Child Labor

Daddy and Addison went on a special errand that none of us were allowed to know about.  It was Daddy's idea and once Addison was privy to the information she was on board with it.   This is what we found out about after it was all said and done....

Saturday morning Daddy thought it was a good idea for Addison to earn some money.  And since our kids only earn "money" for extra work (not the usual daily "contributions" aka chores).  So, since Daddy's car needed a good cleaning - as it always does - they headed off to the carwash and cleaned it inside and out.  Daddy made sure to let Addison earn her money and he said she did a lot of the grunt work and worked really hard.  So proud of her.

In the midst of the cleaning action

Posing by the vacuum.  It was a cold and rainy day but that didn't deter this little hard worker.

After they were done cleaning the car, Daddy paid her $10.00 (Wayyyy more than I ever earned as a child!) but of course with the money came some choices of what she'd like to do with it.  He kept reiterating that it was HER money and she could CHOOSE whatever she wanted to do with it.  In the end, she said she'd like to go to the store and buy Christmas presents for her Mom and brother and sister.  (She even said she wanted to pay her tithing with it too!).  I was so proud to hear of what she chose.  I wasn't surprised by any means.  She is a very thoughtful and kind daughter and sister and it totally sounded like something she would choose to do with her hard earned money.  Daddy even told her a couple of times during their shopping trip that she could put the gifts away and just buy herself a toy if she wanted and she insisted that she wanted to buy the gifts.  She had so much fun picking out exactly what she thought each of us would want for Christmas.  

Here she is handing her money to the cashier.  All that hard earned money.

Riding home with her Christmas treasures for her family.

The two secret santa's posing for the camera.

Wrapping the present she picked out for Jonas.

Posing by her presents she picked out (Mommy was lucky to get two from her!)

Once again, she was so proud of her secret treasures that she worked so hard for.

Since this was all done about a week or so before Christmas, it was so fun to hear her talk about the presents and get so excited about keeping them all a secret from us.  You could totally see just how much she enjoyed the "giving" part of Christmas.  Especially because on Christmas Day instead of being excited to open HER presents from Santa she kept asking if we could open the presents she bought us first.  She couldn't contain her excitement for us to open them.  She got Mommy some glow bracelets and a necklace.  She got Brooklyn a soft toy rattle and she bought Jonas a Hot Wheels car.  You could tell she had given each of them so much thought and we were very excited to get them.  The biggest gift of it all was watching her excitement in working hard for something and sacrificing for her family and being so happy to do all of that.  I'm very grateful for Addison and beyond grateful that she is our oldest child.  I have no doubts that she will be a GREAT example to her younger brother and sister as they grow up.  We are lucky and blessed to be her parents.  Such a good girly.