We have officially gone from a two cell phone family to a three cell phone family!

Here’s my confession –I absolutely LOVE it!

We told Allie that she would get a phone when she joined youth (6th grade). When students come to youth the majority of them have phones and we use text and social media to send them reminders and news. So that was the deal.
She was waiting…not patiently…but she was waiting….
…..mentioning how she couldn’t wait to have her own phone.
…..bargaining with us to get it for her right when she finished fifth grade instead of the end of the summer when she would be technically starting sixth.

And we caved. We went ahead and surprised her with it after she spent a weekend away at a church event. I promise she had tears in her eyes.

We explained to her that never would I have ever imagined being 11 years old and having an iphone. We told her that her chores were now to be treated like a job—like a for real job! We hold her chores to a much higher standard and have stressed to her that we no longer have to remind her to do her chores. It’s her job. If she wants that phone, she has to earn it. She has lost it as punishment one time in the month or so that she has had it, but it showed her that we were serious.

She loves having a phone. We have pretty high parental control settings, so she cannot access the internet (except for chosen sites- Disney, Discovery kids, national geographic, you know- the good stuff). That is her only complaint….and we are not caving on that.

She has gone out-of-town with her daddy since she got her own phone. I loved getting texts and picture from her the whole time.
I just love having access to her and knowing that she has access to me!

She is a good kid and has stepped up and handled this new responsibility beautifully!

This was the first picture that she ever sent me the day after getting her phone-

she captioned it- “rocking out to t swift”

Gosh, I love that girl!