Our Lemonade Stand

Last summer I saw cute lemonade stand stuff at Target. 

I bought it. 

This summer, I put "lemonade stand" on our to do list. 

I had big plans of the perfect location, but today I realized that I don't really want a lot of business. I just wanted a source for some coins to further our introduction to money with the boys. Ever since the tooth fairy gave them each a dollar, they've realized that it's cool to have money. 

Isaac lost his first tooth letter F from a cavity (then filling, then root canal, then extraction). The tooth fairy gave him a dollar. I had big plans of talking about breaking the dollar down into coins and paying tithing and saving etc. Steven took him to the dollar store and gave the 7 cents w/o Isaac knowing about tax. Steven and I should have done some planning. We haven't had planning meetings lately. Side note, I think we should have presidency meetings like I do (did) with other presidencies I've been in with school, church, and PCDHA. Our family could be amazing with some regularly scheduled presidency meetings. Anyway, even after the tooth fairy came for Dylan's letter P tooth, Steven took Dylan to the dollar section of Target. Dylan is smart and wanted to hold out for the back of the store's good toys. Luckily there was still a money lesson to be learned there because Steven helped Isaac with the 7 cent tax but didn't want to help Dylan with the 30 something dollar remainder of the price of some big Spider man toy. So Dylan decided to save his money. Cool! I have some time to figure out some sort of money lesson. I have plans on doing some sort of family economy which will include an earned allowance. It's not going to be in full effect until they are a little older, but since they're interested in money now - I need to at least plan! My dad suggested that age 8 is a good age and is THE age of accountability and the time when he gave me my first ledger (and made me use it. I hated finding money b/c I'd have to log it and it wasn't worth the dime or whatever coin I found.) Last week, we got out their cute missionary savings bank from my friend Danielle and dumped some coins out and practiced paying tithing with it. (They'll pay tithing on it again, but that's okay.) 

Back to today. Malia and Noah didn't come over, so I decided that since we had the supplies, we'd just do the lemonade stand in our front yard. We got a late start because Dylan's piano teacher came and her son wanted to swim. I put the babies down (Ivy still came) for a nap and I leafed the pool while feeling guilty that Tyler wasn't outside with us. But I felt good that I could clean the leaves off of the bottom of the pool b/c when Tyler's with me, my hands are tied and I'm unable to be productive. 

Then we rushed outside to set up our silly stand. 

Garbage men came and swept a trash can that dumped trash out (who doesn't bag their trash in the cans?!). We handed them free lemonade for their service. The guy gave us $.50 and said "you're running a business, take it." how fun - our first transaction! 

 The boys loved it.

 Tyler woke up. I wanted him to b/c he had his lemon shirt from our neighbors!

 Our neighbors came over, 4 houses of neighbors came! And some other drivers, a walker, and a kid on a bike - we gave him some for free.

We had books and toys and ate lunch and time didn't matter. 

Until, that is, I realized I was hot, Ivy started to smell stinky, both babies wanted my lap, we had already eaten our PB&Js, and I was done. Dylan wanted to stay to make more money and I had a text that an uncle might stop by so we stayed. That 5 minutes longer put me over the edge and I wasn't happy any more. I took the babies in to cry by the door while I snuck things in through the garage and kitchen door. The boys alternated sitting in time out because they weren't helping up to par. I took off my lemonade skirt an was just in my swimsuit when my step dad showed up. I was happy to see him and had calmed down by then, but I still had not changed or fed the babies. There were comments of me being supermom for having a lemonade stand. Sitting there finally feeding both babies their milk with couch cushions all over the living room knowing that we'd have ramen noodles for dinner, I was grateful for big kids who do know how to have fun and know how to help and truely do want me to be happy and I was thankful that Don had come over for his glass of lemonade in time to help hold a baby even though he too had been working all morning and was starving. He even fixed our window so it won't keep popping out b/c my kids love to be up in the window sill.

We practiced an Olympic gymnastics sport - by taping a fat piece of masking tape down on the carpet for a balance beam. I fell off. Twice. We started writing some letters then I noticed it was cloudy and the light was perfect for Tyler's 1 year picture. So I took it! It took like 2 minutes b/c I put everything out there ready for him. He got to go in the pool for his reward - skinny dipping style which is his favorite. I cleaned a bathroom and we showered. We ate our Ramen with peas after I took a tiny nap with my Tyler. My mom even offered to watch my boys, but I declined. Even though it's exhausting having so much fun, we cleaned the play room and took turns reading books. I had never read an "A B Seas" book of some kind that we had, that's crazy. 

So the moral of the story isn't that we made $9.22 from our lemonade stand; it's that I love being with my boys. Really being with them and doing what they like because I've given them the learning/playing environment. And I need a maid b/c in order to blog, the clean dishes in the dish washer are STILL in the way of the dirty ones in my sink. 

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 And I figured out (for a 2nd time - I should take notes) how to make a .gif file of my growing baby boy!

(He was saying "go" and was pointing to the pool.)