Help.....

I need help. I need to figure out how to teach my kids that they CAN do hard things. One child in particular is so good with his avoidance strategy that I got to have a lovely parent teacher conference today. His teacher said he is behaving fine but when he reaches a problem or a word he can't immediately figure out, he starts doing anything and everything he can think of to get out of doing the problem. Apparently he has become quite the story teller!

I started thinking about how the life they are growing up in has instant gratification written all over it. Technology is great but it has made so many things seem so easy to my kids that I think they think life in general should be that fast and easy.

I guess I'm wondering how to reteach the joy of a hard job well done to my kids. How do I teach that even if something isn't easy at first, you take a deep breath and keep on working on it until you get it. Giving up isn't an option. Avoiding it will only make it harder in the long run. These ideas seem completely lost on this child.


Any creative ideas out there that have worked for you guys with your kids?

Distractions

I watched a program yesterday about driving while talking on your cell phone or texting and how dangerous it really is. They are saying driving while talking on the cellphone is the equivalent of drunk driving and texting is ever worse. A doctor from University of Utah did studies that showed our brains actually block out things on the road because we are concentrating on texting or talking on the phone. I think of how nervous I get driving on New Year's Eve when I think the potential for drunk driver's goes way up. Now when I'm driving around I notice just how many people are talking on the phone or texting.....it's almost EVERY car!! I don't text hardly at all...I don't really have the phone for it so I would never do it while driving. Talking on the phone is a different story.

I remember when cell phones were just really getting popular and how much I loved to talk on them in the car. If I was ever talking to my grandparents and they found out I was talking while driving, they would immediately say goodbye and hangup. I thought "oh how behind the times they are!...that's what a cellphone IS for!" I loved the multitasking I could get done by doing it. Just think, I can be picking up my kids from school AND get return phone calls done at the same time! Love it!....uhh...until I saw that report. I don't even want to pick up my cell phone now while I'm driving. I want to yell at people who are doing it. One lady's mother was killed by a guy texting in his car. She went and got a bumper sticker that said "My mother was killed by someone texting" just so she could spread awareness.

Driving around today I realized my life has enough distractions. I am almost never in the car by myself. I almost always have some little people with me who are yelling for me or crying for attention. I don't need to add to the distractions by using my phone too.

I'm nervous for my children. We continue to create a world so crazy full of distractions that they are never getting any down time to just hear the quiet. Kids today always have earphones in, or tvs playing a movie in the car or cellphones to talk on. My NINE year old wants to know when he will get one. I think I told him 30.

I used to think I'm so glad I wasn't born in the pioneer days....I wonder if they look down on us and think I'm so glad I wasn't born during these days.

Put down the phone....the conversation can wait...safe a life.

Confessions of a 4th Time Mom

So several months ago I was in a waiting room with my then 1 month old baby girl. I was sitting next to a lady who had a baby boy. We got talking and she mentioned her boy was about 5 months old and wasn't sleeping through the night. It was her first and she looked exhausted. I smiled and told her to hang in there.

Here is where the confession comes. In my head I was kind of thinking that it was her own fault because she hadn't set that baby straight and let him cry it out in the middle of the night. I was thinking that I would never be in that position because this is my fourth time and I know what I'm doing. MY baby would be sleeping through the night at 3 months at the latest. Not because she was some dream baby but because of my crafty mommy skills that will gently show her how it's gonna be in our house.

Fast forward several months and now my little girl will be seven months on Saturday. (I know ...hard to believe!) And guess who isn't sleeping through the night yet...???? Oh yea and I'm eating my thoughts this time. She did sleep through the night for a little while around 3 or 4 months and I must have thought I was done. Then slowly she would get a cold and want to nurse in the middle of the night and so I did. Then I started to notice that I could almost set a clock by her wake up times...in bed by 10pm ..awake at 2am on the dot and then again at 6am. Um...not a good schedule for me little missy!

My words and thoughts about that other mother were starting to haunt me (not to mention the lack of sleep totally starting to bug!). So I told my husband 3 nights ago that I was gonna let her cry it out and since he is slightly wimpy when it comes to that (he would give in ... hates to hear them cry) he better go sleep in the basement. Well she cried at 2:30am alright and kept going until 4:30am!!! It wasn't terribly loud but man oh man I couldn't believe it was two whole hours. I didn't cave though. No sirree bob! The next night she slept from 10pm to 8am with not one peep. What can I say she was completely exhausted. I was some what hoping that she would have the system down and just sleep through the night forever more but last night she woke up again. At least this time it was more like 35 minutes. We are making progress.

And to that lovely first time mom that I so shamelessly thought I could do this better than you....I sincerely apologize!

Where's the Line to See Jesus?

Where's the line to see Jesus?



My mother in law sent me this clip from You tube. I love it and thought I would pass it on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPViKJRHyZo

Sorry I don't know how to actually put the video here. any tips?

We forgot to get our house mom...

We have six months to find a home. 2010 could be interesting. We say to our kids sometimes that we have to be more gentle with the house we are in because we are renting or borrowing the house. This has disturbed my 3 year old to no end. He often asks out of the blue "Why are we borrowing our house? Where did ours go?" I think the older two have remembered the long hours we have spent searching for homes in the past so nothing phases them.

This past Saturday we went about 30 minutes from our current home to check out this house we had seen on line. I have a pretty particular idea of what I want in a house. The picture above is just a picture of some house not close to me that I found on the internet. It's the type of house I would like though. The problem is....they don't really make too many of them here. I really want a big rambler house with a basement. I'm tired of being on the main level only to have my boys jumping around upstairs and it sounds literally like they might come through the ceiling.

We went and peeked in the windows but couldn't really get a good look. We finally got a Realtor to open it up for us and it actually had some really nice features and I could totally see us living in a house like this. Only problem...not enough bedrooms. They said it had four but the 4th is in the basement and I'm not ready to send my 9 year old to a different level. We will keep it in mind but we will also continue the search.

A couple of days have passed and we really haven't talked about the house since. I was driving to the store when my 3 year old yells from the back of the van:

C: Mom, we forgot to get our house.
Me: Um, what do you mean we forgot to GET our house?
C: The white house we went to....the one that was empty..we forgot to get it?

I tried explaining that we will be looking at tons of houses before actually deciding what to do but that poor little boy had already picked out his room and where he would put his toys in the new house. I know I have a hard time looking for houses because I get way too emotionally involved in it. I guess the apple doesn't fall that far from the tree after all.

Catchin up...Part 2

We actually had 3 Christmas Celebrations this year. On Christmas Day, we opened gifts and enjoyed the morning all to ourselves. It was lovely. Later that afternoon my mom and sister came over for dinner to celebrate.

The next day we drove about an hour away to K's family for the Brown celebration. We ate and played and ate some more. Soooo yummy!!!. H who is somewhat terrified of dogs only took the entire day to warm up to their dog but by the end of the day he was the one following the dog around. We call this dog therapy! Thanks Mal and Chris!!

The next day we headed to my parent's house for a yummy dinner and games. The boys were playing b-ball in the basement with my dad's new hoop and he was giving them Grandpa pointers left and right. They loved it but I think my mom is rethinking that gift. I don't think she thought boys could be SOOO noisy. With three boys making shots, it shook the kitchen upstairs!!

It's hard to believe that an entire week has passed by now. The only thing I have to show for it is that I have such a large pile of laundry to do that I can't even walk in the room. We have played, we have shopped, we have been mostly healthy (which is a miracle!!) and it's been great.

To finish out the week we decided to do something a little different for New Year's Eve. For the last several years, we have had family and friends come over and play and eat all night until about 1am. It's been fun but somewhat exhausting when it is all said and done. This year we decided that K and I would go out to eat on a date for a couple of hours (while Grandma watched the kids -thanks mom!) and then we would get the kids and head home for a little party with the kids until midnight. I have to say that it turned out great. We got to do something festive and fun and still be in the comfort of our own home when the ball dropped. (I have NO desire to hit Time Square on New's Years Eve!) I'm thinking we are gonna have to repeat that one.

Happy Holidays Everyone!! Bring it On 2010!!

Catching up...Part 1

During the holiday season, we always try and make it up to see the temple lights in DC. We decided to meet Mallory(K's sister) and Chris up there one Friday night at 6pm. We could do this. We wouldn't hit traffic. It's the holidays....we are invincible!! Well....THREE hours later when we arrived we realized that maybe this wasn't the best idea after all. The lights were beautiful though and we even got to see most a a performance too. Mallory had made us some yummy treats so we headed home snacking on them, thinking we might miss the snow storm on it's way. Boy oh boy did we drive right into the middle of a blizzard! We had to stop at my parent's house to pick up my car too so I got the lovely bonus of driving in the mess without four wheel drive, in the dark, and with four very cranky kids. It took us TWO hours to get home and no there wasn't any traffic. At one point all I could see was K's car in front of me and snow all around us. It looked like we were the only people in sight in the middle of the blizzard.

When we woke up the next morning, my kids got the chance to go and play in the snow. Now I know I already posted about the snow but I thought I would add these pictures and this lovely story. That Saturday when we were watching the snow coming down, we got a phone call from a neighbor asking if we wanted a snow plow to shovel our driveway. We jumped at the chance and thought we were home free. When I looked outside later I realized that the snow plow had really only shoveled a pathway on our driveway and actually dumped a 4 ft wall of packed snow on it. My husband needed to go to work the next day and just had a procedure done on his back so I knew I had to get out there and shovel some snow.

I cleared a good path so he could get his car out the next day but never even made it to my side of the garage because my whole body was hurting from shoveling K's side. Not to mention I was up most the night holding our baby who was sick. I was beat but still needed to get out to the store for some last minute Christmas preparations. I was desperate so I called a neighbor kid to come and help me shovel and told him I would pay him. I told him he didn't need to do the whole driveway (we have a long one!) because I was afraid he would say no. I just asked him to help me so I could get my car out and that would be enough. We got out and loved seeing life outside our house for a couple of hours. It was me with the four kids so it wasn't exactly a quiet trip (more like complete chaos!) but we were all happy to see the sun.

As we pulled back in my driveway, I wondered if I would have enough space cleared so that I could actually get my car back in the garage. I pressed forward thinking I would just take it slow but would be able to pull it off. Remember how it's the holidays and we think we are invincible? Yea...well it didn't work on the way to the temple and the traffic and if didn't work with me pulling my car in the garage. Let's just say that I pulled it in part of the way only to realize that I needed to back up some to get a better angle and that's when I realized that I pretty much had my car STUCK on the side of the house. I had to either back up or pull forward but either way I was going to scrape up the entire passenger side of my car. Oh ho ho ho ....merry Christmas eh? I would include a picture of the car but my husband went and had it cleaned up a bit so now all you see is the lovely dents. I think he was a little bit embarrassed to be driving the thing around. I told him I wasn't too proud. I would drive it. I dented it so I would have to drive it! Yep yep..that is what I said even though I was already thinking of ways to park it on the good side so no one would see the lovely dent of shame! Thanks hun for making the car pretty again!