The Artist gets a showing, and I pay my kids in fake money.

Evie's taken a few acrylic painting classes in the last year, and two weeks ago her teacher asked us to bring in her latest for a local art show. On Saturday, she and I went to the opening reception - can I just tell you how proud I am of my talented girl?

Now, I know - I'm biased. I'm her mom, that's a given. But my girl - who doodles on every scrap of paper she can get her hand on - really has some talent.

Art is the one thing Evie's stuck with in the six years she's been trying different activities. Ballet, gymnastics, piano, soccer, tae kwon do - the only things that have stuck are her love of reading, art, and swimming. And dinosaurs. Evie's always loved dinosaurs.

Right now she's planning on being a museum Paleontologist, with art as a hobby on the side. I think I'm going to push for just art :)

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While watching Diary of  Wimpy Kid - Roderick Rules with the kids a couple months ago, I got a genius idea that I stole from the movie - Mom Bucks! I rarely, if ever, have cash on hand, so that makes it difficult to pay allowances. I'd usually let weeks go by until they pestered me to pay them, at which point I'd owe Evie and William $20 or $30 each. And then there's always the risk of losing real cash - William is notorious for misplacing things. So I ordered some fake money from Amazon

and started doling it out. It looks just like real money, only 2/3 the size. I write their initials on the bills when I give them out, so everyone knows whose it it, if it gets left laying around. If they see something they want to buy while we're out, I'll pay for it and they give me Mom Bucks when we get back home. So far it's working really well! Evie's saving for an iPad, so I told her when she gets to $100, she can trade in her money and I'll transfer $100 from our back account to her savings account. That way we don't end up shelling out a chunk for her iPad all at once :) The little kids get the concept, and are excited when pay day rolls around every Friday. And since I have a box of play money in the kitchen, pay day happens more regularly now. I thought about doing something fancy to mark everyone's bills differently, but keeping track of who's stamp was whose was kind of a pain - so I just use a sharpie - not very crafty, but there you are, it works. Helpful hints from Harried Mom for those of you like me :)