Daughter

We aren't quite sure what do to with our daughter.  She couldn't careless about punishments and she couldn't care less about rewards.  Sure sometimes we send her to time out and she screams bloody murder, but sometimes I try to feed her favorite meal and she screams bloody murder, so that doesn't seem to an accurate judge.  Overall she does she wants no matter what the rest of us do.

too soon

I have been saving paper packaging, from Amazon packages and fragile purchases.  Wouldn't my living room look so idyllic this Christmas, if we have no store bought wrapping paper? Brown paper, newspaper, and pretty ribbon.  I read last year about how bad christmas was for the enviroment, and it really struck a cord with me.  I see no purpose to buy wrapping paper. I haven't bought it since.
Until I bought wrapping paper last week before the birthday party, I felt ghetto going to an expensive birthday party without real wrapping.  Which is so lame of me, that is the last place I should give up my ideals.
Think about it, at least I would much rather spend $4 on a spool of ribbon than on wrapping paper.  Plus Michaels has ribbon for sale all the time for a dollar.  I bought solid color wrapping paper like that makes it any better.
Here are some great examples:
flibbertigibbetblog
whitemousecreations

FHE- Escape from Bagel

Remember the Tower of Bagel story?  Well weeks ago, a month ago, something, I found this picture of the Tower of Babel, which my son was fascinated with for days.  I kept the link open on the internet, and he would just stare. Somewhere along the lines I found this idea to make a tower of babel out of cake for the activity/treat of family home evening.  So four weeks ago, or more, J gave his first family home evening lesson.  I think I mentioned that before.  His topic the Brother of Jared and family leaving Babel for the promise land. He watched the scripture movie of it a bunch of times during Monday afternoon so he could learn the story again, we used the book, and I and his dad helped, but the point is he was learning. Before it was his job to tell the story in FHE he told me the story a half a dozen times, I think he froze up when the attention was on him. Then we had a super fun activity, that I found online from an unknown source at this point.  Brent thought it was a little weird that we were building the Tower of Babel out of cake. 

 They all fell over after three bricks.

 Best part, never in her life will her mom give her this much cake again.

 Daddy thought he could make his higher.

It fell down after three bricks.
A cake mix box at 7,000 ft can sometimes make A LOT of cake.  It all depends on the humidity I guess. Last week when I make cupcakes it is suppose to make 36 instead of 24 at this altitude, and I've always had a ton of batter since moving here, until last week, I got 24.  Wierd huh? All that cake on the table, came from one box.

FHE- Title of Liberty

Two weeks ago my son asked to have a family home evening on the Title of Liberty.  Two weeks ago we had multiple families over for dinner.  I hosted a joyschool bbq, so everyone could know each other and families better,  ie so my husband can know who my friends were, and who their husband's were, to prove to him he actually does have something in common with my friend's husbands.  Our daughters all being in preschool together just happened to be happy coincident. But I digress, like all other bloggers out there.
Last night we had family home evening on the Title of Liberty.  Sure I could have prepared a lesson fit for a five year old myself, but why, we were given the internet for a reason.
But why my son wanted a lesson on the Title of Liberty remains a mystery.  We have never had a lesson on it before so how does he know about it?  Book of Mormon DVD?  Maybe, I like to say it was a result of my fine taste in art.  He has had this picture in his room for two years of so.  Although he could have asked his dad, I have no memory of telling him what the picture is. That picture is by far my favorite artistic rendition of The Title of Liberty.  And being a God fearing Political Scientist how could I not have it in my son's room. Although I'm thinking about moving it after this lesson, I remembered how much I like it, and so maybe the whole family wants to see it more.
So I googled FHE Title of Liberty, and found lots and lots of lessons.  But in my fine form, I used the church's scripture stories. They make it so simple and to the point, and truthful! I honestly didn't even read the other lessons. I also used this coloring page, for my daughter, from Mormon Share. Nan and Dad colored while J and discussed the title of Liberty, Captain Moroni and Amalickiah. I always want my husband to take over teaching, I'm convinced he is better at it than I am.  For goodness sakes, he stole me away and made me a mom before I got to go on a mission, so since he has a mission under his belt he must be better.  But since I am the one that spend the last 4 years in Primary, there is a chance he doesn't think he needs to take over.
After the Book of Mormon reader we talked about the flag being a symbol to remind us of something important.  We talked about other symbols in our life. J brought up pictures of the temple in our a house (from our family home evening lesson three weeks), we mentioned, CTR rings, the american flag outside our neighbors house out our front window, wedding rings, etc. (My husband learned something there, apparently he didn't know his ring was suppose to remind him of the covenants he made when we married.)
So that is the secret to our great family home evening.  After the lesson, J declared it was time to make the Title of Liberty.  So I ran upstairs found a scrap of material, and pulled up a sharpy.  J found a stick in the backyard while I heated up the glue gun. Tah Dah

It just happens to be the same color as in Walter Rane's painting.  I didn't even realize until this afternoon. We finished up with a bowl of ice cream.  Then we cut off my son's hair, his first hair cut since we moved.  yes, we moved in May.
Our Title of Liberty is now in a vase with a bunch of fabric flowers, in the living room to remind us
 "In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children."
Oh actually I did scan a few lessons, one had a great idea, as a family come up with your own Title of Liberty, but that was a little beyond my children's comprehension, I didn't even try.

Good ol' Days

Don't you wished I blogged more often like the good ol' days?
I do, I wish I did everything more often.  I feel like I do nothing, but yet feel busy all the time.

Last night I went to a 6 year old's birthday party, with one of my new BFFs.  Ok, so maybe she isn't a BFF, but I do talk to her almost every day other than Saturday. I'm talking about another mom by the way.  Our son's are in the same Kindergarten class, and our daughters are in joyschool together.  Anyway, so of course the entire Kindergarten class was invited to the birthday party.  We decided to carpool the 35 minute drive to the event center, since we live in a small town there is no Chuck E Cheese's near by. The party wasn't at Chucks, but it could have been. We left our daughters home with their daddies.  I had never been to a child's birthday party like that as an adult.  It was weird, because of the size of the party place, parent of the kindergarten was required to attend, by birthday boy's mom's request. It was 20 kids, 20 parents, a few babies, and a few other siblings in a party room.  Mass Chaos.  I had some good chats with other moms.  One other mormon mom in the class told me last year at her daughter's party, one of the school friend's mom told her she had never been to a birthday party at a house.  Us other mormon mommies laughed. My BFF and I mentioned to another mom our daughters were in co-op preschool together.  She didn't know what that was, we explained that we take turns teaching at our houses, she said she had never heard of anything like that before.  I though ah yes, us Mormons are weird bunch, so thrifty and industrious.  We run our own preschools and throw our children birthday parties at our houses. Another mom asked me if since I was from Utah if I was mormon, I said yes.  The conversation proceeded to her asking me if I went to Utah State because I didn't get into BYU, I said no I got in, I just decided not to go there.  She said oh, all my study friends as CSU were mormons who didn't get into BYU.  Well alright.  This same mom's daughter has a crush on my son.  She thinks he has the cutest voice and wonders if he was born with it.  The mom and daughter are also a fan of his hair.  My son is apparently irresistible with his curly brown locks and big brown eyes.
Back to the birthday party, I have never seen a child get so many presents in my life.  Nor did I ever see the birthday boy smile.  He ripped open each present and waved it in the air and asked do I have this already?  Then he would put it down and grab the next one.  He didn't seem to light up when he saw his cake with all his friends gathered around.  I have a stoic child too, but I wondered what was the point in spending $200+ on a birthday party if your child doesn't even smile.  I think I'll stick to my home birthday parties for now, my children laugh and smile the whole time.  But maybe that's because they aren't over stimulated with a room full of 50 people. (No, I will not pass out invitations at school, because I have no intention of inviting 25 people to my child's 6th birthday party.) We then spent the next hour barely talking or seeing anyone else from school as we played in the arcade. At 8:30 we traded in our tickets for a large plastic crayon coin bank.  It reminded me of the first time I was at arcade thing with tickets.  You see all the fancy prizes hanging up for all to see, thinking oh that is what I want.  You play for an hour or so, waste at least $20, get barely a handful of tickets, walk past the people with HUGE piles of tickets on the floor under their game, and you trade in your small handful for a crappy plastic toy worth 50 cent.  Ahh, fun, now I remember what I'm so unfun. I have no intention of returning to that event center anytime soon.

Help

I need help.  A year ago or so we read a book from the library about a bovine circus I think.  Yet, I can't find the title again.  Darn it, anyone heard of such a thing? By the way it was a children's book about a little girl.

Labor Day

Over Labor Day, my father in law and sister in law came to visit us.  

 Grandpa shares many interests with my children, like rocks.

 But I'm a loser and didn't take out my camera, so I have no pictures of the kids with Auntie Kim. She took the pictures of my kids with grandpa.

 We hiked to Monument Rock while they were here.

 Oh look my husband took a pictures of the Aunt and Niece.

 Oh look I took a picture with my husband's camera, is he jumping or falling, the world may never know.

 Actually I'll tell you that is the second time he is jumping up to do chin ups, I thought he was so cute, I made him do it again so I could take pictures of him. My son was on a mini one.

They came so my sister in law could run a marathon, but I didn't include those pictures because I figured it was her story not mine. Actually she told me she wanted a cuter race outfit so I didn't include her pictures.  Which is exact how I felt when I saw the pictures took of me hiking.  Holy smokes, I looked awful, I couldn't find my normal hat, and I'm worried about my scalp getting skin cancer with as much as it burns here.  So I look like I'm wearing a trucker hat, except we all know those have been in style since before I was a mom.  Plus my shorts with my boots, oh I need to look hotter when I'm hiking.

Exciting Saturdays

I'm pretty sure everyone has more exciting Saturdays than me, because the internet is so boring today and no one wants to talk to me on the phone.  But whats a girl to do when her husband is working until after noon, and then he wants to rest from working all week plus half Saturday.
Turns out I hate shopping.  When I go shopping I have a specific thing in mind that I need, and then I have to shop around to a bunch of stores hoping to find it.  That's a lie I don't shop around, I go only to Kohl's, Walmart, Ross, Target and Sam's Club, and never all in the same month. Yes, I'm awesome, unless I need jeans then its aeropostale I go.  I bring up the shopping because lots of people go shopping on the weekend, or their kid's sports games, but that is apparently against the rules in this family.
But I'm totally off topic.  The topic is reading.  It seems like I haven't been reading lately, because I haven't.  I've been watching a lot of netflix and its getting really not entertaining.  I decided to have a personal Jane Austen Seminar this past summer.  I read all her books, and watch a ton of film adaptations. I really liked Northanger Abbey as I told you, and went on to Mansfield Park.  Well Fanny Price bore me from the second chapter, maybe it wasn't her, maybe it was her relatives, anyway, I can not move on until I finish Mansfield Park, unfortunately I still have 250 pages to go! I'm so bored, and not reading any other books.  Blah.
I have the post school started blues. I spent all summer waiting for my kids to be in school so I go shopping in peace, now its the last thing I want to do, it turns out it had nothing to do with them, I just hate shopping. Overall I'm burned out, and its not Fanny Price's fault, its my sunbeams, eight children is a lot, when half are extremely defiant and love to run away. I'm hoping they all run away during Sunday's Primary Program, then I can sit up there by my lonesome and enjoy being alone. I chase them down when we are in class, but there is no way I'm going to chase anyone in front of 300 people. It would be blissful to be alone.
I really want to paint my bedroom, but I'm made a vow to myself that I need to touch up the paint in the rest of the rooms before I buy more paint.  You know how your tape pulls off some paint and you have to fix it or you look a week later and figure out your second coat totally didn't cover the texturing on one wall. Yeah I have a lot of that.  I'm but putting it off, but I realized my kids are in the swing of school, its time to start.  Then I got like majorly sick yesterday.  It was a bummer.  I have nothing to do being sick, because as I said my book is boring, and netflix is un-entertaining.  You can't paint, sew, shop, or garden when you don't feel good.  In effort to nip in it the bum I took two Excedrin when I woke up.  Like I said I blame it on my sunbeams.  When I got called I was told I had three problem children, then a fourth moved in, and we were still chugging and I was enjoy the sweetness of the small children. Although this fourth problem child was by far the hardest of the four.  Then the fifth problem child moved in, I wanted to cry. The presidency constantly tells me how the fifth is by far the worst.  But it turned out the fourth and fifth were always on vacation at opposite times, so I was able to chug, then school started, vacations ended and my team teacher when to college, and now I'm so burned out I spend half the week laying on the couch pumping headache medicine. When I woke up I tried remind myself only three more months, but that was wrong, three more months until my daughter turns three.  Its four more months, I don't know if I'll last.
And you know I need a better weekend life so I don't blog about all my life problems.

Markers

Anybody out there that knows a lot about child development?  Why do people always say crayons are better for little ones than markers?

Big Girl Bed

Oh I wanted to cry yesterday.  My husband set up my daughter's big girl bed. She stayed in it all night long, didn't crawl out once!

 I know bedrails are very controversial.  But I like a bed on a frame, and I've heard after a night or two kids learn not to fall out, but I like to make the big kid bed appear like a crib with walls. I'm not sure if the green dust ruff I had in my closet matches. She totally loves her big girl bed, and is so proud of it.

Although tonight while I was at back to school night, Brent was putting them to bed.  She wouldn't pick up her toys Brent told her if she didn't pick up her toys she had to sleep in the crib, we just moved it to the other side of the room for a few weeks/months.  She willing slept in her crib.  That little stinker!

Back to School Night

I went to back to school night as a kindergarten's mom.  It was totally weird, but also a lot of fun.  My friend picked me up and we sat in mini chairs together, then wandered around the school together.  We met most of the Specials teachers.  I didn't care a lick about what the kindergarten teacher said, they are learning letters and numbers, been there done that two years ago, but oh their music teacher and art teacher seems so awesome, just the type of teachers you hope to have enriching your child's mind.  Yes, I care heck a lot more about music and art than reading, writing and math.  I want his creativity expanded. Although their science curriculum sounds fun.

Walking to Kindergarten

As I think I've mentioned, we walk to school, usually two-three times a week.  If Nan has joyschool we don't have time to walk.  Although my legs are felling the pain of a .9 of a mile to school, J is liberated.  He runs the whole way stopping when he can no longer see me.  .6 of the distance is along one road, that leads directly to the school.  At that point J could totally walk it by himself,  I could turn around after saying good  bye and walk back up the hill. But as a mother doesn't that sound terrifying?! He is only 5 and half. Then I read this article.

As recently as 1979, "... a six-year-old, in addition to having a couple of permanent teeth and knowing left from right, the book asks:Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend’s home?"

Hmm, I'm thinking at the last next year he is totally walking the last .6 of a mile himself, he is hardly alone, there is mass hoard of children walking, with a few moms and strollers.  Maybe next spring we'll start practicing. Right now we are practicing him getting the mail, by next spring he is totally walking the 10 houses down to the mail box, looking both ways crossing at a cross walk, unlock the mailbox, get the mail, relock the mailbox, cross the street again, and walking home.  Oh yes, that is the goal for barely age 6.  If that goes well, then we'll start the second half of the walk to school by himself.
By the way I love this checklist, even if it is 30 years old. I plan on trying to accomplish it by next summer. Well more like 10 houses, not 10 blocks. By far the hardest thing will be teaching him to ride a two wheel bike.  We so did not accomplish that this summer, but he can pedal without help!  Wahoo.

Halloween AHH!

I try really hard not to jump the gun with holidays, at least not out loud.  Unfortunately for you, our friends were over yesterday, the wife told me we were all dressing up, and we were going trick-or-treating together.  Now in the last 18 hours I've become obsessed.
Yesterday she said, "we are running out of time",
I said, "its two months",
she said "I know, I got to get ready if I'm making costumes".
Well now I have a partner in crime and so I can't conceal it to myself anymore.
Last year was the first time Brent and I have ever dressed up, it was so fun, even if we looked so lame.  So I've actually been thinking of ideas for the whole family.

• Alice in Wonderland, for my daughter, I could be the Queen of Hearts, J said he wanted to be a rabbit, so its perfect. Only I don't think I can convince my husband on this, he already said no to the Mad Hatter. But there is always the caterpillar, the King of Hearts, or a whole other list of Characters. Although this would not be Disney's Alice.  I would never wear this.
• We could be supers.  But not superman, or the Incredible, just our super family, because we are super. Remember super J cape, I could design a whole outfit around that cape, then make some for the rest of us.  Amazing J, Crazy N, Super Mom, and Big Daddy, it would be awesome! Do you think I can get Brent to wear a cape for Halloween? I'd let him shy away from spandex or underwear as outwear.
• Or Ghostbusters as we were talking with our friends, I said one of the best costumes I ever made was Brent's Ghostbuster costume.  They said do you still have it do it again, no one here has seen it.  Good point.  At which point J said I want to be a Ghost again, which is not the first time he has uttered that.  My friend's husband/Brent's friend told me I should totally dress up as the lady with the big glasses, I haven't seen Ghostbusters since I was a kid and so I googled it, that was sort of a lame person.  So I wouldn't dress up as that, but I saw plenty of girls dressed up as Ghostbusters on google images, so I thought we'll that covers three of us. 
• Everytime J and I talk about Halloween, Nan says she wants to be a pink butterfly.  (We already have that so it would be easy, but would it be lame?! if she already has the dress up.) I really want her to be a blue butterfly since that was some of the first words she said, but we have pink. We need to make antennas.

 

Nan wants to be a pink princess after our friend's showing her a picture of Princess Bumblegum. I wouldn't dress her up as Princess Bumblegum since that is what they are doing, but I could make her a princess dress since I know she would love it. But I think I've decided against a princess, she has years of begging to be a princess, I don't want to do that, until she is really old enough to really want it. I do actually have a princess dress at my mom's house, but I don't think I'm ready to wear that.  Its green and gold and was used for High School choir.

I dream up dressing both my children up a cowboy and cowgirl, they both have boots, but I'm pretty sure I can't convince J on that one, even though he has the boots and Nan's boots are gigantic and will fit at least another year, so that is really low on the list. Although Brent and I could dress up as Indians, that would be super funny to me, like we stole some homesteader's kids. If you knew know his family its even funnier.

J also mentioned a Lego Rock monster, here's hoping he forgets that.

Overall I can't wait to until a future year when I have a baby for halloween, I dream about these baby gnomes, because I've never seen anything cuter.  (No I'm not pregnant.)

Frowny Face

As a parent we are can be strict and very laissez faire all at the same time. We expect our children to be obedient immediately, or consequences follow. Our children are excepted to be well behaved at other people's houses, they are expected to eat all their dinner (age appropriate), etc.  But at the same time they are suppose to be masters of themselves, I do not entertain them, they are suppose to clean up after themselves.  I keep markers and scissors where they can reach them at all times.  We have only had a few incidences with the markers, and since they can always reach kid scissors, nothing seems to go bad, a toddler doesn't have the coordination, and the older child knows the rules and there is no novelty. I never do my children's art projects for, I will help them, but I never finish when they get bored.   Whenever we see art J and I discuss what we like or don't like about it.  Art is about expression not following the rules.  But like I said we do have ground rules, everyone knows we do not color on the table and absolutely do not color anywhere else. We are big believers in cause and effect.

This all being said, I've always been a bit concerned about my son in elementary school.  Elementary students do a lot of art projects, but the main purpose seems to be following directions not making self expression. Yesterday was the first day we had to pay the pied piper.  (That's not true we had one incidence in preschool, where I thought J was suppose to make a project, but it turned out to be mom making it for him, so we had to redo it.  I was surprised we didn't have more incidences in preschool.)   So yesterday our first hiccup.  Everyday J comes home with a behavioral calendar. The goal is to come home with a sticker.  Yesterday he had a frowny face, and it said, "J did not use his center materials nicely.  That is why he has a blue hand." I thought what?  blue hand? its a frowny face not a hand.  Then I looked over his palm was blue, I thought weird? they punish kids by inking their hand? Then I realized oh he made his hand blue. I asked him about it he looked thoroughly confused.  They were making finger prints and he put his whole hand in, and got in trouble.  I said did you know you weren't suppose to put your whole hand in?  He said no, and looked at me confused.  J is pretty cautious of breaking the rules, he didn't looked ashamed at all, he just looked confused. We talked about it again, and I could tell he still didn't understand, and I honestly didn't know what to tell him. Yes, this will a new experience for him, he knows how to follow the rules, but not when it comes to art. I personally think creatively will enrich a brain more than following directions, but what do I know.

Yet another reason...

Speaking of Temples, I wanted to tell you yet another reason I adore my husband. Right before we moved I bought a picture of the Mount Timpanogos Temple, since that is where we got married.  Then my loving husband bought me the matching frame Sacred Grove picture.

 I figured it was perfect for our living room.  Two most important things to me, my family and my religion. A picture of the place religion started, and the place my family began right smack in the center of my house.

(Yes, I know they are off centered from the couch, we moved the couch, and the pictures were actually quite difficult to hang, so I just ignore it.) But then I got a thinking a few months later, that my family really needs to see the temple we live by.  It really needs to be front in center in our home.  So luckily Lil' Luna came through for me.  I downloaded the picture, edited it a bit, printed a 5x7 and hung it up. Unfortunately my wood frames don't quite match. But I love it anyway.

 Although I'm not quite sure if my children can see it since they are short. Its the principle right?

When I asked my husband is two pictures of the temple too much for one room?  He said Nonsense, you can never have to many pictures of the temple.  And right then and there, I fell in love with him all over again.