...just another Mom?

So what happened to me?

2011-12-16T07:51:00.000-08:00

I feel like I dropped off the side of the earth in relation to this blog (for those who don't know, I have another blog to help me track my family history research). I had a lot of fun in the Ukraine, but I am struggling to finish blogging about it. In my head I have the entries, pictures, etc. but I just can't get it down. I think it is in part what I have been juggling since I got home as well as what the Ukraine is.

Since I got home I have been appointed to two more positions (Secretary of the Children's Sunday School Program in our church and to the GPS Community Budget Committee). While I feel ready for these opportunities in my life, getting sick and having sick kids is knocking me off my feet.

Then there is the way I feel about the Ukraine. It is a beautiful and wonderful place and yet it is also a sad hopeless place. There are so many museums dedicated to remember the travesties of communism/Russia domination (the Museum of the Starvation, etc) that helps you to understand how evil it is, and yet many of the country want to re-instill the former type of government. It makes me think of the biblical story of the Hebrews being led out of Egypt begging Moses to take them back to Egypt to be slaves. I mix that with what I see in our country today, and it greatly concerns me the mentality that government is suppose to take care of us, even if that means we become their slaves.

Having said and felt all this, I would go back to the Ukraine if the right opportunity came up. I would have a few requirements (like I would have to learn Russian first and I would have to have an opportunity to build up the current situation). So with that I will leave the history part of this trip undone knowing that emotional part of this trip is completed. I enjoyed having a week and a half with my sweetheart as well as spent a considerable amount of that time examining the perspective of another culture/society and letting that have sway in my heart.

Locks of Love?

2011-11-12T11:21:00.001-08:00

This is a very common tradition in the Ukraine. They place a lock on the bridges after they get married. It is difficult to see in the picture with Jeff, but there are literally hundreds of locks in the picture. Jeff says that once they get a bridge all "filled up" then they come along and cut off all the locks so that more can be added. What a wonderful tradition.

All aboard!

2011-11-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

This was our return trip from Odessa. A nine hour train ride. We got a sleeping compartment that we shared with Jeff's parents. These are his parents infront of us.

This is Jeff following me down the narrow hallway to our compartment.

This is Jeff in their with his mother. This is not a bad idea. If you must be on a train for so long, I guess this would be a good way to go. The trip down was not bad for me other than my nights and days being messed up, but the trip back I started experiencing claustrophobia half way through the night. We were on the top bunks (mine was on the left here and Jeff's is above his head while his parents had the bottom bunks). I forgot that for me Claustrophobia gets worse when I am tired or run down. I was more than ready to get off the train. I am not even going to try to describe the bathrooms on these trains. I will just share that I washed them completely before I used them.

Another bird man

2011-11-08T19:30:00.000-08:00

Do you recognize that fedora? Yep, that is Grandpa Park. He currently has a huge Eagle on his arm. Yep, they have the same tourist traps here that we did in Kiev. Remember our doves? He got a real kick out of it. He was at the top of the stairs of Odessa port. These are literally about 14 flight of about 20-30 stairs a piece (or at least it felt that long). These are pretty famous stairs although I never heard of them before we decided to come to Odessa.

2011-11-08T19:18:00.000-08:00

This was a fun restaurant that had amazing food. It sits on the beach of the Black Sea in Odessa. We really enjoyed a delightful dinner with Jeff's parents and some friends of theirs. This was suppose to be Christopher Columbus's ship.

This is me in "another sea". So far I have been in the Dead, Red, and Med(itreanean) seas. I have also been to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I am afraid that those two are not all that glamorous, but I think the seas may make up for that! It was chilly. The weather was probably low 70's, the water was definitately colder than that. Although after this summer, I have realized that I don't care to go to an (unheated) pool unless it is 100+ degrees or in July or August. I am just not a cold water girl.

I can honestly say this was the funnest vacation. It was a lovely opportunity for Jeff and I to relax and enjoy each other. We got to spend a lot of time alone during the day and in the evenings we had the company of our parents (Park). It was really lovely.

This is us at the ballet. I am not really into the ballet, but thought we ought to give it a try since we were going to be in the Ukraine (AKA former Russia province). It was great. We got $6 tickets, but I thought our seats were wonderful. Unfortunately jet lag was still getting me, so I slept through part of it. It seems that whenever Malicifient came out, I fell asleep. So I remember everything except her.

Architecture in Odessa

2011-11-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Odessa is on the shore of the Black Sea. The story says that many years ago when Odessa was first being built up that the town gave land to anyone who would build of building of "interest". So many of the buildings have fantastic architecture. Unfortunately that was many years ago, and so we saw many building literally falling apart. We were also able to discern some of the short cuts that were taken. For example one building that we saw had dowels, 2x4's and paper to build up the stone looking edifice and then they put mortar on top. Makes me think a bit of the facades that were famous through out the west in the United States. The picture above is actually a cathedral.

This is the train station. One might think it was just a judicious use of an old building, but rather it was designed like this and it's original purpose was as a train station. I was amazed by how many statues, columns, pilasters, etc there were in these buildings.

No idea what this building is for, but I loved the color of it! Even in this picture you just don't get how strong and beautiful the color of green was. Amazing architectural decorations!

This is the side of the Opera house, the front is below. Now one expects an opera house or cathedral to be this decorated. You should see the inside, statues everywhere. It actually made it difficult to get to our seats because a lot of people were posing on the stairs, etc to get pictures of this amazing place. I guess I was tired of the crowd because I did not take a picture of the stairs or hallway. Once we got in to our seats I did take a few pictures which I will show in the next post.

Independence Square - first half

2011-11-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

Have you seen "Despicable Me"? Our kids love to pretend they are holding up a building, etc in a picture that is in reality just a perspective twist on taking pictures. Jeff is "holding" the sceptere looking statue that is in actuality about 1/4 mile away. We took pictures like this thinking the kids would think they were hysterical.

This is a street vendor looking to make some money off of us. I did not know what he was doing with these birds. He had one in his hand and the other was on the ground. He stomped right by it and it hopped up on his outstretched hand. Then the man walked over and put them on me (without my permission) and poked Jeff and told him to take a picture. So yes, this is mostly my initial reaction. I got a little use to it as the next picture shows. Jeff got pushed into the picture and the man took our camera to take this picture. I was a little hesitant and apprehensive trying to memorize what he looked like in case he ran away with our camera (not that we have an expensive camera at all). Then after he gave our camera back he charged us about $8. I laughed because I realized this was what he did all day, watched for people showing interest in his birds, dumping the birds on them, taking their pictures, and then charging them after the fact. Not a bad Capitalistic gig.

St Sophia's Greek Orthodox Church

2011-11-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

This is a lovely picture I got of off a Google search. It shows the really pretty color of the church. When we first got there we just sat for about twenty minutes and relaxed. This is the stop that made me realize how hard it is to travel in non-English speaking foreign lands. Most of the time I have traveled (in Europe, Middle East, Africa) there have always been lots of English signs, English speakers, tour guides, etc. This was the first time I went to a foreign country and had none of those to help me. Jeff was with me so he was able to navigate us around quite a bit, but he speaks and reads Russian, not Ukrainian. With the liberation of the Ukraine from Russia, there has been a bit of National Pride which has replaced a lot of the former Russian name plates, descriptions, menu's etc with Ukrainian.

To enter the compound you have to go through the bell tower. We finished our visit by climbing up the tower. I knew it did not bode well when we started our trek up the tower through a hole in the wall. It was not much larger than we are. It caused me to wonder how people who were larger than Jeff and I would be able to make it into such places, however, now that I reflect on it I only recalled seeing two people who were overweight (by appearances) and at that nothing compared to what we see in the United States. This may have to do with the amount of walking one must do in the Ukraine or it could do with the amount of support we give in the United States to make all places accessible to all people.

Now to the part I would prefer to avoid, but will share anyway. First of all I have a slight claustrophobia which for the most part I dealt with just fine. The bell tower brought out my acrophobia. I was OK as long as I kept my self looking forward or at my feet. If I looked over the side from the stairs, oh, it was not good. I found at the second level up I was able to go up to fine. It had a solid complete floor. Then we had to go up about 3 more flights of stairs to the third level to which I basically clung to the walls (go ahead and start laughing now). Jeff wanted to go to the top level, I told him to go for it, I wasn't going up anymore stairs. I should have taken a picture of the stairs for you. They looked like they were glued up, no iron beams, no walls, etc. The were "caged in" so that you could not drop something off the side of the stairs.

These last two pictures are ours. It really is a beautiful place to visit.

The Golden Gates

2011-10-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

I have heard about these before...the Golden Gates. This was the entrance to Kiev when it had a city wall build entirely around it. Legend has that it had Golden Gates, but now it has none at all. Usually you can walk through it, but this day they were having some type of film festival and they had blocked the entrance so that they could watch movies inside.

This shows what it originally looked like. Obviously the dirt and timbers extended out to the left and right of the gate, but it is "earth thrown up with a workmanship of timbers above" that. I had heard of how cities defended themselves this way, but had never seen an actual representation of it. As soon as I saw this, it clicked with the description in my head.

This is the side where they had a monument to someone (we were not always able to decipher statues, etc. For some crazy reason they rarely had anything listed in English. Sometimes they did not even have it in Russian preferring to have it in Ukrainian only.). I don't have a picture of the monument but let me tell you that when they do monuments, they are serious about it. They are almost always huge.

This is on the 3rd or 4th floor? I lost count. Lots of climbing in this fort. You can see over my shoulder our next stop, St. Sophia's.

Dayover in Switzerland

2011-10-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

We had the opportunity to spend the day in Switzerland on a trip out to the Ukraine. Zwitzerland is a beautiful country. We visited in Zurich with one of my best friends from high school Cathy. She has lived there for a year or two, but has always been a big world traveler. She took the day off from work and walked us around to see the beautiful architecture, teach us about the culture there, catch up on old times, and also took us to lunch.

This is us having cheese fondue at a side walk cafe. That car that is approaching us is probably about the only one that came down that way during our lunch.

This is Cathy looking smashing, and me goofy. Yeah, that was probably par for high school too. Cathy is a wonderful friend and a beautiful lady. I am so glad that we had the chance to catch up after twenty years, and here is my secret confession - I only joined FB so I could catch up with good friends like her!

Wow, I am not sure if it is normally this sunny, but we managed to get great weather here (and for most of our trip).

Our trip begins!

2011-10-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

This is Jeff and I three hours before our flight leaves on Tuesday morning. We are the only ones at the gate. We flew through security (which if I remember correctly Jeff got his first of several extra screenings on this trip) and breezed through to the gate to sit and wait for 2 and a half hours. We were a little tired (we got up at 4:30 am) and just enjoyed the opportunity to read and relax. We are unaccustomed to such activities and have decided that must be what R & R(read and relax) stand for. This was such an unusual thing for us we actually found waiting enjoyable. I could not help be reflect on our previous trip with the 6 kids on a discount airline (where we had to pay $40 for checked luggage) so we had each of the kids take a rolling suitcase and carry-on. Did I mention that the twins were 6 months old at the time? Did I mention that the oldest was 8? Did I mention we had 6 kids? I did not think to take a stroller, so Jeff and I were carrying the kids in addition to pulling our own rolling suitcase and carry-on and helping younger kids with their stuff. Just for the record MaggieMae's bag was not as heavy as the rest of us...come on the kid was three. Then there was the occasional nauseous kid, plane turbulence (did I mention we flew into a hurricane? Seriously, we were the last flight out of both airports, they had closed down all airlines and we only got to land cause we were so close. When we left the airport the rain was literally flying sideways). Oh, that was an eventful trip.

So memories of other trips made this one delightful, although I felt compelled to ask anyone who had small children if they needed help. They all turned me down. Let me warn you, if I am in the airport with lots of kids, and you ask me if I'd like help, I WILL say yes. I am not an idiot. I have never received an award for wrestling a stroller down a flight of stairs. Actually, I have never received an award for any of the labor intensive things I have undertaken so that my unusually large family can do the same things that many smaller families do without thought. And I am OK with that. I know what I do is because I want my family to enjoy life, not wait for it to happen. Which is just the reason why I found myself in the airport waiting for 2 and a half hours, because when given the chance, I am going to enjoy the world around me, with or without my kids.

Mommy will lava melt your eyes?

2011-09-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, this sweet little 4 year old girl actually asked me that question. The conversation went like this:

"Mommy will lava melt your eyes?

Yes, if lava touched your eyes they would melt it. Lava will melt almost anything.

"How bout my hands?"

Yes, it would melt your hands.

"What will it do to water?"

Water?

"Yes, will it melt water?"

Well, the water will cool the lava down and turn it to rock. The lava will turn the water to steam because the lava is so hot.

"Will it melt rocks?"

Yes, lava can melt rocks.

"Could it melt my ears?"

Yep, it could melt your ears.

And with that our conversation closed with me taking a picture of her making a face about her ears melting. My children are fun to chat with, fun to hang with and I never know what we are going to talk about next.

This year's rainbow cake

2011-09-23T15:11:00.000-07:00

Last year I made a two level round cake that was multi-color with white frosting and a skittle rainbow that went over the whole cake. Maggie wanted another one. I initially agreed, but then I flubbed up the day before and did not make it and foolishly I scheduled her party for 9:30 the next day. So I pondered a bit (my way of saying I was stressing a bit, mentioned it to God in my nightly prayer, and got this idea sent to my head) and came up with this.

Last year I mixed the cake mix in half a dozen bowls and then poured each one in the correct sequence to make a great cake that ended up splitting down the middle because it was so heavy/large? Anyway, I decided to switch to a 9x13 pan, and just put in different swirls of color as I went. Below is the pre-cooked cake, I wish I would have gotten a post cooked picture. It really looked awesome. I frosted the top of the cake and we put on a small (compared to last year's cake) rainbow of skittles and we were all set!

Doesn't this just look fun?

My American Dream

2011-09-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

The other day I was responding to a friend of mine about something she had posted on her blog, and it occurred to me what the "American Dream" is. For me, I think this is having the right and opportunity to be involved in the community around you to determine your future. This could be as simple as being involved in the PTO or voting for the President of the United States. But why do we do these things? I feel for the same reason that our colonial patriot's fought the Revolutionary war to improve things for our kids. Stop for a minute to ask yourself why you get involved in things beyond your home. The two reasons that come to my mind are 1) because you like the way it is going and you want to support a successful system so that the results can bless you and your posterity or 2) because you think the current system is not being successful and you want to correct it for yourself and your posterity. In the Colonial times, they felt they were being treated unfairly and wanted to be able to have a voice in the issues that affected them. In modern day I think about what I get involved in and why and they fall under these two reasons.

I think back to my perspective on this idea as a teenager. I thought the "American Dream" was a small house of your own with a white picket fence. That may be someone's dream, but it is not mine. I thought I would have to give up what I wanted to have the American Dream. Now I realize that the American Dream is something that we must all define, search for, and then in all probability create. For me, my American Dream is a place where people treat each other with respect and patience. Where we don't have to have laws to govern the people because we realize that we are not all the same, we don't all think the same, but we all deserve the same respect. A place where my huge 5 bedroom house has as much right to being on the block as a small three bedroom regardless of our fence out front. I have come to realize there are two ways that I can influence these ideas 1) by articulating them to the world and 2) teaching the children to understand and do them. These are the ways that mom's rock the nation. While many programs have been put into place to teach basic principles of respect and patience, it really comes back to the home (as do most things in our nation). This is what we as women (and men) need to understand that we determine the future by our actions now and choosing to be involved in the solutions.

Inside this brain...

2011-09-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

‎60 watt Type A lightbulb?!? Seriously do they have type B as well. Do type A's have a harsh light that gets everywhere, shows up on time, etc? Do B's only come on when they feel like it, a gentle influence, and everyone likes them even though they don't always get the job done?

Well, I posted this to Facebook to show my shock at this. I recently was trying to replace all the burned out light bulbs in my house. It seems we have different bulbs for each room. In our bathrooms we have the round bulbs - 4 bathrooms - 20 light bulbs. Then you can add in the nightlights in our house - only 4 we use, although we have more like 6 or 7 - but we were short replacement lights for a while - picked up 8 replacement bulbs. Then on top that we have can lights, ceiling fan lights, and fluorescent lights. And then lastly, we have a lone piano light. You know it sits on the back of the piano and you pull the chain and it lights up. This is where my sense of frustration ended and humor started. I read the description "‎60 watt Type A" and I had to laugh. All I could picture was this light bulb running around pointing it's finger at people and telling them they needed to finish doing this, that, or the other. I then thought of what a type B light bulb would then have to be like. My laid-back light bulb, works most of the time, but don't yell when it doesn't because it won't change it a thing. The only way you are ever going to change this light bulb is by removing it and replacing it with a Type A.

Reminds me a bit of my marriage when we first got married; one of us was more type A, the other more type B. Now time has passed and we both are more towards the middle of that spectrum, but I always giggle when my husband shows his Type A side (who knew?).

Side point - does this image look like a little man inside the bulb? He looks like he has no arms, but I can see that he is wearing these coke-bottle thick glasses, with a hat that has a halo over that. Just in case you needed another giggle.

In their footsteps

2011-09-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

One of the unifying things about us is that we were all little once. Some of us may still be little, but most of us grow up, move on, and move away. I am inspired by my children - their innocence, simpleness, and joy. I look to my childhood and see the same. I expect the same thoughts have occurred to my parents, grandparents and so on. We don't realize how connected we are to our future and our past. This is why I am starting this blog, to keep stories of my past, the past that came before my birth for my future - my children and so on.

I enjoy doing family history research. I have done it off and on for almost two decades. Recently I felt the Siren call of family history and started up again. I am amazed with how much has changed or been improved upon in the last 9 years. Until the internet, family search has been time consuming, arduous, and expensive. Now I can do it for 15 minutes searching libraries around the country while cooking dinner (and an extra bonus is I don't have to get a babysitter).

Recently I have been delving into Sons of the American Revolution applications, Pioneer indexes, and census' galore. I have also found journals shared by others through Ancestory.com. I have shared these via email with a few relatives, but now I am starting to get overwhelmed by the stories and sources. As a result, I have decided on this blog for keeping stories, pictures, etc. I might even through in an observation, how to do, etc so that it can be a complete resource for me as well as an over-the-top resource for my living relatives.

Games and more

2011-09-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

This is one of the gifts that Maggie got for her birthday - Princess Monopoly Junior. It is fairly fun game. We are enjoying our board game time in the afternoon's. Maggie continues to beat me almost every time, which I am flummoxed about because it is a total luck of the draw on this game. Oh, well just thankful that Jeff has not challenged me to it!

My girls and their hats

2011-09-04T15:54:00.000-07:00

Rosi was running around with Anna's hat on. I just thought it was too cute! I wish we lived in more of a "hat society". I am sure that will surprise some because I am so casual in much of my daily attire, but I think that a hat just finishes off an outfit so nicely. Now I am not talking about the baseball cap to cover my messy hair action that is so common today, but rather a well thought out outfit with a hat that accentuates the colors and them of the outfit. Even in the picture little Rosi has nicely color coordinated her outfit (down to her pacifier ribbon) albeit probably not a conscious thing.

Now lately you have probably noticed my hat wearing which has to do more with sun protection than coordinating with my outfits, but I have noticed that I am taking more thought to the clothes when I know that a hat is part of the outfit.

Last swim of the year

2011-09-02T15:27:00.000-07:00

This is Anna getting ready to dive. I should have had a great action shot, but I am still learning the new camera.

Our church rented out a swimming pool and had an end of the summer party. It was a lot of fun. I can't say that I socialized too much, but our family had fun together. Maggie, Rosi, and William had lots of fun putting mom and dad through the ringer but jumping from the side of the pool in quick continuous succession. I would not have thought I could do that for more than ten minutes, but I think we actually got up to around 20 minutes of it. The boys mostly enjoyed going down the swirly slide, and Anna with her friend Brook in tow, spent a lot of time on the dive board. Jeff wisked them all away about half way through and put them to bed (with a babysitter at home) and came back to join me. We got to splash around in the pool and I swam about 4 laps. Lots of fun!

My "Pretty, Pretty Princess"

2011-08-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

This is some more great 1-1 time with Maggie. We got to play one of her favorites - Pretty, Pretty, Princess. You go around the board picking up earings, bracelet, necklace, ring, and then for your crowning victory, yep, the crown. Maggie won this time. She wins a lot in our games. I don't try to let her win, but I am not as tough to beat as when I play against an adult. She does seem to have a fair amount of luck on these games.

It is fun to dress up with her, although I can never do the bracelet on my own.

I do enjoy this wonderful little girl and in many ways she has been my oasis in the desert of "mommyhood". Maggie will often come up to me and kindly tell me she loves me. She is very gentle, kind, and thoughtful. I enjoy her so much, and to top it all off, she is so cute!

You can still be manly and hang out in the kitchen

2011-08-29T14:59:00.000-07:00

I love this little guy! He is so much fun. In the 6 months he has struggled so much with speech and movement, but he is doing great. We are finding that he has quite the mischievous streak now that he has found his voice. While this picture is not showing a portion of that personality trait, it is showing off some of William's other interests...like his sister's shoes. I found him playing in the kitchen wearing his sister's white sandals. I went to grab the camera and all I can figure is that he figured out that at some point in the future he would be embarrassed by this and pulled them off. If you look close, you can see he had just finished pulling off his right sandal. We just giggle at these things. We know that he is surrounded by a lot of girls and we just love that he is getting so much more social and is having fun dressing himself.

Somewhere over the rainbow

2011-08-28T15:25:00.000-07:00

Top of Maggie's cake. Very yummy!

Line of Choristers

2011-08-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

A few years ago during church, and mostly out of frustration, I started helping whichever whiny child it was on my lap to "lead" the music much the way a chorister would. They quieted down and life was a little easier. Since then I have used it on numerous children and evidently the others were watching because now all of my children enjoy "leading the music".

This is "Family Home Evening". A tradition in our family that every Monday evening we turn off the TV, close our front door, and spend it with just our family. We usually incorporate a few songs, a lesson, activity, and hopefully a dessert. We have various success with this attempt. Some nights I want to run and hide, others like this one I want to...take a picture! I love all my kids, but even for me sometimes it is a lot to deal with. Savoring these sweet moments is wonderful (and necessary-not every melt down is solved by a little music lesson).

PS A special shout out to my friend Becky who taught me in our college years how to lead music by asking me to substitute every Sunday for Sacrament meeting.

My kind, um I mean Maggie's kind of birthday party!

2011-08-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

I asked Maggie what she wanted to do for her birthday this year. We have never had a friend party for her and she asked if she could invite some friends and dip chocolate. Maybe I should not have asked her so soon after we did this as a friend "playdate" for my older kids during the summer time. So we invited a few cousins and friends (Maggie is no respecter of persons or age, all in this picture were invited with the exception of me). We were just getting done dipping gummy bears and were starting in on the pretzels. All enjoyed the activity. We ended up not doing any other activities as the kids were happy doing some playing in the other room and my game activity did not work out as expected, so we cancelled it. All in all, it was a lot of fun and very low stress (again, my type of party). Happy birthday big girl!

Hungry, Hungry, Hippos

2011-08-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

This was probably the first day of school. I, like almost all people, make resolutions to spend more time with my kids. Little brother was sleeping, which makes this an unusual selection, but the girls wanted to play it. Hungry, Hungry, Hippos is a game I remember from my childhood, although I don't remember it being so obnoxiously loud as I feel it is now. We had fun each playing our own versions. Maggie was playing what most would call the "traditional method". Rosi was having a kick loading up the "loading trays". These are where the marbles go to wait until they are released into the furry of the game. Rosi had no qualms reaching into your "captured pool" of marbles to re-stock her fun. And mom, I got to try to balance the two players and keep everyone happy. Oh, it is fun to spend a good 20 minutes playing with the girls, however I definitely needed some "mommy quiet time" afterward. It is good for them to watch movies every once in a while, right?

Dress up

2011-08-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

Maggie helped Rosi get into this dress. I was impressed that they even found the headband with the ears and bow! Rosi loves this dress, but it is about 2 inches too long (I think it is actually 5 sizes too big). Rosi had fun running around in it, but got very frustrated with tripping. I followed her around for a bit holding it up, but I gave up.

This mom rocks!

2011-08-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while life parallels my emotions...in a good way! This morning is one of those days where while everything has not gone according to my plans, I have none-the-less had great achievements. I have gotten laundry washed, sorted, and put away with the kid's help (all my kids have about two weeks worth of clean clothes). I have washed dishes, and re-packaged 40 pounds of hamburger (bulk purchase in too large of containers to just shove into the freezer). I have bathed two babies, gotten three kids off to school, and I am sure half a dozen more things. But for me the most important parts are helping my kids feel successful and ready in getting ready for the day, having a good attitude all morning long, and did I mention playing games with Maggie after I successfully got two babies to sleep?

I am learning to measure success on my terms. For me, it is not about what most of the world values or gawk at, but rather helping my children take those baby steps to becoming successful, happy and independent individuals. I have seen a lot of success by giving them responsibilities to accomplish every morning and then assisting them with the chores. For example, the older three kids do dishes four times a week, two breakfast and two dinners, I tell them I am available to help them for the first 15 minutes after the meal is over. They can choose to waste that time or take advantage of it to their benefit. I know this means I am still doing dishes almost 100% of the time, but I am finding my kids quality of doing dishes improving, and I hope they are starting to learn how quickly and easy dishes really are.

This picture was actually taken a month ago, not today, but it so represent how happy our family feels when I am being successful for my family.

Books read - The Lost Symbol

2011-08-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

I read this book recently (on my husband's new E-reader) and found it to be fun and interesting. I learned a bit about Mason's through it. I have a grandpa and others who I have known who are/were Mason's. I thought it had an interesting perspective about symbolism. He described taking communion/sacrament that most Christian groups do every Sabbath. The way he described it to his college students, they were all repulsed. When he pointed out he was talking about communion (eating and drinking the symbolic equivalent of another person's flesh and blood) they thought he was describing some type of pagan or demonic cult. He then explained to them that often when outside the group, it can be difficult to understand symbolism.

The book on the whole was great. I had a difficult time putting it down to do what I needed to do (laundry, cooking, playing with my kids, etc), which was additionally challenging because it was a really long book, so I spent a lot of time in this dilemma. It was a fun book and I appreciate a book that causes me to stop and think about how I perceive the world around me.

How many...?

2011-08-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

Who can forget this commercial from our childhood days? How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie center? One...two...three...crunch...the world may never know. Very clever advertising. This is somewhat the way I feel about growing out my hair. Two weeks ago I shaved it bald. Now I anxiously await it's growth. My kids will tell you that it is no longer prickly. It is considered by most who rub it as being soft. So two weeks in it is soft although you can still see my scalp through it. And thus we will wait to see how long it will take to grow out.

kid's jokes and other funny things

2011-08-04T06:57:00.001-07:00

Brother: I love mommy with knockers.

Sister: What?
Brother: A mommy who tells knock knock jokes.

(this conversation was actually between a friend's kids)

MaggieMae: Mom, did you know that buggers are sticky?

Mom: Um yes (I am currently driving down the freeway)

MaggieMae: Mom, did you know that buggers are warm?

Mom: Um thanks.

In church, JJ is snuggling up with mom.

JJ: Mom, did you know it is warm under your arm (armpit)?

Mom: Yes JJ.

JJ: It is kind of cozy there. Can I put my hands there, they are cold?

I could never be a mother of six children...

2011-08-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

I could never be the mother of three autistic children... I could never be the mother of twins... And the list goes on. I often have comments made to me like this. I don't normally make the comment that comes to my mind when I hear this, "Yes, if you were in that position, you would do it". Much like the person who goes through a child having cancer or the spouse who has been paralyzed. We all find the way to make what we have work, but recently I have been giving this some thought as to how I am successful when so many others confess their certain inability to handle such a situation. The conclusion I came to is that I can do this because I am not the person I was when I was a mother of one. I think often people think of how much "work it is to be a mom of one" and times that by six. If I interacted with my children in the way I did when I was a mom of one, I would be exhausted (well, ok, I'd be even more exhausted). A beautiful analogy came to my mind the other day when grilling sandwiches for lunch. I realized that if I did each sandwich individually, that would be a lot more work, however, I have learned that if I cook six sandwiches at the same time, then the work is more than one, but significantly less that 6 times one. I reflected on this premise and decided that I must do that in other areas of my life. So I started on a hunt for other examples of this in my life. Here is what I came up with:

I often combine my children's needs together. For example, I cook for, bath, and dress my children together. I help them to understand that part of a family means being patient for each other and well as pulling together.
I encourage self-independence. My older kids are capable of bathing, dressing, washing clothes, folding and putting away their laundry, making their lunches, and following a morning "getting ready for the day" list. My toddlers walk most of the time.
I insist on consistent sleep times. My kids go to bed early(7/7:30) and may arise early if they want. They can not come out of bed until 6:00 am. Weekends and holidays are the same. We have one cousin that will spend the nights occasionally. When he joins our family he sleeps our schedule (which is his school night schedule). I find a well rested family is less emotional, performs activities and responsibilities more effectively and argue less.
I am very consistent with the rules, and expect all of my children to follow them. This has had many extra blessings, I am told by others that my children follow directions well and have good manners. While my children will still goof off, they know that there is a "bar" and expect to be help up to realistic expectations.
My children help out with chores. This usually starts around 5 years old. Before that they assist mom, after 5 they have their own chores that mom assists with when she is available. My kids do the dishes, laundry, scrub bathrooms, vacuum floors including stairs, and pull weeds.

These are some of the more physical changes of being a mom of six. Some of the emotional ones are letting your kids tough it out. I am very laid back when it comes to my kids as far as what they can do, etc. I am also very aware of what they are capable of and what is beyond them (usually emotionally). I don't push my kids beyond their limits, but I don't fret about the little things either. I also have realized that tomorrow is a do-over. When I mess something up or they do, we just do-over it tomorrow. Life is rarely a "do-or-die" situation. We focus a lot on learning and improving not on our failures.

So could I be a mother of a kid with cancer or have a spouse that is paralyzed? Yes, but I am fine to stay right where I am. Could you be a mother of six...mother of 3 kids with autism...mother of twin toddlers? I expect you could, but like most things in life it is a journey.

My advice? Don't worry about whether you could handle someone else's place in life, just focus on being where you are.

What is a talent?

2011-08-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

Wow, that is a big stack of coins! Got to love when your clip art is not exactly what you intended! I guess I need to work on my talent for matching up pictures to my posts a little bit better.

I picked this picture because I can not think of developing or having talents without thinking of the Parable of the Talents. I think that many people have very different definitions of what a talent is. For some it is a hobby that shows people how well you excel in a particular area (piano, dancing, etc). Others say a talent is a way to develop and discipline yourself/your personality (talent for mechanical things). Lastly we have a view that talents are the polite way of naming something about a person to give something that everyone can be successful at regardless if it brings any extended worth to the individual or society as a whole (that person is talented at flipping cards). For me I have not yet developed a concise description of what talents are, but I know they have a few qualities:

A talent must be developed over time through discipline. Some people are gifted in music, art, academics, etc but it is not a talent until you develop it beyond what comes naturally into something of greater worth because of your action to develop it.
A talent is not meant for self-consumption. It is meant to be shared in a positive uplifting manner to benefit the community individually or at large. There are some who will take a hobby which it's main focus is to entertain the individual, and claim it to be a talent. It is possible to have a talent be a hobby, but a hobby does not necessarily fit the definition of a talent.
A talent is meant to take you outside of your comfort zone in a comfortable way. It is a way of taking a leap of faith while having a hand to hold.
A talent develops you. It causes you to reach deep within yourself to bring forth what could not come out on it's own. It is a vehicle for you to develop such traits as patience, persistence, determination, humility, reaching out to others, etc.

On a personal note:

I think that a talent is based on creativity. Most often it creates something new. It is not talented to continually repeat something you have mastered in the past. You must continue to create new levels of competency and development.
I also believe that talents you develop now help you to prepare for the future, most importantly future trials.
I feel that development of a talent brings you closer to God. I know that when I have the opportunity to focus on drawing/painting, there is a peace and centeredness that I have experienced in only one other situation - the feelings of the Spirit. I feel a deep connection with the Creator as I create my meager attempts at art.

The Parable of the Talents is one of the more commonly known Parables (at least in the circles I travel in). It portrays the story of a Master leaving for a time, but before he does, he calls three of his servants to him. He gives them different sums of money (called Talents) one he gives 5, another 2, and the last he gives one. Then he departs. The servants that were given 5 and 2talents put their money to the traders and receive back 5 and 2 more Talents respectively. The servant that received but one talent buried it. When the Master comes back he calls all three back to him to give an accounting of what they have done with his Talents. The first two report back predictably showing him their increase. He is pleased. The final servant shows him the one Talent and says that he knew the Master was harsh and reaped where he had not sown and so he hid the talent. The Master is displeased with the servant telling him, "Thou wicked and slothful servant..." and takes the original Talent away from him and gives it to the first (St. Matt. 25:14-30).

Things that impact me from this story is that Talents are given to us to "add unto". In other words to improve upon. This is why I don't choose to say that people are talented just because they can do something well. It could be their "gift". I only consider it a talent if they have worked to improve and develop it. I also believe that one of the things we will be held accountable to when we leave this life to enter the next is what we did with our time and talents. We will be called upon to recon with the Lord and to show him what we did with what we had. I believe that time is part of that responsibility that we have. It is one of the ways we are equal. We all can choose to spend our time how we desire. Some with have to spend more time at work to support a family, others may have health needs that also take a lot of time, but we all seem to have some measure of discretionary time. I feel that one of the important things we can do with this time is developing our talents as well as helping those whom we have responsibility towards develop their talents.

Help vs. Control

2011-07-31T19:47:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of opinions of how to help someone when they need some help. Some will say you look at a situation and you do what in your wisdom needs to be done, others will say that you should ask the person in need of help and do only what they ask for, and many others will find a middle ground between those two ends of the spectrum. I remember my mom saying that she knew of a woman who was not able to vacuum her floors and when people offered to vacuum for her she said yes, and then instructed them that they must vacuum each area 5 times before going on to the next area of carpet. The question then asked is "are you helping if you only do it three times? Must you do it five times to be helpful? Is it appropriate to explain to her that, in your opinion, three times in enough to get all the dirt out"? Or do you just avoid doing this particular thing to help her so that there is no argument?

There have been a few times in my life when I have had to accept help. Twice I have been on bed rest and after the twins were born I had an emergency surgery. This gave us the opportunity to be helped by a lot of people. Some people brought in meals, others helped with taking care of the babies or older kids, a few friend even came over and did house cleaning. I learned pretty quickly that I had to be flexible about how they did things. I tried to also be open to suggestions they gave even if they went against my personal opinions. I found it was much easier for me to accept help from those who were open to direction or input. I found the help was also better for my family's benefit if those helping listened to my concerns and suggestions for effectiveness.

I have found when I am helping others that there are times that I am tempted to just jump in and do it my way, regardless of how they feel about it. I have learned that while this may be less work for me in the long run, or a safer route, that it breaks the trust and disrespects the person(s) you are trying to help. I remember at one point I was helping someone who was a hoarder. She kept everything. She also did not clean very much. Her house was not what most of us would have felt comfortable in. After I visited her in her home I would have to go home and take a shower and change clothes because the stench was so bad. When I was helping her do a "little cleaning" I asked her if I could throw certain things away (old newspapers, used litter boxes, empty food cans, etc) and she would inevitably say no. After some time I started throwing away items without asking anymore. I realized after the fact that I was making her decisions for her and that she would not be able to grow in the way she needed by me forcing this change. Unfortunately I realized that I had been caught up in controlling her instead of helping her like I had intended. There are other times that I have slipped into the controlling mode. It is something that with my children I have to be very careful of because it can come so easily in this relationship, but it will not help them learn what they need to.

I think that there is no right answer that will fit all possibilities when given the opportunity to help. Some guidelines I use in helping are these:

Is it within my limitations?
Will it bring comfort to the person I am serving?
Is it what they are asking for?
If I see an inconsistency between what they are asking and what appears to be needed, have I communicated that to them in a polite, respectful way?

In support of Stacey

2011-07-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

Recently I decided to cut my hair in support of my wonderful sister-in-law Stacey. She is such a good example to me. I am inspired when I go in her home and I have learned to take a few of the things she does well and apply them into my life. She is also such a wonderful match for my brother.

A few months ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has undergone a double mastectomy and has started chemo (all just days after she ran her first marathon). Two weeks ago she decided to cut her hair (he doctor suggested she just go ahead and do it, instead of waiting for her hair to fall out). This last week her husband shaved his bald and they sent me a picture.

I had been wondering what I could do to support them. Cutting my hair did not come immediately to my mind. I had finally had it the length I had been working towards for a long time. When the idea came to me, it came in the same way many other good ideas had. I had just a sweet peaceful feeling that I knew that was what I should do. I was intensely happy. I recognize this as the spirit of God in my life and felt like this is what I should do.

I called my husband and discussed it with him. He got hit out of left field by it. He had not thought of it at all. He recognized how I felt and he willingly supported me on it. He even helped me shave my head.

I still struggle with this. I know it shows her support, but I wish I could find some way to make her daily life easier.

Oh, and I have had a few people ask if it was hard. Yes, it was hard. I cried, my husband cried (I think) and a few of my children cried, but I felt like it was right and I have just had so much peace about it, I know it was right to do.

Lord De La Warr

2011-06-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

In fourth grade I can remember going to the auditorium to watch a movie. This movie was about Jamestown and the settling of the East Coast colonies. As I sat and watched (as much as any fourth grader paid attention) I saw this man. This name is Thomas West. As soon as I saw him, I knew that we were related. I don't know if it was inspiration or childish vanity. I just knew that his last name was the same as my mother's maiden name and I felt like we were related.

I went home that day and told my mother about it. This man's formal name was Lord De La Warr. I remember my mother calling and talking to my Grandma West, although it could have had nothing to do with this movie or ancestor, but I imagined that she was calling to let Grandma West know that I had learned something for her about family history. The humorous thing about this particular time in my life was when we were living in Wilmington, Delaware.

I clipped a little for the caption of his pictures from Wikipedia below. After the Powhatans killed the colony's governor, Lord Ratcliffe, and attacked the colony in the first First Anglo-Powhatan War, Lord De La Warr headed the contingent of 150 men who landed in Jamestown, Virginia on June 10, 1610, just in time to persuade the original settlers not to give up and go home to England. As a veteran of English campaigns against the Irish, De La Warr employed "Irish tactics" against the Indians: troops raided villages, burned houses, torched cornfields, and stole provisions; these tactics, identical to those practiced by the Powhatan themselves, proved effective. He had been appointed governor-for-life (and captain-general) of Virginia, and he outfitted their three ships and recruited and equipped those men at his own expense. Leaving his deputy Sir Samuel Argall (circa 1580 – circa 1626) in charge, Lord De La Warr returned to England and published a book about Virginia, The Relation of the Right Honourable the Lord De-La-Warre, of the Colonie, Planted in Virginia, in 1611. He remained the nominal governor, and he had received complaints from the Virginia settlers about Argall's tyranny in governing them for him, so Lord De La Warr set sail for Virginia again in 1618, to investigate those charges. He died at sea,en route to Virginia, and it was thought for many years that he had been buried in the Azores or at sea.

Thomas West, 3rd and 12th Baron De La Warr (9 July 1577 – 7 June 1618) was the Englishman after whom the bay, the river, and, consequently, an American Indian people and U.S. state, all later called "Delaware", were named.

To sleep or not to sleep...

2011-06-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

Doesn't this look cool? I always enjoy searching for pictures on-line. This baby cost $15,000. Although you have to admit it looks really cool. This is one of those things I'd get if money were no concern. Ah well, it is and so I am thankful to have a new mattress and box spring.

We got a "Beauty Rest" which is our attempt at upgrading. While we upgraded in quality, we down graded in size (to queen). We are having to get use to a firm bed (our last one was ultra saggy. I had to use pillows in bed with me at night to stabilize myself. Now the bed is so firm that I don't need pillows and am learning to sleep on my back. We are also adjusting to not having to climb out of the bed. It is a bit cozier than before but we seem to be adjusting to the smaller size just fine.

We may eventually decide to do a foam pad or the like to make the bed a bit softer, but we think we need to give it a week or so first. We had such a saggy bed for so long, we may have over-compensated. Unfortunately when I am in a frustrating situation for too long, then I have a tendency to over compensate (I know, I am human!). Jeff and I discussed this a bit before we decided on a bed and we felt that if it were too firm we could always do a topper, but if it were too soft, there was not a whole lot we could do to adjust it, so we decided to err on the side of caution.

bread and water...and that is it...

2011-06-12T08:26:00.001-07:00

Well, this week this is what was on our menu. Well, that was what was on my husband's menu and he was tickled about it. This week was started out by Maggie and Rosi puking all night long. Andrew and JJ followed suit in the next couple of days. Jeff woke up Thursday not feeling well and decided to stay home (an unusual event in and of itself).

Jeff thankfully did not get it as bad as his children, he did however decide that bread and water were the most exotic foods his stomach could handle. Around noon time he joked with me that it was like being in jail. By that time we had improved to Ramen Noodles by then. He thought it was delicious. As for me, well I felt crumby too, but it could have been from being up with everyone, or a very mild (thankfully) case of it. All in all, we are back to feeling good and doing better.

Fun on the way home from the park

2011-06-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

Why it is always good to have a camera with you. We got these fun shots on the way home from the park one day. The kids were exploring a neighbors front yard.

eating in duplicate

2011-06-09T07:08:00.001-07:00

I just love the repetition of this picture. It looks really cool design-wise to me.

Good bye high chairs, the babies have moved on. They are fairly certain they do not need high chairs anymore and often steal our chairs. So we gave up on the high chairs and are letting them sit in regular chairs (we had booster chairs for about months, but even those are passe` now, so it is "big kid chairs for our big kids.

Hard to believe I don't have babies anymore, but these two are definitely intent on becoming big.

Ripples in the pond

2011-06-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been reading a book which one of the characters talks often of "ripples in the pond". I don't think the idea of our actions affecting not only ourselves but those around us is a deep insight on my part. What I have been contemplating so much is how living a balanced life causes the needed ripples in our lives.

As individuals we often think of ourselves as an island where we pick and choose actions mainly focusing on how they will achieve what we are seeking. As a young married woman I quickly realized that my husband and my decisions had strong rebounding ripples on each other. For example, it is much easier to be in a happy, productive mood when my spouse is in a similar mood. We found that when we recognized this effect, we were able to be better united with each other. We also found that we had to sacrifice something for this. We had to be less of an island unto ourselves. As children blessed our home we found that this same relationship existed with them. I find that a simple decision of what to have for breakfast requires reflection on not only past breakfast meals, but also on mood, temperament, and conversations I had with my children the previous day. I can not decide to have my favorite breakfast meal two or three days in a row without causing consternation with several in my family. Again these observations are probably not new to most.

Now add a twist of what is rattling around in my brain. I sincerely believe that our skills are able to be moved from one area of our lives to another. For example, I am an artist by training (I have a BA of Art), however I don't think that anyone will ever think of me as an amazing artist. I feel one of the biggest gifts I received as an artist and in my years of learning more about art is that it developed a tremendous sense of patience within me. Now most don't know that I was an extremely impatient child. I think part of that is that "black and white" thinking my brain often functions in. I have a tendency to want the world to function logically and for everyone to just "follow the rules" which I feel helps things to fall into place. What I have come to realize is that I believe our talents are given to us to develop skills which will help us to overcome our weaknesses. As a mother of 6 who each seem to have their own struggles, I have often been complimented on my amazing amount of patience. I do have a lot of patience with them. I see them much like a work of art that takes slow, thoughtful development. I hope to some degree all will see them in future years and feel that they are indeed masterpieces. I feel a lot of what I need as a mother came to me through principles I learned in developing my interest in art. I think this is part of why we need to have balance in our lives.

I think that those who do not take the opportunity to develop true talents (I don't feel that activities like video games are talents) will be left without the skills to overcome their weaknesses. The ripples we need in our lives come often from within ourselves through the actions and relationships of our past.

Sometimes I come across weird things

2011-06-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

As a mom I am use to random and unpredictable things around me. Most of these take a lot of my energy as I try to be the stabilizing force in my family's life. I walked in the bathroom and found a half eaten sandwich. Wow, I would not have guessed that one. Now mind you I have have found milk in cupboards, peanut butter in the fridge, and other misplaced items. I have even occasionally been to blame for such misplaced items, but I just had to laugh when I found this abandoned sandwich in the bathroom.

Sometimes my family is so easily distracted that even things that seem as elementary as eating gets interrupted. It is a struggle to help my family to learn the skills of staying on task until task completion. Some members of my family are having great success with this lately. My cute hubby has taken it upon himself to develop this area of his life and is finding great satisfaction in the peace and direction it brings to himself as a result. It is also improving things within our home and we are seeing greater success at projects getting completed in available free time.

I have found for myself I can keep multiple activities going simultaneously and usually (unless severely sleep deprived) am able to keep up on them until completion. I have concerns about how to teach my children how to develop these skills. I know of many adults who struggle with completing things in their lives. I have observed highly talented people who because of their inability to complete tasks, have been passed up by those less talented but capable of task completion. As a mother, I want to help my children to develop talents which can be of great benefit in their lives, however I also realize without the ability to complete activities their talents, no matter how great, will be wasted.

I also think that ability to complete tasks can have a "spill over" effect by building self confidence and increasing success in interpersonal relationships. Hmmm, something more to ponder upon...

Some action shots

2011-06-05T10:29:00.001-07:00

The middle of the dancing. We did not have a "routine" memorized for our dance number. We just turned on the music and spontaneously danced. This was difficult for many students as it places a great amount of responsibility on the individual student. I thought it was great because I feel like I could dance to any type of music and did not have to follow a set pattern. Although it did make it a bit more difficult when I hit those points where I had to think, "what do I do next?"

The beginning of our dance

The finale

Belly dancing (Middle Eastern dance)

2011-06-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of my costume. You can't see the harem pants underneath, but they are the same color as the veil. I made (with some help from my mom) this costume myself. It is highly representational of the type of authentic costume worn by women in the Gaza or North African areas. Unlike Americanized belly dancing, these costumes are usually extremely modest. It is most important to have the legs covered. Covering the belly is an optional thing, but this particular area of the middle east has a full length costume.
Here is a picture of my cute 9 year old daughter with me. I adore her. She is growing up so fast. She came with Jeff to watch me in the dance show. They got to see a lot of different styles of dances that night.

I hope to be able to develop more skill in the belly dancing area of my life. I think I will have to wait until after the new year starts as I am hoping to take a Russian class this fall to help me learn and prepare for our trip to the Ukraine.

Our first...uh I mean Andrew's first pinewood derby!

2011-06-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

Andrew and Daddy learning how to sand the car after Daddy cut it.

MaggieMae wants to make a car too. She got the left overs which sort of look like a car shape.

This is Andrew's car - the green racer. She won her first race!

Family picture

2011-06-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

A nice family picture may happen someday. But this is what I have available right now. This was a very spontaneous picture. Not very clever background or anything, just the family, mostly happy, some matching...but we are all there.

I have a tough time with getting professional pictures because they cost a lot and they rarely get better than we do. Unfortunately we don't have success with professional photographers because they have a tendency to upset my kids when they are playing with them. And if I am going to end up with eyes closed, kids not cooperating, I'd rather spend 10 minutes that 2 hours doing it.

Twin help?

2011-05-31T15:20:00.000-07:00

Here is the start.

You can see the "sour cream" container Rosi has in her hand. I fill it half way with water and she and her brother go to work.

Here you can see their destination. Unfortunately while we have great sprinklers for the grass, it does not hit the area that we planted the seedlings in.

Wow, our backyard looks really big when you see our two one-year-olds in it.

Here is their service! They are watering AnnaLisa's cabbage and Maggie's pumpkin. This is really not the time of year to be growing things, but these were both seeds given to the girls as part of a lesson in school/primary. You can see how big the cabbage has gotten. The pumpkin plant got as many as four flowers on it, but the April/May weather is really too hot for these plants.

This particular morning they went back and forth about a dozen times.

Airshow in April

2011-05-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

We got a chance to check out some different aircraft. This first one is the insider of a bomber that had gone on about thirty missions and been in three movies.

Those are machine guns (on steroids I think) that my kids are standing next to.

This is a picture of all of us (just to prove that I do go on family outings!).

Summertime fun

2011-05-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Park Kids (Anna, Andrew, and JJ) have been planning fun for the summer!

We have been planning activities based off of books we have read (or are reading). Come join us for the fun. Contact mom (Kristina 940-5276) if you'd like to come so she knows how much to make.

June 2, 1:30-3:00 Girls – dipping pretzels into chocolate

inspired by Chocolate Fever – Robert Smith

June 9, 1:30-3:00 Boys – dipping pretzels into chocolate

inspired by Chocolate Fever – Robert Smith

June 23, 1:30-3:00 Boys making swords out of sugar cookies

inspired by Forging the Blade – R.L. Lafevers

June 30, 1:30-3:00 Girls - sugar cookies with Jolly Ranchers

inspired by Nancy Drew – Fashion Disaster

We will be adding activities as the summer passes. Check mom's blog, FB, or call to find out activities and times. Do you have any suggestions? We welcome those too! Are you looking for playdates? We got those too!

Andrew's baptism

2011-04-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

Everyone related to us (plus a few extra) that came to support Andrew at his baptism. Aunt Rebecca, Kevin, Natalie, Brandon, Danika, Tyler, Tim and Adriana (Blake) Binetez, Jared Blake, Jeff, William, Andrew, JJ, MaggieMae, AnnaLisa, Kristina, Grandpa Williams, RosiLee, Jade, Grandma Williams, Kathy, Jordan, Trent, and Isaiah.

Andrew and Daddy

Mommy and Andrew

Andrew got baptized on April 9, 2011. When I woke up in the morning with William, I noticed that Andrew was not in his bed. I came down stairs and noticed all the lights were out. He was smiling sitting in the dark in the family room covered in a blanket, but still sitting up very alert. I smiled to myself and asked him if he was excited about getting baptized today. He smiled even bigger (if that is possible) and said he could not wait.

We had a wonderful time at his baptism. He was a little down hearted to learn he was going to have to wait until second to be baptized because he was given the opportunity to allow a girl from our ward to be first (darn that chivalry). He had to get dunked twice because his foot came flying up. After Jeff was done baptizing him, Andrew told him he was very scared because he was not sure he would come back up. After his baptism I got to share a little about Andrew and the importance of following the Savior's example. I truly believe that Andrew knows what he is doing and is making a committed step in his life. Yes, he probably knows this is something that we as his parents value, but when you discuss this with him, he has such a strong knowledge of why baptism is important and what it means to him personally. I am amazed at the depth of his understanding and desire to do what is right.

We are very thankful for all our children, but on this day we are especially excited about Andrew's choices and are thankful for his wonderful happy countenance he adds to our home.

Bedlamites in the Garden of Weeden

2011-04-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

We watched General Conference today and one of the speakers spoke of sometimes parents are trying hard to teach their children the gospel and their children are causing all kind of bedlam. He then commented that it was worth it doing these important things (like daily family scripture study, family prayer, etc) even in the midst of Bedlamites. I loved it. Sometimes that is how it feels, like I am swimming upsteam and all my children are just going in the opposite direction because they don't yet know the importance of such activities in our home. That doesn't mean I should give up, just smile, remind myself they are being Bedlamites, and keep on lovin' away.

At the moment all these thoughts were running through my head, I glance over at Jeff and see him chuckling and nodding his head. I am not alone. There are two of us against the Bedlamites, we just might be successful yet.

Garden of Weeden

2011-04-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

Lately we have taken to paying the kids a penny a weed. One of the joys of having a large yard is that there is more space for weeds. We have had many waves of family weeding parties. I don't know who thinks this is a desert area we live in, we find plenty of lush green weeds! We all go out and weed together. After the first 25 or so kids really lose desire to be out there. Paying them has encouraged greater help. JJ has managed to earn about $1.50 in three weeding adventures.

JJ is using his new found wealth to finance another family adventure - Entanglement (a google puzzle game). They have the usual teasers of letting you play a few levels and then they pitch a paid for game for the low price of $3.95. The free version has been enough to satisfy Jeff and I. However the kids, JJ especially really want to get this paid for version. We told them to save up their money and JJ has already turned in about $1.20 towards the price. He is a hard worker.

As far as our Garden of Weeden goes, well, while we aren't looking forward to the work, we are very thankful for our very large yard even if it means we have weeds to take care of.

pizza time and the snitcheroo

2011-04-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

Here I am rolling out pizza dough and here is Rosi helping by taste testing it for me. Whew! No poisons or nothing in it/ :) Rosi loves to cook with me. She also loves eating dough (bread or pizza) as well as fresh ground flour (I have weird kids). She is just too funny to ignore.

Below is a picture of two loaves of bread that I made and while I chatted with Jeff a few minutes about how the babies were in need of a snack, Rosi comes around the corner holding the loaf of rising bread off of the counter and was plucking pinches of dough from the loaf. We were a little frustrated, but just busted out laughing at our determined and self-directed young girl.

AnnaLisa at the piano

2011-04-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

I love seeing my kids developing their talents. AnnaLisa has learned the basics of piano play and is working to develop it into a stronger talent. She has also recently gotten a recorder from school that she loves to play around on, but has yet to learn any songs.

We hope that she will continue to develop her wonderful piano skills as well as learning new ones! We love our beautiful girl and enjoy her music talents as well as other talents.

Reclining high chair

2011-03-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

What could be more relaxing than sitting in a reclining chair while eating? I don't know, but neither does William. He decided to take matters into his own hands when wanting to recline, or get down, or get moms attention and make her shout, "No!". Not always sure on this one's motivations. This is one kid who is so thankful he is so cute! - and good at unloading the dishwasher.

Tunnel of fun - playground pictures

2011-03-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

Having fun at the park.

Rosi helps mommy grind wheat

2011-03-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

1)Rosi is getting excited to start. She loves to help me grind wheat.

2) Shows how she likes to catch fresh ground flour on her finger and then she eats it (really! Notice she has flour on her lip/face).

3)Inevitably she makes a mess with all her "helping" and she is noticing the mess.

4) She is laughing off the mess with mom.

JJ enters a contest

2011-03-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Lego magazine comes to our home and tells us of vital information about the "lego"ing world. The most recent edition advertised a contest about inventing a new animal for the Lego zoo. JJ created this guy. Was he a moose-zebra or a cow-antelope? Can't remember, I will have to ask JJ about that one. I do love how Lego's help kids to create things and develop ideas. And of course I love my JJ too! He is a very terrific kid and so willing to do so much.

JJ rocks!

2011-03-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

This is JJ cleaning up his room. Every morning as part of getting ready for the day the kids make their beds and pick up any random things off of the floor. JJ was having a rocking morning when I took this picture. He was very pleased with how well he made his bed.

It is wonderful to me how much they have grown and become more capable of doing things for themselves. It may still not be important to them to clean, etc but at least they are capable and as they experience the world around them, they can then choose to use these skills they've developed.

Broken pipe, broken wall

2011-03-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

I always find it humorous when you have to break one thing to fix another. In this case, Jeff had noticed that the condensation pipe for our house was not working properly (and was strangely loose) and so we decided to get it fixed. We called a friend who does these types of things and he let us know he could fix it for a couple hundred dollars. Jeff and I talked about it and decided that we would give it a go. We probably did not use the best tools for the job which made for a lot of dusty clean-up, but we were able to get it fixed.

What had happened was the bottom of the pipe was broken. Jeff had noticed shortly after we moved in that when the AC ran, instead of water dripping out the pipe, the foundation would just get wet below the pipe. When we opened it up, other than a bit of elbow grease everything was fairly simple. We spent a sum total of $12 and will need to spend about another $10 to finish fixing the wall. So for a grand total of less than $25 dollars we were able to fix this problem! Wahoo! I love that my husband is so willing to work together to fix things in our home. We are both getting more proficient in fixing things and we are saving a whole pile of money too! This is really good because we need that to fix up other things in our house like ceiling fans, broken garage door openers, etc.

Let's go fly a kite

2011-03-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

It is a rare day to get good wind for kite flying. When wind comes, it is usually torrential (think of trees blowing sideways) or barely enough to push your hair across your face. We had been waiting for about a month or so to get this weather. It was windy all day and so I called daddy at work to suggest that right after he got home, we grabbed the kids and the kites and tried them out. We have literally had a kite in a package for about 4 years waiting for a good kite day.

JJ is not getting his kite very high, but he is enjoying it all the same.

AnnaLisa and Andrew are figuring out some of the dynamics of kite flying.

They are finally getting some good air with the kites.

Andrew's birthday dinner

2011-03-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday big boy! This is Andrew's birthday dinner. These are all items he wanted for dinner. Fried calamari, artichokes, asparagus, scalloped potatoes, bread, jello and soda. Andrew was delighted with this tasty meal. I made it all from scratch (with the exception of the soda). Making dinner went fairly smoothly other than burning half of the asparagus because even I can get overwhelmed when multi-tasking too many things (eveidentally I should not try to feed two sick toddlers while baking bread and potatoes, cooking asparagus, artichokes and trying to bread calamari - aaack!

We had a nice leasurly dinner as artichokes take a while to work through. Most of us finished dinner in under an hour. Andrew enjoyed himself for an hour and a half. At this point we served chocolate cake and Rocky Road ice cream.

For his birthday Andrew received his own leather bound scriptures in dark green! He wanted the large print version (I think because that is what mommy and daddy have). He also received a set of legos, several cards, a pack of dinosaur cards from Grandma and Grandpa Williams, and got to chat with Grandma and Grandpa Park via skype for about half an hour.

Andrew is excited about getting baptized in a couple of weeks. Yesterday I came down stairs and found him reading in the bible about Jesus Christ getting baptized by John. He was disappointed that there was so little information in the bible about it.

I thank God for Andrew and his wonderful attitude. He is very full of energy and is a bright spot in our lives.

2011-03-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

I try to take the kids to one of the many parks that suround our home. We have three parks within two blocks of our home and probably about a dozen within a mile. This one happens to be right next to the kids' elementary school. JJ forgot class snack at home one morning, so we ran it to him in school, and then went to the park next door.

This particular piece of playground equipement is a motorcycle with a side car. They have fun on it, but rarely do all three get on at the same time. William climbed in between the two seats, and I just had to get a shot of it.

My sister's baby shower

2011-03-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the only baby shower I have ever thrown. Many things turned out well, some things could have been improved, and I had a few mistakes that I would change for next time. In this picture I have a picture of the diaper cake that I made. Very easy, would love to do that again.

My nephew was born on Friday and is very cute. It is hard to remember how tiny they are when they are born. I came home from visiting the hospital and my "babies" were giants. Congratulations Kathy and Jordan!

AnnaLisa's going hippie!

2011-03-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

In third grade AnnaLisa gets to participate in a presentation on music through the ages. This represents music for the last 150 or so years. They were suppose to dress up like any era of music. AnnaLisa told me 10 minutes before we were suppose to leave. So I went to my closet and created a costume. She had the necklace and undershirt everything else is mine. I had many friends who dressed like this in high school, so I don't know if she was representing the 60's or 80's, but she thought it was terrific.

She did a great job during the presentation. Afterward we went to McDonalds and bought ice cream cones all around (for Daddy, Mommy, and her). It was a fun evening.

yes, he is cleaning up

2011-03-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

William is actually cleaning up the legos here. He tends to love putting things away (he is a whiz with emptying the dishwasher). When I first saw him doing this I cringed as he has not been away from the "mouthing everything" stage for too long. Then I realized he was cleaning up the legos! Way to go William.

ice cream anyone?

2011-03-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

I came along this situation and realized it needed a picture and blog entry. One of the babies(Rosi ?) decided it was time for ice cream. They got the bowl out of the cupboard, the scoop out of the dishwasher and planted it right next to the refrigerator. I grabbed the camera when a big brother (Andrew) came swooping through, so I think it just adds to the whole story!

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

2011-03-20T12:44:00.000-07:00

This is a book that the CIO of Jeff's job gave to Jeff to read. This has come in the midst of our discussions about conflict. It is a rather interesting book, easy read with very good principles taught. Jeff read it two weeks ago when he stayed home sick from work. When he was finished, he asked me to read it. It was truly delightful and we enjoyed discussing it. He has since returned it to be passed on to the next member of his office (his direct boss, whom he is hoping will glean a few points of wisdom), so unfortunately I can not directly quote from it, however there were a few things that really resonated with myself and my husband. In a functioning team:

You must feel listened to, regardless of the end choice made. For myself, I don't usually care if the out come is what I suggested, if my (and other members of the team) points are listened to, valued, and then a decision is made.
You must be willing to be vulnerable in order to contribute. This does not mean that other people need to attack you, it means that if you are holding back for any reason, then you will not be as successful as you would be otherwise, and your team also will not be as successful.
You need to value the success of the team, over yourself (whether it is personal value or personal limitation). You must be able to put the team's needs above your own.

Ready to shop

2011-03-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

MaggieMae has outdone herself in getting ready for a shopping spree. She has "heart bear" all ready with her purse and hat. She loves to run around the house making laps through the kitchen, hallway and entryway. If she wants to get "food" she has a whole kitchen center in the game room (formal dining). She loves to push this cart around. My personal favorite in this ensemble is the pink see through skirt that is covering her pj bottoms!

Rosi at play

2011-03-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

Rosi was in the playroom. This room has a kitchenette with sink, refrigerator, microwave, cupboards, and a stove that makes noise and lights up when a pan is placed on it. With a full set of play kitchen utensils, child sized table with chairs tucked in, and play food in a shopping cart, Rosi is set up to have lots of fun. The flooring is a thick brown shag carpet which would not work for a regular kitchen, but is enjoyable to walk around barefoot while playing. It has one area that is covered with a “car carpet” which her three year old sister enjoys playing on, but has yet to capture Rosi's imagination. The room has many windows which let in a lot of natural lighting, as well as a dining room chandelier which sheds limited lighting. Next to the kitchenette there are two tall bookshelves that are filled with book on many different reading levels with the Rosi level books on the bottom shelf. On the second shelf there are about a dozen wooden puzzles. These puzzles are at a variety of developmental levels. There is a red adult sized rocking chair that Rosi enjoys sitting in even though she has not figured out how to consistently rock the chair and usually gets frustrated after two or three attempts.

Rosi's auburn shoulder length hair is pulled up in two pig tails. She is average height for an 18 month old girl. She has gross motor skills such as walking and climbing stairs that are fairly average as well. She does not yet talk usually communicating through grunts, chucklings, and shrieks. She has strong facial expressions showing her pleasure and frustration. Rosi and dad walk into the playroom and dad pushes the little red shopping cart full of plastic food and other kitchen playware towards her. Rosi takes her sippy cup filled with water and sticks it into the front of the cart next to the side so there is plenty of room for her dolly. She puts her dolly in legs first, front side down, getting her legs through the leg holes. She then tries to climb into the back of the tiny cart. Her dad grabs her to keep her safe and the cart from breaking as it falls over when she tries to climb in. Rosi finds a cake platter in the cart spillage and decides to put it in oven. She then decides she needs a lid and takes upside down bowl and puts it on the platter. She closes door. She opens pokes with hand wearing oven mitt. Not able to pick it up, she throws oven mitt down and pulls it out with her hand. She puts it on the table. Then she notices a broken rubber band on floor and puts it on the cake platter under the bowl. She tries to climb into chair which is too close to fit. She pushes into chair and chair is tipping backward. Father moves chair back so she can be safe. She sits down, arranges her plate in front of her and looks to dad as she clasps her hands. He smiles and prays for her finishing with a singsong “amen”. She lights up, laughs, takes the orange plastic flipper and with her other hand lifts the bowl. She pokes the rubber band a few times and places the bowl inverted back on top of the cake platter. She repeats this pattern a half dozen times prompting dad when he needs it to do his “assigned” part. Dad is continually chatting with her as she plays. She quietly ignores him until she needs him to say the prayer for her, then she looks at him with hands clasped. At one point dad distracts her and steals the rubber band under the bowl. She unknowingly lifts the bowl and does not find the rubber band. She looks in the bowl which is still inverted that she is palming in her hand. She then starts to look around the table and floor. When she is not looking dad replaces rubber band under the bowl. She looks again and finding it and her face lights up, she gives a deep throated chuckle and starts repeating the routine again. She hops down and starts investigating the overturned shopping cart. She finds a plastic slotted spoon. She decides to replace the flipper with this slotted spoon, throwing the flipper back into the shopping cart. She starts playing again repeating the same routine using the slotted spoon to poke the bowl and rubber band. She notices the cupboard door open in the kitchenette. She immediately hops down and closes it. She goes back into the same routine this time stabbing the bowl, and in turn the rubber band, with the slotted spoon. This routine goes on a few times and dad switches out the slotted spoon for a broken slotted spoon that is “handle only”. She picks it up to use it and she is visibly confused. She is resistant to continuing playing her game. She starts grunting to show her frustration and confusion. Dad smiles and returns the whole slotted spoon to her. She picks up both and quizzically rubs them together as if trying to make them into one. Then she throws the broken one at the cart and returns to play. A few minutes later the phone rings startling her and she starts to cry hysterically and reaches for dad. He calms her down quickly while jumping up to answer the phone.

A Notebook of One's Own

2011-02-27T12:39:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine has this posted on her blog. I really liked it and felt that it described my desire to write and retain memories, ideas, and insights, so I copied it to my blog. Lauren, thank you for letting me steal this! Also thank you for sharing yourself with me, and in sharing this insight which has helped me to better understand myself, and is helping me relieve the guilt I feel for not developing every idea and thought.

A Notebook of One's Own

Back when I was in college I read an article that explained how Jane Austen used to hide a notebook under a cushion in the drawing room, so whenever she had a spare moment she could pull it out and scribble down her ideas and thoughts. From that day forward my heart was swept up with the idea of notebooks.

You see, before that I'd always perceived Notebook People as a sort of mysterious, underground demographic. They wore weird glasses, wrote transcendental poetry, and collected bumper stickers to paste inside their angst-filled notebooks. I remember watching a neighbor stop talking mid-sentence in order to pull a beloved notebook from her bag and begin furiously recording...I can't actually remember what it was that we were talking about that warranted immediate transcription. But I do remember thinking, "Ah. Notebook People. They're different."

But Jane Austen's notebooks presented me with a new concept. Suddenly the keeping of a notebook didn't have to signify membership in a specific social demographic, or evidence of one's dark underworld. Notebooks don't have to be wildly decorated, or made of expensive moleskin. And most of all, one single notebook doesn't have to be the overarching, tangible representation of your life, like human cliffnotes.

That's why I have about twenty-seven notebooks floating around at any given time, give or take a handful. Those 25 cent spirals from Wal-mart can become addictive, sneaking their way into my shopping cart, and I have a soft spot for the pretties. Paper covered or fabric covered, there is just nothing as hopeful as a lovely, pristine new notebook.

It's difficult carrying on our person all of our thoughts, ideas, and feelings as we move through life. We all need repositories. A spouse is a good option, but if the Game is on in the background then he becomes more of a sieve. And when the day is long and the kids are loud, the weight we place on our spouse's sounding boards can be a heavy load to carry. So instead, we have notebooks. For recipes, lists, spiritual insights, our Big Ideas, journaling, and most importantly, the casual, ordinary thoughts that together add up to be a pretty good portrait of what we love and who we're trying to become.

Virginia Woolf argued that women's creativity requires a room of one's own and five hundred pounds a year. I'm not sure Jane Austen always had those luxuries, much less the rest of us- my computer is in our toy room! But what we do need is more notebooks. Under the bed. In our desk drawers. Buried at the bottom of the diaper bag. And tucked under couch cushions in the drawing room. The important thing is that we designate a specific place for our thoughts to go, a steady landing strip. That way, three weeks later when we are wondering, "What was the name of the Asian cafe my neighbor recommended?" or "What were the little-girl baby names I was going to suggest to my friend?" It's all there. Waiting. So long as we write it down.

Typical Development in kids 0-5

2011-02-24T10:21:00.000-08:00

In my class I found this website and I like the information that it gives. I think it is a good summary in a lot of ways. Interesting now that we know that William and RosiLee are developmentally delayed to see these types of charts. They fall into the 9 month-12 month chart areas in emotional and communication and have a few 18 month skills (mostly gross motor types of things).

http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/normaldevelopment.shtml

Physical and Language

Emotional

Social

Birth
to
1 month

Feedings: 5-8 per day

Sleep: 20 hrs per day

Sensory Capacities: makes basic distinctions in vision, hearing, smelling, tasting, touch, temperature, and perception of pain

Generalized Tension

Helpless
Asocial
Fed by mother

2 months
to
3 months

Sensory Capacities: color perception, visual exploration, oral exploration.

Sounds: cries, coos, grunts

Motor Ability: control of eye muscles, lifts head when on stomach. Delight

Distress

Smiles at a Face Visually fixates at a face, smiles at a face, may be soothed by rocking.

4 months
to
6 monthsSensory Capacities: localizes sounds

Sounds: babbling, makes most vowels and about half of the consonants

Feedings: 3-5 per day
Motor Ability: control of head and arm movements, purposive grasping, rolls over.Enjoys being cuddled Recognizes his mother. Distinguishes between familiar persons and strangers, no longer smiles indiscriminately.

Expects feeding, dressing, and bathing.7 months
to
9 monthsMotor Ability: control of trunk and hands, sits without support, crawls about. Specific emotional attachment to mother.Protests separation from mother. Enjoys "peek-a-boo"10 months
to
12 months Motor Ability: control of legs and feet, stands, creeps, apposition of thumb and fore-finger.

Language: says one or two words, imitates sounds, responds to simple commands.

Feedings: 3 meals, 2 snacks

Sleep: 12 hours, 2 naps AngerAffection

Fear of strangers

Curiosity, exploration Responsive to own name.

Wave bye-bye.

Plays pat-a-cake, understands "no-no!"

Gives and takes objects.1 years
to
1 ½ years Motor Ability: creeps up stairs, walks (10-20 min), makes lines on paper with crayon. Dependent Behavior

Very upset when separated
from mother

Fear of BathObeys limited commands.

Repeats a few words.

Interested in his mirror image.

Feeds himself.1 ½ years
to
2 years Motor Ability: runs, kicks a ball, builds 6 cube tower (2yrs) Capable of bowel and bladder control.

Language: vocabulary of more than 200 words

Sleep: 12 hours at night, 1-2 hr napTemper tantrums
(1-3yrs)Resentment of new baby Does opposite of what he is told (18 months).2 years
to
3 yearsMotor Ability: jumps off a step, rides a tricycle, uses crayons, builds a 9-10 cube tower.

Language: starts to use short sentences controls and explores world with language, stuttering may appear briefly. Fear of separation

Negativistic (2 ½ yrs)

Violent emotions, anger

Differentiates facial expressions of anger, sorrow, and joy.

Sense of humor (Plays tricks)Talks, uses "I" "me" "you"

Copies parents' actions.

Dependent, clinging, possessive about toys, enjoys playing alongside another child.

Negativism (2 ½ yrs).

Resists parental demands.

Gives orders.

Rigid insistence on sameness of routine. Inability to make decisions.3 years
to
4 yearsMotor Ability: Stands on one leg, jumps up and down, draws a circle and a cross (4 yrs)

Self-sufficient in many routines of home life. Affectionate toward parents.

Pleasure in genital manipulation

Romantic attachment to parent of opposite sex
(3 to 5 yrs)

Jealousy of same-sex parent.

Imaginary fears of dark, injury, etc. (3 to 5 years)Likes to share, uses "we"

Cooperative play with other children, nursery school. Imitates parents.

Beginning of identification with same-sex parent, practices sex-role activities. Intense curiosity & interest in other children's bodies.

Imaginary friend.4 years
to
5 yearsMotor ability: mature motor control, skips, broad jumps, dresses himself, copies a square and a triangle.

Language: talks clearly, uses adult speech sounds, has mastered basic grammar, relates a story, knows over 2,000 words
(5 yrs)Responsibility and guilt

Feels pride in accomplishmentPrefers to play with other children, becomes competitive prefers sex-appropriate activities

Cowboys and Cowgirls

2011-02-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

We found this rocking horse for the three little kids. As you can see, JJ does not feel it is fair he can't ride. It even has "horse and riding noises" hidden in buttons located in the ears. The babies are quite enjoying it. It is good to remember all the different aspects of growing up.

Another thing that is not so picturesque is that the babies were evaluated Monday and both are significantly delayed in many areas mostly relating to speech and communication. This is not a surprise to Jeff and I, although in someways believe it or not, it is a relief. We have seen them struggle for a while, and our well-developed skills just don't seem to be able to strengthen their abilities. We hope that the professional help we will be getting will be able to refine what we already know and do. It is still a little vague what exactly this is going to look like, but I am sure it will occasionally hit the blog.

Conflict, part 3 and rules of conflicts

2011-02-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

I suppose I should have started with a definitions page as terminology has many different connotations to different people. So for purposes of this blog post on Conflict we are using these definitions:

Conflict - two (or more) people who do not agree on a particular idea, plan, or action. There is no malice on either part, just a disagreement. This may have intense feelings involved, but communication is polite, respectful, and kind.

Argument - a conflict that also includes intense feelings that are expressed through tone, word, and demeanor of those involved.

Understanding - two people having an awareness between them about a particular subject or one or both's view on a particular subject. This does not mean they have to agree, but it means that they have learned from the other person sharing their personal perspective and while they may not share the other person's view or it may seem illogical to them, they can with words explain the other person's position.

My husband and I have evolved rules for having conflicts. They have never been formalized before this moment, but are just some basic ideas that we follow.

No name calling, putting the other person down.
No keeping score.
No bringing up past situation to involve in current conflict. Past situations may be used to explain (i.e. this reminds me of the time we.... We do not say things like "you always...).
We try to express things positively.
We try to express things as they are, no exaggerating.
No door slamming, yelling, etc.
Very little humor as that has caused misunderstandings during conflicts.
No sarcasm.

Conflict, part 2

2011-02-13T09:18:00.000-08:00

My hubby and I have been discussing the philosophical idea of conflict and it's purpose in life. We came upon an idea that in wording is new, but probably is latent in all of us. The idea is that "conflict brings about closeness". It was an idea that I first put words to. My husband then refined it to be that "resolving conflict brings closeness" (it is probably going to go through more refining, but we are here at this point).

Well, of course what he said, is what I meant in my statement, but not dwelling on the nuances of language and it's limitation - commonly known as "wordsmithing", we will look at the intent of the message. The idea is that many people get caught up in the conflict and/or some don't even get that far and avoid conflicts all together. We have come to the conclusion that conflict is a natural part of life, however a lot of people get stuck in the first stage of conflict. They don't get to the final stage of conflict, the resolution of it where a closeness and intimacy happens. They stay in the first stage of conflict where anger, hurt, frustration, and fear are ever present feelings. For those who persevere through the "rough" initial part of conflict, there is a sweetness as you come to a better understanding of yourself as well as your partner. There is also a tenderness that is felt that often is shown through laughing, crying, hugging, and other types of intimate affection. We feel the conclusion to conflict is a necessary step that many are unaware of or do not persevere to. The tragedy is that they are missing the benefit of this complete process and view conflict in a negative light as a result.

Sometimes it is difficult when someone who has had more experience of the complete process of conflict is trying to help others, whom they are in conflict with, work through this to get to that sweet side of conflict, to that resolution of better understanding and sweet closeness that comes through this process.

Conflict, part 1

2011-02-10T10:30:00.000-08:00

I couldn't help but laugh as I heard my kids arguing in the back seat of our car. It was your basic, "did...did not...did...did not...did...did not" argument. For some reason I have become very philosophically interested in conflict/argument. When I have been hearing children (or even occasionally my spouse and I) argue, I hear a narrator in my head evaluating what the issue is, what can be learned from this, and where the misunderstanding is. Now, I must confess, other than decades of experience with arguing - not continuously mind you- I have not had any instruction of any sort of this. So this will be a layman's look at this subject. It is interesting to me both people can be honest, fair, and seeking the good of the other above their own, and still get into arguments! Any and all comments are welcome!

So I got to be the verbal narrator to my kids as we worked through this argument. Andrew insisted he said something one way, Maggie insisted he said it another way. I knew who was wrong, I also knew even with a video camera that could go back in time, I would not be able to convince the wrong one of their fault. So I chose a different tactic. I explained to Andrew that while he felt he said something one way, obviously Maggie did not hear it that way and arguing would not straighten it out. So it would just be best to accept that their was a disagreement, set the record straight as to what was meant to be said, and continue on with life. Hmmm - sounds so nice and easy, and yet, the argument turned in my direction as he felt this was a ridiculous request and that he must prove her wrong. We discussed the idea of being a peacemaker, and I asked him if he felt he was being a peacemaker. He said, no he was not - at least he was seeing that part of it clearly.

In our house one of our goals is to be a peacemaker. I have never given an opposite of that, because honestly I am not interested in labeling my kids like that. It is interesting however, that the kids have found an opposite - troublemaker. My kids will willing offer up this label when I ask a sibling if they are being peacemakers. I am trying to peacefully find solutions, so I don't support this, however, I haven't de-supported it either.

So with that I guess I have opened the subject of conflict/arguing/etc. So feel free to post your observations, I have several other posts that I have been working through other types of arguments and what the purpose of them are, of course in my perspective, but I'd enjoy it if you would share your opinion too...would not...would...would not...would...

Work in progress

2011-02-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine used this for her Facebook picture. It made me giggle. She is doing an awesome job at losing weight right now, and I expect that is the reason for the sign. I can't help but think that we all are works in progress.

Right now I have a blog entry that is a work in progress. I try to blog two things:

My real life - I try to as much as possible openly share what I feel and think. Most times this is not hard for me as I am a fairly open person. Occasionally I come to a post that I just don't feel it would make those closest to me feel safe to have me share with all at large. At those times I email myself and someday (haha) I will incorporate those with these, print them and have some nice journals to put upon my shelf.
The everyday happenings - these most often are the funny things my kids do, the struggles they have, and the way we share our lives together.

The blog entry that I have in progress is something that has been a struggle for me through out my life and even in my marriage. It is conflict. Some view conflict as something to be avoided, others merely a process in a journey, and yet others "something that should explosively have a life of it's own". Me, I am somewhere in-between all those realizing that it is not really a spectrum. I am finding that most things people fight over aren't important - money, possession of material goods, etc. I think there are things that are worth fighting over - respect, ideas, priorities, and principles. I will be the first to admit that unfortunately the world is not cut and dry into nice categories. When a couple argue over money, often times the money represents priorities, not a tightfistedness on the actual money.

So, I guess I will need to do some more thinking and progressing on my intended subject, but it will be coming, because if I don't share it here, I will have to go on top of a building somewhere and just start shouting from there.

Is this girl ready for Monday night football or what?

2011-02-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

Rosi crawled up on Jeff's lap with this football last night. We don't want sports that often, but we both saw this and just thought "Monday night football!"

The kids always enjoy hanging with their dad, this is just one of many pictures.

Things noticed...

2011-01-27T06:06:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we bring our struggles that we had growing up (and still continue to have) into our adult families. One thing that some adults in our home struggle with is noticing something that needs to be done, that is not specifically an assigned chore. Our kids are doing fairly well with chores, but there could be sharp knives laying on the floor and no one would pick them up because it is not their job (I may be slightly exaggerating in this example, but if so, not by much). How do we solve such a delima?

I got an idea one night about recognizing people for doing things they are not assigned. Then we could add up these accounts and have some type of party. So now we have a little chart to make tic marks for each example of "things noticed" and we have our first marshmallow roasting party scheduled when we reach 20 tic marks. We started yesterday and we already have 6 marks. Examples of things remembered are:

putting away an unused knife of a sibling
pushing chairs in under the table
putting away a back pack that was left in the family room

My hope it that eventually (probably after years) we will have trained our children to look around them and see what can be done, instead of waiting for someone else to schedule them to do it.

Christmas gift find

2011-01-24T10:38:00.000-08:00

Clarissa and I went to a Jewelry party where they had these cute little purses that you could take one if you wanted to sign up to throw your own home party. We were not quite up to doing that, but we did adore the cute little purses. A few months later I saw this little purse at a "Swap meet" that is about a mile from our house. It is a cute little fun place to browse through. It reminds me a lot of a farms market that was a few miles from where I grew up. They have some good deals, and some junk that is trying to get sold. You just need to be careful and not pay more than you feel it is worth. Sort of reminds me of the street markets in the middle east.

Well, I had hoped that Clarissa would like this, I thought to myself, what is the girlies looking one here? And from the look on her face, I'd say that she does.

Popcorn popping on the Apricot Tree...

2011-01-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

I have wanted to buy an air popcorn popper for a while and Clarissa gave us one for Christmas (I heard a birdie told her). I am excited to be able to popcorn fresh and not to have to have the salted/buttered popcorn that comes pre-packaged. Unfortunately I still have 20 packages of the microwave stuff that I feel sort of obligated to use before we start with the new stuff. Now that I am reflecting on it, I think I will go ahead and start using the popper and leave the other for emergency times when the kids want popcorn and I don't feel like dragging out the popper. Then I can have the better popcorn when we have it with our Friday night family movie night and leave the microwave stuff for the kid's snacks.

Scared to say it, but I think sanity has returned

2011-01-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

I am starting up two classes through the community college - Child Development and Belly Dancing. Starting up projects around the house, and I feel calm? These last two years have been crazy for me with emergency surgeries, twin babies, Jeff finishing up Grad school and well life. This last month things we have been striving for have been falling into place. Kids are finally getting chores done, things are getting put away, and we have routines! I think part of this has been as a result of my diligent effort to find ways that work for the family as well as making sure I am having balance in my life. Many of you know that I volunteer on a Governing board for the Arizona Infants and Toddlers (which I am now President of), have 6 children + college student, and we recently moved (which means I am also a landlord now). I am finding what works for me and what doesn't.

I need to be learning things in my life. I need to be able to do some things outside of my home without my children (just a day or two a month), and I need to get 8 hours of sleep. What I don't need is TV, hobbies that involve a lot of time or space dedicated to them, or things that don't allow for children. I am also finding that some activities while fun just waste my time. I need to have some result from my activities/hobbies.

What I have noticed is that by having some of my family step up (kids are getting that chores will not go away when ignored, daddy and mommy are working more in unison, and babies are walking and starting to talk. These things all go together to mean less work for mom as well as a cleaner home to enjoy being in (nothing saps my energy more than being exhausted from working to sit down in a dirty room).

My energy levels are returning to what they were pre-baby. My husband has noticed and is taking the "I will quietly enjoy this as long as it lasts, but I hope it lasts forever" stance, more commonly known as the "this is what you use to be like, the girl I married". However it is said, I am enjoying it too!

I cookie monster, I want some cookies!

2011-01-23T14:11:00.000-08:00

Clarissa got this for Jeff for Christmas. She and I were shopping together and when we saw this, we thought of Jeff. You don't really need to know Jeff's long history with Cookie monster and that he use to ride around on his big wheel to neighbors and ask them for cookies to appreciate how good he looks in this shirt. I told Clarissa that if she did not buy this for Jeff, I was going to!

This reminds me, we are out of cookies! I guess I should probably see if we can make some soon.

2010 Christmas - the Zune story

2011-01-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of Jeff's new electronic gizmo - a Zune. This is part a gift from him and me. He saved up his mad money (the same way we ended up with a Wii - which if I recall correctly was mad money plus cash I gave him for his birthday). Jeff seems to come with a lot of his electronic gizmos this way. Well, shortly after Christmas, he was contacted to let him know that he had won a fancier Zune (read higher gigabot thingies). So then he decide to give me his old one (which was a whole two weeks old now) and has a "bigger and better" option. So was that like me giving my husband a present that I wanted to use? I don't know, all I know now is that I have one more way to spend my time if I so choose.

2010 Christmas - Aunt Kaylynn and her family

2011-01-21T13:55:00.000-08:00

Aunt Kaylynn and Uncle Cory came to visit us for the holidays. We had a lovely time, although Kaylynn was sick most of the time. These are a shot of her opening her monkey PJ's we gave her (note that she is already wearing monkey pajama pants. Emily seemed excited about her mom receiving these. Owen and Cory are there too, just harder to see them, well actually it is really easy to see Cory's leg, but not nearly as much fun as his face!

We really enjoyed having them visit and the kids played marvelously. Kaylynn was not the only one sick as I spent a few days going much slower that I had planned due to feeling crummy. We did have lots of fun which included having a fancy prime rib dinner for Christmas eve dinner, which we have never tried before. That too seems like a tradition we should repeat. And while we are mentioning repeatable traditions, I think having Kaylynn and Cory's family down for the holidays would also be lovely and repeatable.

2010 Christmas morning

2011-01-20T13:46:00.000-08:00

Santa did a good job here. You can see some of the more memorable gifts such as Andrew (black and white) and Clarissa's (purple) bean bags, Rosi's Little People princess carriage, the twin's rocking horse, MaggieMae's sit and spin as well as the kitchen set. Jeff's Zune (which is now Mommy's Zune) was in there as well.
The stockings were nestled all neatly on the staircase. We had them hanging from the banister all month (well, probably only for the last week or so - I try!), but felt that with candy and other goodies, we should not hang them back up.
The kid's all lined up by age. Well most of the kids - the twins were sleeping still. Mostly by age Emily decided their family would go in descending order instead of ascending order.
The kids heading down to the living room.

another new Christmas tradition

2011-01-19T13:41:00.000-08:00

Clarissa and the kids have been planning this one for months. Clarissa invited the kids to sleep in her room so they could try and catch Santa Clause when he came to deliver presents. They would often talk about this at night over the dinner table. They would discuss how sneaky they would be. Clarissa made it a real party with Christmas movies on her computer and Christmas presents to open (I hear the pirate hook was the most coveted item).

Most of the kids fell asleep shortly after their usual bedtime. Andrew had a real tough time falling asleep. He usually wedges himself between his bed and the wall. He kept trying to do this but was having difficulty. For those unaccustom to how he sleeps, one might become afraid that he will suffocate himself. Clarissa not yet aware of this quirk, kept telling him to move away from the wall. As a result, Clarissa and Andrew both had a difficult time sleeping that night.

2010 Making Christmas goodies - girls night

2011-01-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of us over at my sister's house. Clarissa is working on her first batch of fudge. The cousin's, Sariah and Rachel, are joining in for a silly picture. AnnaLisa and MaggieMae came as well. Since Kaylynn was visiting, she was with us as well. We had a yummy dinner of chili and munched on way too many goodies. We made fudge, English toffee, and chocolate covered pretzel sticks. We put sprinkles on the pretzel sticks, the little girls (AnnaLisa, MaggieMae, Jade, and let's be honest Clarissa, Sariah, Rachel, and Kaylynn) really enjoyed sprinkling. I hope I got everyone in there!

This was a tradition that we decided to start this year. Kathy and I have gotten together a few times in the past to do goodies, but we liked the addition of making it a girl's night. I got that idea from Clarissa and all who heard it hardily agreed. So I think with the fun we had, it will be a repeater!

Rosi playing air hockey

2011-01-17T13:25:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of our "game room" which most people would call a formal dinning room, but which I would never use as such because I think it is silly to eat in a room that is carpeted, and like I have the money for some fancy furniture that I won't use that often and inevitably one of my children will carve or dent before too long. So instead we use it as a game room. I picked up this old airhockey table for $50 which is a good deal, although part of the table is warped, the clock does not work any more and the blowers are on their last legs. Regardless, the kids love to play on it. Rosi is standing on a step stool and she actually loves to play (although her skill level is as little as she is). This was a morning that we were all getting read for church. This is one of my favorite dresses for her. It is a soft deep red color that is long with her white tights and white dress shoes. She is definitely going to be into shoes.

One day I was getting ready to head out the door with the twins and a few other kids. Rosi realizing the front door was open grabbed one of her white dress shoes and started running out the front door to the car. Ah, my little Cinderella.

RosiLee in a drawer

2011-01-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

I saw Rosi climbing into this drawer and started heading over to get her out when she was already in by the time I got there (although, obviously I stopped to take a few pictures). These are some drawers and cabinets that were installed by the previous owner - I afraid a little to ambitious for me - I am still trying to get the time/energy to put in the baseboards where they were left undone.

The twins rolling around with mommy on the floor

2011-01-16T13:17:00.000-08:00

I don't often get pictures of me with the kids. So this is a rare thing to have a picture of mommy playing with the kids. I love how happy they (and mommy) are.

Clarissa's 2010 Christmas ornament

2011-01-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

Clarissa picked a wreath made of wax or clay type material. I really thought is was beautiful.

As often happens with Clarissa, Jeff and I found ourselves looking to the future. We did not have a solid thought out plan as far as this tradition goes. Jeff suggested the kids could take their ornaments with them when they start their families so that they have a bit of history and a head start on decorating their first Christmas trees. For me that day is coming to fast (especially with Clarissa who got a head start on that area), and I will probably agree, but for right now planning on holding a piece of them here in our home gives me comfort.

JJ's 2010 Christmas ornament

2011-01-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

It might be hard to tell, but JJ is holding a red bead garland to wrap around the tree. Last time he picked a gold bead garland. Daddy is helping JJ get it around the already decorated tree. I really like these beads (I picked a gold bead one the same year JJ did (2008?).

Since this is such a wonderful shot, I will mention Grandma Williams' angel. My mom handmade this and gave it and several others to us many (2002?) years ago.

JJ made the pop-cycle stick star you see in the lower left corner.

Andrew's 2010 ornament

2011-01-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

Andrew picked a beautiful Ice Cream sundae in a chrome dish. I am not sure what that has to do with Christmas, but I am very much sure that it is one of Andrew's favorite things to eat.

Andrew much like his genetic forebearers (at least on the Williams side of the family) enjoys an ice cream sundae whenever he gets the chance. Doesn't this look delicous?

AnnaLisa's 2010 ornament

2011-01-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

I always giggle to see the kid's choices for ornaments. AnnaLisa picked a BIG blue glass ornament with blue sparkly circles on it. I am hoping this lasts, but have my doubts about it's longevity in our home.

Every year we take the kids to purchase an ornament to add to our Christmas tree. I have tried to document them as we go (permanent marker on the bottom or back, tape if nothing else is possible). This is one of our Christmas traditions. It has not been as faithful as some of our others, but I think the kids are starting to enjoy it. As for me, I think next year we will make two trips to the store. We managed to break several ornaments while in the store. There was a customer near us who calmly explained she worked there and would clean it up for us. I think we will be going back to that store again next year. I am not sure that is a blessing for them, but we try to support family friendly stores!

My beloved AnnaLisa

2011-01-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

I love this picture of AnnaLisa. It is showing how much she is growing up and just the happy girl she is. She is starting to get caught up in her looks and it is fun although often frustrating to me for her to fuss over her hair and looks. I am sure this is just the beginning. Hard to believe she is no longer my baby of 9 years ago.

MaggieMae knows her math skills!

2011-01-11T12:21:00.000-08:00

We were driving home from the DMV today and Maggie pipes up from the back and asks, "Mom, does three plus three equal 6?". My eyebrows raised, "Yep it sure does. Good job Maggie". She then lifts her hands so that I can see them in the rear view mirror, she is holding three fingers up on each hand, "This is six too!". I smile and agree, then I unconsously shake my head in disbelief. I then hear her say, "It is too six mom, don't shake your head." Embarrassed I tell her, that she is right and I tried to explain why adults sometimes shake our heads when we are amazed by something.

I expect I should not be too surprised, a month ago JJ and I were making cinnamon rolls and I had a total of eight cups of flour to put in. I had measured, "one, another one..." and JJ responded back, six more to go!". JJ is just starting his second half of kindergarten. MaggieMae is almost 3 1/2 years old. Just crazy how smart my kids are.

This picture is of MaggieMae, putting her this year's ornament on the tree (It is the crystal looking snowflake).

Stick a fork in me...

2010-12-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

Yep, we have introduced the babies to forks. They are tickled to be trying to feed themselves with silverware. As you can see, they occasionally loose food in their laps (William seems to be looking for a lost bite).

They are such a joy, but also a challenge. I am glad I had one set of twins...that is enough. When Jeff and I married, I wanted to have six kids. Since I was 29 and did not want to have babies when I was in the "old folks home", I suggested at one point, maybe I could just have three sets of twins about with three years between each set. Then babies birthing would be done in 7 years, and the oldest would be in first grade when the youngest ones were born. Well, thankful that plan did not work out.

These guys are also starting on the edge of talking, which is very needful as Kristina is starting to think she only raises children who are late talkers. Although I am cautious about that because Maggie was a late talker, and she is doing pretty great so far.

2010 Family Picture with Santa Clause

2010-12-13T19:11:00.000-08:00

OK, if you have ever tried this with young children, you will already know that Maggie (3 yr) and Rosi (1 yr) were crying. I jumped in right after they got everyone else positioned. William was not thrilled with it either.

To make matters even funnier, after we were all done and there was a huge line (we got cuts because we had kids under 2 yrs old), Maggie wanted to go back to get a candy cane from Santa. Oh the joy!

Missionary moment

2010-12-13T08:20:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of Clarissa with Elder Major and Elder Marino. Elder Marino is going home today back to Hawaii. We had them over for dinner last night. One of the questions we had was where did you want to serve your mission (asked to the kids).

JJ - Washington D. C. (because there are lots of people there)

Andrew - Anartica (Andrew, no people there),______, Brazil

AnnaLisa -

Clarissa - In the south, Alabama, Georgia

Kristina - Ukraine

Noodle forest

2010-12-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

AnnaLisa enjoyed this room. It is in the Phoenix Children's museum. It is foam noodles hanging from the ceiling and you can walk through them.

It is hard to believe my big girl is getting so...well...big. She often helps out and is getting to be very responsible. She wants to do what is right, but still struggles a bit. She reminds me a lot of the internal side of me when I was a kid. I look at her and can just see the gears turning, the weighing of her emotions to make decisions. She is very capable, and a fun girl to be with. She often makes me smile and she is quick to learn. I actually have to be careful because if I don't teach her something when she asks me, she will just figure it out herself.