helping Archives — Thrifty Mommas Tips

Join World Vision Canada’s Meaningful Gifts Twitter Party #MeaningfulGifts

Paula — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 00:04:55 +0000

How hard is it for you to come up with new gifts every year? Do you find gift giving a chore? Do you run out of time every single year like I do? Sometimes I think it’s a good thing that there is a cutoff date actually or I’d keep searching forever to find something just right for every single name on my list. This year skip the socks and ties and reach for the World Vision Canada gift catalogue. There are dozens of meaningful gifts there every holiday. In fact the World Vision Gift catalogue is my Go To resource for meaningful gifts every year. This year I have already purchased baby chicks for a friend of mine and I am leaning towards giving a goat to someone else. I really love World Vision Canada’s beautiful handcrafted artisan gifts as well. Every year there’s something unique, new, and lovely there to share. What’s on your list? What one gift would you treasure more than any other? I can’t wait to hear what you want and what you are considering giving. I also can’t wait to hear more about why charitable gifts with impact matter to your family. This Thursday at 8 p.m. EST December 8th join Linked Moms Margarita Ibbott and Myself as we chat about the upcoming holidays and the various people on our lists. Are you finished shopping already? Do you have dozens of people left? Are you stuck? We can help. Did you know that 26 % of Canadians cite clothing as the worst gift to receive? 79 % of Canadians indicate they have a hard time coming up with new and exciting gift ideas for family and friends. [tweetthis]Give the gift of health this year. Join us Dec. 8 at 8 p.m. EST to learn more #meaningfulgifts[/tweetthis] Almost 9 out of 10 people surveyed said they’d give the gift of health to someone special if they could. That makes me extremely happy. There are multiple great gifts of health and many of those are gifts that multiply in the World Vision gift catalogue. This year I travelled with a different organization to Zambia and witnessed how many NGOs work together to benefit children. The gift of health is hard to put a price tag on. And frankly vaccines help to give children a future. Why not consider getting a goat for your husband or your boss? Do you have a Secret Santa or a Teacher gift to give? There are many options starting as low as $10 this year. Stocking stuffers have never been easier! Remember the hashtag #meaningfulgifts and don’t forget to RSVP below then show up to the party. World Vision Canada Meaningful Gifts Twitter Party We are giving away 3 prizes of 3 separate Visa Gift Cards. 1 1 – $100 Gift Card grand prize 2 1 – $50 Gift card 3. 1 $50 Gift Card You have to be present and participating in order to have a chance to win.

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Five Indoor Chores Most Kids Can Do and a Reward Chart Printable

Paula — Mon, 06 Apr 2015 01:38:22 +0000

Indoor chores are simple for any age. If your children are old enough to stand at the sink then they are also old enough to learn to help. There are many small simple indoor chores even toddlers can help with daily. The trick is making any job fun and encouraging them along the way. We have a few rules at our house. One of them is that we all strive to be respectful. That is a work in progress some days, because my kids are now 11 and 13 and they often argue a lot. But even when they do that we are clear that when someone hurts another person’s feelings they need to find a way to say, or show, they are sorry. Another rule is that everyone needs to help out around the house. Families help each other. That’s the rule. I repeat that often even still with a teenager. You don’t always help expecting compensation. Sometimes you fold that laundry because you need a clean shirt. Sometimes you fold it because you like to fold things and you want to help. And other times you do it because Mom and Dad made dinner and fed you and drove you to martial arts ten times this month. Helping is expected. It’s part of being a family. Chores are often easy to do and can be started at an early age. Even toddlers can manage some things, like putting the silverware on the table or tidying their rooms. There are several easy tasks that kids of all abilities and ages can manage. This is a post about getting your children involved in the household chores. While it is better to volunteer to help without being asked, sometimes you have to be able to ask for help in order to get it. Sometimes the ask is simple and kids help easily. Other times you have to get creative. Sometimes the language matters. There are days my kids won’t respond to the term chores and there are days where they enjoy the idea of having indoor chores to do. Kids are funny that way. If it is a day when doing chores sounds ominous and dull, then I reframe it as helping. Most kids like to help. From a small age my kids enjoyed helping with certain things. Helping makes you feel needed and important. That’s powerful for small children. [tweetthis]Sometimes language matters. If I need laundry folded I ask for help. Kids often enjoy helping parents. [/tweetthis] If you are looking to get your children more involved in doing household chores here are some ideas. There’s a Chore Chart at the end of this post that you can print out easily too. Just click on the PDF link at the bottom of the post and it will appear in a full sized image. Then print it out and you can use it for your children. Happy Cleaning! Five Indoor Chores Most Kids Can Do: 1. Dishes: Even toddlers can stand on a chair and play in warm soapy water. Give them a cloth and show them how to wash and rinse some dishes. Obviously keep the sharp and breakable things out of the sink. Safety first. My one daughter has always loved washing dishes. Sometimes I let her do this because it calms her down. The warm soapy water is great for her as a sensory experience. I wrote about that once. Dishwashing as an easy sensory activity that helps provide calming feedback. [tweetthis]DYK dishwashing is a sensory activity for some kids? [/tweetthis] 2. Tidying up their toys: We used to play a game where we had a basket or a toy box (sometimes that’s a Rubbermaid container) and we played basketball to get the toys cleaned up off the floor. When Ainsley was very small that worked top get her playing along. Now, I’d love to tell you that it is now effortless and ingrained in her routine. It is not. I again this past weekend went into her room and had her play ‘basketball’ with me. Hand over hand also works when very small. You pick up the toys with them and put them away in baskets or bins. [tweetthis]How do you get your kids to tidy up their toys?[/tweetthis] 3. Laundry Folding: Folding towels is the place to start. My husband and I sometimes disagree a bit on this. I could care less how it is folded. If you are trying your best to help fold it and it saves us from doing the folding then away you go. I used to let Ainsley fold towels at a very small age. Maybe 3-4. Now she still likes that part. She also really enjoys the sock matching part (that’s good because nobody else in this family likes matching the socks.) 4. Dusting: This is one I would keep simple. You know those feathery types of dusters. Give your child a duster and show them how to dust the surface of things like tables. I would supervise this or let Ainsley dust a table that had no breakable things on it. When kids are teens they can handle dusting around the breakable things. 5. Feeding the Pets: Helps to teach responsibility. They need reminders often. Ours still need reminders, but keep the food near the pets where the kids can reach it and give them a scoop so they can easily measure the right amount of food and they learn to feed their pets. Pets are part of the family too. Use this indoor chores chart to help. Click through to this PDF link and print for your kids. Print on heavier paper or card stock. You could even laminate it and have them use an erasable marker on it. This isn’t a reward chart but it can show what everyone did to help and that can be very gratifying. Chore Chart Happy Cleaning! [tweetthis]Free Printable indoor chores chart for your children.[/tweetthis]

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We Day Waterloo 2014 Highlights: Inspiring Change

Paula — Sat, 29 Nov 2014 20:28:11 +0000

Last week we attended our first ever We Day. We were two of the 7000 people attending We Day Waterloo 2014. There were 315 schools in attendance also, one of which came all the way from Nova Scotia. I took my oldest daughter Payton with me because I knew she really wanted to go. She is my helper girl and we often say that she is destined to be a teacher or a therapist. She has a big heart. The route to WE Day isn’t easy. You have to be a class, or a child, that gives back to your community and thinks about global citizenry as well. So you get to go if you do one local action and one global action. So for instance one school raised money for children’s mental health issues at the local level and then had a bake sale to help buy something for a school in Africa. We Day Waterloo 2014 was a one day event, but We Day travels all over Canada and the US. The UK has recently started We Day too. The actual youth movement itself has been going on since 2007. In that time young people have raised $45 million for local and global causes. The We Day event itself is a huge thing and a really enjoyable day of inspirational speakers (School on the road was the theme.) It’s a day to listen to people who have triumphed over extreme adversity. For instance, Captain Richard Phillips, the real life version featured in the movie of the same name and played by Tom Hanks. Captain Phillips joined us over lunch at We Day Waterloo 2014 to talk about inspiration and never losing hope despite having his board boarded by pirates which put his crew in jeopardy. This year we have continued to give to local causes such as adoption. We often speak at the local Children’s Aid Society. I have the kids come with me because it is their story too and they get good at advocating for themselves over time, and for other children too. Globally it will come as no shock to readers that my cause and charity has been World Vision Canada. It will continue to be my passion here because of all the amazing work I have seen being done in Colombia and around the world. Together my kids and family are choosing to support this initiative changing lives for families and children in impoverished areas. Captain Phillips was great at reminding people that as long as they stay committed and believe in themselves there’s no telling how far you can go. I asked Payton who impressed her most or what the takeaway was from the experience. She enjoyed seeing Hannah Alper, because she is young and inspiring and she has a blog and also seems to takes protecting the environment seriously. She has a big, powerful voice for someone 11 years old and has been writing since she turned 9. Payton also really thought Craig and Marc Kielburger of Free The Children and Me to We made the biggest impact on her. At the age Payton is, Craig Kielburger, had travelled the world inspired by the advocacy of a 12-year-old boy who had worked in a carpet factory and been murdered for speaking out. It was a defining moment for Kielburger who took the story to his school and asked classmates to help him stop child labour. Eleven of his classmates jumped on board and ended up forming Free the Children with him. What began as that small group of kids has grown into an international charity that has changed the world, built 650 schools and school rooms in developing countries, providing education to 55,000 children every day. For me there were two standout speakers that moved me. Amanda Lindhout is a Canadian author, humanitarian, speaker and activist who rose from poverty and educated herself as a journalist. But during one of her trips in 2008 in an area of southern Somalia she was kidnapped by Islamic insurgents. She survived captivity for 460 days and chooses to be positive about the experience and use it to build others up. That’s an amazing outlook after something so traumatic. But the girl who knocked my socks off and had me fighting back tears was Ashley Rose Murphy, 16, a motivational youth speaker living with Aids, adopted into a family of ten children. Almost all the kids in Ashley Rose Murphy’s family have special needs and many lost their birth parents to addictions. Ashley was born with Aids and was not expected to survive. But over and over she battled and beat the odds and she now speaks about overcoming obstacles and living with AIDS. She referred also to the fact that most of the kids in her family also volunteer regardless of their disability. They have all found a way to give back. We Day Waterloo 2014 was free to thousands of students because of co-title sponsors Blackberry, Telus and RBC. What’s new this year is the WE365 app that we downloaded already and have been using. I like the app because it is a really positive space for kids to connect and set goals, even if it’s something relatively simple like stopping bullies from being mean at school. It’s good for youth mental health and self esteem. It’s just a very positive app. I look forward to using the app and helping my kids find their passion for volunteerism and their spark. They are very passionate about a lot of things. I hope to bring my youngest daughter to We Day also some day soon.

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Five Jobs Kids Can Do When Your Family Is Moving

Paula — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 14:24:00 +0000

Kids can and should help when moving. After all they are part of the family and moving is a massive undertaking. So why not get them involved. We found several easy ways to get our kids involved and invested in the process of moving to our new house. It’s no big secret that our family is moving. I have been writing about the process for weeks and getting prepared to move for months now. Finally the countdown is on. On Valentine’s Day weekend our family will move out of our first home and into one that will give us a bit more space to grow. We are very excited about moving to a new neighbourhood and decorating a new house. My kids have cycled through a number of stages and emotions during the getting ready to move process. But we have dealt with all of them so far as they come up. I’m not going to lie, the moving process is exhausting and expensive and I wouldn’t want to do this too often. But we are almost there. With kids. This is our first time moving with kids. We stayed put out of necessity for 14 years. Now moving with kids is a lot different than moving without kids. For instance, we had one tenth of the stuff we do now when we first moved into this house. Kids come with a lot of toys and gadgets and clothes. But you know all that. In the last few weeks we have come up with a few ways to engage the kids in the moving process. I wanted to share those with you today. Five Ways Kids Can Help When You Are Moving 1. Decluttering: Decluttering is the best place to start. Remind them they have outgrown some toys, books, clothes and then get sorting. I supervised this activity and we passed a lot of clothing and toys on to other kids we know. My kids are mini hoarders. They hate parting with anything. Everything has sentimental value. But knowing that some of their precious outfits and toys went to a friend, made that a bit easier to tolerate. Also I reminded them it’s less lifting in the long run. 2. Packing Boxes: Self explanatory. They can pack their clothes and toys on the weekends slowly if you have a long closing date. It helps to get ready. Also made this a supervised activity to be sure they didn’t just throw all the clothes in a lump. (That said if they are struggling with this task, that can be a strategy. Use an empty box and have them turn it into a basketball game tossing toys into it from across the room.) Everything is fun when it is a game. 3. Labelling Boxes: What child doesn’t love a Sharpie marker? My girls have been scrawling their names in cursive all over boxes. I have also handed out some stickers so they can make the boxes their own. I MAY, or May not, have enjoyed this part myself getting in on the sticker action. 4. Address Change Notices If they can print legibly they can help fill out the address notices. It helps them get used to memorizing the new address. 5. Heavy Lifting We have had all hands on deck for some of this heavy lifting because, as you can see, we decluttered and filled a storage locker with boxes before we staged the house for sale. Both of my kids do pretty well with lifting and one of them really benefits from the activity. (Any child with sensory processing disorder knows how useful that heavy muscle work can be in getting their bodies organized and their brains focused. ) This heavy lifting works year round. Obviously don’t give them anything filled with encyclopedias or fine China. Looking for other ideas of ways kids can pitch in at home on a regular basis? Why not check out this printable chore chart for kids. Have you moved with children? Did you get them involved in helping?

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