Reverence Rocks!!

I just realized that it has been forever since I posted anything. I am sorry to any and all who have been checking and thinking I am lame...I am lame:)

Anyways, yesterday I had an "A-AH" moment with my children. Every 6 months our church has a General Conference which is broadcast from Salt Lake City, UT. We usually watch it over the internet or go to someone's house and watch it on cable. This time I decided that the boys were old enough to watch all 4 sessions and that we needed to make that commitment as a family and stick to it. Well, Saturday had two 2 hour sessions and by the end I was getting seriously frustrated that the boys just can't sit and color and listen! They would sit and watch a movie for hours if I would let them, but if it is something good for them they won't sit for 5 minutes:) I started to have some serious doubts about our decision to watch all 4 sessions, but then I had an idea.

I got out an empty glass jar and some extra decorative rocks I had in a drawer and then I told the boys we were going to play a game called: Reverence Rocks!! The game was simple. Every 5 minutes of reverence earned them each a rock. Every colored picture earned a rock. Various word searches completed earned rocks as well. They love games and so they were amazing--especially when they learned that irreverence meant rocks could be taken away! If they could fill the jar before the end of the session then they got a special treat. It worked wonders:) Not only did they listen more quietly, but they could tell me stuff they learned as well. All this minus complaints!!!! This was definitly inspired so I am passing it along to all of you. If you ever need your kids to have some quiet play time or reverent participation give it a shot. Their treat was an otter pop~nothing too big. You may guess correctly from that that I am a "mean" mom who doesn't let her kids eat sugar treats that often, but this way they work as more effective motivators and the boys really don't miss them at all. (Seriously, I think I still have some Halloween candy stashed in the cupboard and I know there is still some candy from stockings in there too...)