Molly Piper

Is it just me, or is summer flying by?

[Photo: Katie Roche]

We’ve been having a really good summer so far, but man, is it going FAST!

Here’s the line-up for the coming weeks

• Insane as this sounds, I’m doing a yard sale this Saturday. I’ve never done one before! I’m doing the yard sale to pay for gas for our upcoming adventures!
• Insane as this sounds, we’re going to be spending a couple weeks in Denver in July. That means a 14-hour drive with four small children. Thankfully Miss Katie will come with us, and she & I will explore Colorado while Abraham works (the new company he works for is based out of Denver and he’d have to be there anyway, so we figured we’d all go)! God has totally hooked us up with a free house to stay in, so we’re really excited. I’ve never been to Colorado before!
• And then, if we weren’t insane enough from the Denver trip, we’re going to do a quick turnaround in Minneapolis, then drive 14 hours the other way to Pennsylvania to see my family and friends there. I’m just thrilled about this, because we haven’t been there since Christmas 2009 when I found out I was pregnant. A few months later we found out it was twins, and we haven’t gone anywhere since. Oh man, it’s gonna be so crazy and so fun! I love going to Erie, Pennsylvania.

Adventures abound as we fly through summer!

What are your adventurous summer plans?

This week was Orison’s first full week of summer vacation. Even though I only have one school-aged child, and he was only in half-day school, it’s still an adjustment to have him home all day, every day.

I’m sure there are many of you with tons more experience under your belts for making summer a success, but here’s how I’m trying to make it work for me:

Jobs

I’m never very consistent about allowance or chores, but Orison’s very interested in earning money (& then counting it over and over and telling me the year that’s printed on every.single.coin). He does a few tasks for 10 cents each, with the earning potential for 50-60 cents per day. Cheap help! Of course these will be different for every household, but right now he does the following jobs:

• Emptying the silverware caddy from the dishwasher each morning.
• Running the bare-floor vacuum and cleaning off the high chairs after breakfast and lunch.
• Cleaning his room and/or the playroom.
• Putting away his clean laundry.

Of course Morrow (2.5) wants in the on the action, too. So he even gets some money for his jobs! Morrow gets 1 penny for the following jobs:

• Getting diapers for the babies.
• Throwing away diapers.
• Putting the bottles into the sink.

All of these things happen a lot throughout the day, so he might make about 10 cents a day. He’s thrilled to be like his big brother! I don’t think it’s that meaningful to him yet, but he thinks it’s fun, so I’m going with it.

There are a few ground rules for working:

• If you complain when asked to do your job, you will still have to do it, but you won’t get the money.
• You can say no politely from time to time, but just know that you’re passing up the cash.
• Money can be deducted from your wages if you are purposefully mean or unhelpful throughout the day.

Right now I’m just keeping a little tab on the counter of how much each boy earns per day. If I can get my act together soon, I’d like them to have a chart where we could mark it down. That way it would keep them more motivated and keep me accountable to bless them for their help.

Do your kids do household job? Which ones?

A couple weeks ago, Abraham got the idea that he wanted to make a little brick pad underneath the hose on the side of the house. There were a few busted-up old bricks there from God-only-knows-when (there have been lots of owners since this house was built in 1900), and so he decided he would try to use them somehow.

Then the idea kinda blossomed. He decided he wanted to do the whole pad with “found brick.” Very artsy, huh?

But where were we going to find enough bricks? I’d like to tell you that this was a very well-thought-out process, but…it wasn’t. But here’s what we did:

1. Choose a fearless leader.

Ours was the unstoppable Abraham Piper, Urban Scavenger. Behind the wheel of a Swagger Wagon, he is a force to be reckoned with.

2. Assemble your crew.

3. Start scavenging.

This might mean that you drive (what will feel like) aimlessly through old industrial areas of town, through abandoned train yards, etc. We also drove along residential alleys to pick up any extra bricks people might have had from ripping out an existing patio, or any they had leftover from building a new one.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask.

After awhile, we started getting bolder. We pulled up into a couple landscaping businesses and just asked them, “Hey, do you have any old bricks left from a job that you’re not going to use?” We didn’t care if they matched, or if some were a little broken.

I was amazed at how generous those folks were! If they order too much brick for a bigger job that they can’t use for another one immediately, they probably don’t want it sitting around taking up space. So they gave some to us!

5. Celebrate success.

Make sure your crew feels like part of the process or they’re gonna start grumbling from the back seat.

6. Play Tetris.

Abraham did all the digging, sand pouring, etc. to prep the area for the bricks. It was a little trickier since many of them were different thicknesses, but since it was a patio area that wasn’t going to be walked on very much, it didn’t really matter if it was absolutely perfect. I think he did a great job keeping it level, though. And then you just have to fit them all together into the space you have.

7. Voila!

I really like the randomness of it. And the best part was, we only paid for some sand!

My next urban scavenging project is to find some old spools and do this with the hose:

[Photo via Design Sponge]

What do-it-yourself projects are you doing this summer?