decided to add a chalkboard to the wall, so I measured out a large square and bought chalkboard paint to paint it. It took two cans of chalkboard paint to fill the square.

This pic was before the last coat of paint on the floor.

Now, it was time to build some furniture! I found plans for some cube storage chairs online. I headed to Home Depot, purchased my wood, and it was time to go. The instructions were very simple and easy to follow. I built 4 cubes and spray painted two blue and two yellow.

I then wanted to make some artwork for the walls. I took some MDF board from the scrap pile at home depot and began to work. I painted them with some left over garage floor paint, added some letters I got from Michaels that I spray painted red, and wa-la I had cute signage. I added hooks and metal chains from Home Depot to give it an industrial look.

I saw a post on Pinterest with some inspiring playroom signage but the person was selling them for a couple hundred on Etsy, I decided I would try to make them for less. I took some left over 10x10 wood from the cube chairs, spray painted them black and white, and used paint pens (from Michaels) to write the messages.

At this time, I was on bed rest so I had a friend take some plans i found for a play room table and make the table for me. Once I was better, I spray painted it red and picked up so extra touches to complete the playroom. I found some pieces of cork at CVS and spray painted them black and white to hang artwork on. I also bought some white framing from Home Deopt and framed the chalkboard to give it a 'picture' look. 

Now it was time to accessorize! I went to Ikea and found some cute pillows (that I secured to the cube chairs using a glue gun), a black and white rug, some inflatable seats, and a roller to roll out art paper on the table. I found some pails to put in the cube chairs from the dollar section at Target and I filled them with markers, crayons, and scissors. The last thing was to move his toys into the room and organize them.

Here is the finished product:

I hope you enjoyed this post and it inspires you to be creative in your own home!

Stay Fab,

Sheri <3>

Lower half with my other Half!

Easy At Home Leg Workout (No equipment needed)

  Hey Everyone!!

Hope you guys had a great Tuesday! Today the hubby asked me to give him a short, effective workout that incorporated cardio and could be done in 30 minutes. I decided to share his workout with you! It incorporates basic moves and requires no equipment.

This workout should be done like a circuit. Do all 4 exercises in a row with no break. After completing all 4 exercises take a 1 - 2 min break. Repeat this 2 more times for a total of 3 rounds.

1: Walking lunges: Lunge about 50 ft down and back. Make sure you are taking wide enough steps and dipping your back leg so your knee doesn't go over your toe.

2. Wide High jumps: Stand with your legs about shoulder width apart, squat by pushing back on your heels (making sure your knees don't go over your toes), and as soon as you get low propel yourself up into the air. Do 15 of these for one set.

3. Body weight deep squats: The same motion as #2 without the jump but go as deep as you can pushing back on your heels. Do 30 of these for one set.

4. Burpees: Jump in the air and as soon as you land bring your body down to the ground, extend your legs, and go right into a pushup. As soon as you finish the pushup, bring your body back upright, and jump again. This should all be a quick, fluid motion. Do 10 ten of these for one set.

After 3 rounds, you should definitely be feeling the burn!! Be prepared to be sore the next day ;). Now get up and go workout, no excuses!

Stay Fab <3>
Sheri