A family car night

For some reason the boys (and mostly Reid) have been VERY difficult lately. Reid has been back talking, not listening, etc. Russ and I can barely finish a sentence before he is adding his own two cents about whatever it is. We're giving warning after warning that he better start listening, etc. Well, 'warnings' ran out this weekend! We decided that we were going to have to really crack down for a while before this gets too out of hand. So, on Sunday there was no tv or DS all day and no scooter for the first half of the day. Reid is a HUGE tv fan so we knew this was difficult for him.

Honestly, we ended up having a pretty good day. Did some playing outside in a water slide with the neighbors, turned our sprinklers on, rode our bikes, etc. We made the kids pack it up at 7:00 and head inside for showers as we were going to stick to bedtime.

Once showers were done, instead of watching some cartoons we took the rug with roads on it out of Ryan's bedroom into our living room along with a collection of matchbox cars. We had a lot of fun playing cars, etc. Whatever car I had, the boys ended up wanting and whichever house I said I was living in - Ryan said he was living with me. There was no escaping! Daddy was not too good at sharing the cop car and pulled all of our cars over for silly items too. :) We had a lot of fun and I don't think the boys really missed the tv at all... Hmm... this was supposed to be punishment, right? Actually, we weren't trying to 'punish' them so much as get their behavior back on track - and not being glued to the tv always seems to help that.

In the same sense, we made the decision that DisneyXD is banned from our house - at least for now. I think it's tailored to a much older child, younger teenager and Russ and I neither one like how the kids (Zach and Cody, Zeke and Luther) on some of those shows act, etc. Reid has been copping quite an attitude lately and we think that is some of the influence. I figured out how to use the parental controls on the cable box and blocked that channel. I told Reid this morning and he was a bit bummed but quickly got over it and went to Disney Kids... and The Magic School Bus is much more comforting to me! I don't need an 11/12 year old acting kid any too early!

Here are pics from our "Car" night...