"Balloon Park"

In hopes to encourage more polite behavior and for our children to remember to say "please" and "thank you" without being prompted, Geoff and I decided to institute an incentive program.  Every time we caught our children being kind or polite we would ask them to put a "polite puff" in a mason jar and if they did things that were complete opposite of polite behavior, we would have them take one out.  Once the jar was filled, we would visit "Pump It Up" (an indoor venue of huge, inflatable bounce houses).  Hylie refers to this place as the "Balloon Park".  Well, I can't even remember when we started this whole thing, but it has been MONTHS and MONTHS of trying to get our kids to just say please or thank you on their own...they still don't seem to remember to say these magic words, but somehow the 'Polite Puff Jar' was filled.  I admit, I was reluctant to take the kids because my dreams of hearing kind and thankful words automatically roll off our children's tongues still has not happened...but a bargain is a bargain.  We went and the kids had a blast...and yes, we had to remind them to say thank you at the end of the event. *sigh*