Monkey see, monkey do....but in a good way :)

About a week or so ago, I was in my home office reading one of my friends blogs (Hi Kristin!!). Kristin has a daughter in my daughter's class at school. So, I was sitting there reading about her daughter's business (she's only 7!) and my daughter walks into my office and saw a picture of her friend on the computer. She thought that was pretty cool! I explained to her what a blog was and of course she wanted to see more pictures of her friend on the computer. She thought that was pretty cool that her friend had a "web site". Then, I showed her ours :) So, we spend a little while looking over the blog and when we were done, Hailey was amazed at this little girl's "business". Of course, she wanted to do it too. I'm sure not to "copy" her or anything, I just think she was inspired. Actually, once she learned that she could make MONEY she wanted to do it :)

At first, she wanted to do what her friend was doing. I wouldn't allow her to do that. She spend a few days trying to figure something out that she could do, and let me tell you, she has some pretty crazy ideas! This was fun for her though, and she literally was so excited over trying to figure out what she could do. We had the conversation about doing something you love, follow your passion. Horses are her passion, so she wanted to think of something to do with that. After her riding lesson this week, she was giving her horse a treat and was commenting on how "yucky" they smelled and asked her instructor what was in them (that made them smell so gross). Our instructor, Elizabeth, explained to her that it was just some oats, molasses, and a few other things probably like salt and sugar. Hailey said, "did you make them"?, and the instructor told her that she had bought them at the feed store. On the way home, something clicked in Hailey's little head and she had decided that SHE wanted to make horse treats and asked me if we could find those things at the store. So, we went home and later I googled "horse treats" for her to see if it was something that was easy enough for a 7 yr old to do. Sure enough, the ingredients were very easy to find. In the process of searching for horse treat recipes we came across dog treat recipes so she decided she wanted to make some of those too.

She has her own money (she helped rake her great-grandmothers yard this weekend) so a day or so later when I went grocery shopping she brought it along to buy her stuff. She was so cute...and so excited. I'm not sure if she was so much excited abou the business and selling part of the whole thing as much as just the fact that she was doing something on her own, with no help from me. Well, other than me looking up recipes for her. She gets her stuff an imediately starts creating when we get home. I explained to her that I was not going to help her, that this was HER thing. I think she liked that! Other than turning the oven on for her, I haven't done one ounce of work making these little treats. She even grated carrot herself (over my watchful eye though), rolled out dough with a rolling pin...I was actually pretty impressed on what she could do by herself.

She made a batch of horse treats and a batch of peanut butter dog biscuts this weekend and she was so proud of them. While I was at work sunday night she told me she saw a neighbor and their dog walk by and she knew they eventually had to come back to get to their house so she went outside with a couple dog treats in hopes that she could give the dog one on their way back. Isaiah was out there with her. She was brave enough to ask the neighbor if she could give the dog a treat she had made. Isaiah said the man asked what was in them (out of curiosity since the dog loved them) and Isaiah said she was so cute in explaining to the man how she made them. I wish I could have seen it! She then brought some to school yesterday to give to her teacher, since her teacher has two dogs. She's just so proud of herself, it's adorable. If she never sells ONE treat ever, it will still be such a great experience for her! She really gets so much joy in watching our dog, Buddy, beg for more :) Thank you, Jessalyn, for being an inspiration to Hailey and giving her this experience and excitement.

This is what has been going on at our house the last week or so (and YES I do make Hailey clean up the mess by her herself! Amazing how well they can clean when the want to, huh?!):





I love how she came up with the idea to make cat-shaped dog treats!!