To the beat...

Andrew is the proud new owner of his own set of drumsticks! Our drummer at church had given him a pair, and one of the pair rolled into some crevice somewhere, never to be seen again.
He actually needed a smaller, lighter pair (5A's, he'll tell you!), and so we set up a system for him to earn the money to buy them.
After calling the music store to find out the price, I drew a set of drumsticks and marked them off into increments, each standing for one dollar. The first space was for his tithe on the money he was earning, and the rest of the spaces went towards the drumsticks. And then he was a busy, cheerful beaver, vacuuming, carrying in groceries, collecting the trash, starting the boys' laundry and then getting it into the dryer, etc.
It was a great experience on many levels. He is so proud of his drumsticks, and practices diligently. (Our drummer at church gives him mini-lessons of drills to practice...nothing we push, as he's so young-it's just what he wants to do)! Having earned the money for them himself, he does take very good care of them.
It was a good step into the whole earning/tithing/spending arena, as we have struggled with the best way to implement allowances, etc...and so in our indecision of what's best to do, we haven't done anything with it! Any suggestions on that are welcome!
And one other grand thing about the drumsticks scenario is that it helped us re-vamp our chores structure. Andrew graduated from feeding the dog to alternating every other day between vacuuming and collecting the trash, and Jacob began his solo on feeding the dog! It's been working great, though Abby is starting to look a little thin...