The First Day of School 2011

We walked to Bancroft as we've done the last 3 years.  We have a fourth and a second grader this year.  They are growing up!

The Family Scrapbook

I REALLY REALLY want to document these busy but fleeting years with my four little ones.  Right now I am keeping lots of different written journals, as well as sometimes blogging, sometimes facebooking, and long emails to my family.  Then, I upload my pictures to a web service and make books to be printed there.  It seems like I have a lot of overlap that could all be done in one format.

As of right now, I'm guessing my most efficient option is blogging here with pictures and journaling and then using one of the services that prints your blog into a book.

Any of you tried that?  Do you have any advice or suggestions?

Small Successes

• The girls on time to school every day so far.
• new bathroom floor, vanity, girl's room wood floor
• van still running
• enough dishes done for breakfast each morning
• kids up to date on health care appts
• bills up to date
• hubby been at job a year now!
• baby #4 has baby book (actually 2 now)
• have kept the 20 lbs off lost this year

Life's Sweetest Experiences

In the meantime, be thankful for all the small successes in your home, your family relationships, your education and livelihood, your Church participation and personal improvement. Like the forget-me-nots, these successes may seem tiny to you and they may go unnoticed by others, but God notices them and they are not small to Him. If you consider success to be only the most perfect rose or dazzling orchid, you may miss some of life’s sweetest experiences.

                                                DIETER F. UCHTDORF

Summer Over

And I promise I'll remove that sidebar soon :)

So we sold our place, and bought another unit in the same complex.  Much, much smaller, though.  The six of us have 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and no basement like we had before.  It is stretching us to our emotional limits with each other, to put it mildly.

At least once a day I ask myself, "Why are we doing this?"  Problem is we are so far in now, we're committed to doing something.  We have to buy a house, so we're keepin' on with the one we're having built.  Have they actually built it yet?  No.

Have they even broken ground or starting digging a hole of any kind?  That would be a no, also.  But at this point we are sticking with it--although the thought has crossed my mind that the builder may be the one backing out.  We've gone almost a week without getting return calls or emails from the realtor again.

I'm holding on to the hope that this is for our good for whatever reason.  Well, I know it is.  God leads me and has guided us a lot in this process.  We're in it for a reason.  I'll just keep going forward with a smile on my face!

Summer: My way

After having done a few "summer breaks" since when my older kids started school, I have come to find I have a certain style.  A style much like my overall parenting style---Try not to stress myself out, cause then I get in mean mom mode.  There are lovely ideas, projects, and creative things to do with your kids, and sometimes I do them.  But I have found I can't pressure or guilt myself into doing them.  I hate to be controlled, even if it is by a plan of my own making :).

So, rather than make a list of things to accomplish this summer, or a strict daily schedule, I have found my zen in letting our days take us where they will.  I'm surprised how many creative and fun things we have done as a result.  They've been the kids' ideas rather than mine and don't involve a criminal amount of work on my part, which, as I said earlier, puts me into mean mom mode.  "Mean mom mode" kind of defeats the point of the lazy days of summer, in my opinion.

Anyway, now that I have justified myself, I'll share my plan.  We're gonna have a summer bucket list, ohyeswewill....it'll just be made after doing rather than before.  I'll keep track of it here so that in true blog form I can brag and you can envy my supercreative mom abilities, but the bonus will be that I won't have to do all that planning and stressing to make sure we do things.  Win, win, right?

pLaY tImE

One of my favorite tips (or one of the few I can remember!) from a little Love and Logic parenting class I took while we lived in Texas, was this:

When trying to solve a parenting problem the first step, before punishments, consequences, time outs and the like is to make sure you are playing with the child for at least 20 minutes a day, each day.

It sounds too simple.  It sounds counterintuitive if the child is misbehaving.  Is it a reward?

But.

It works.

At least in my opinion, it does.  I love this tip because it is compassionate.  Compassion is so fundamental to Christianity that it needs employed in Christian parenting at all times, in my opinion.  It also works because I have found that much of children's "misbehavior" is really just a warning that a need isn't being met.  I feel this way because I believe children under the age of 8 are innocent and incapable of sin.  Therefore...if what they are doing causes problems, it is often a symptom of something *I*can work on or change or teach, etc.

Often times my children are going through a poor behavior/fit throwing phase it is during a confusing or difficult time in which I am invariably paying less attention to them (new baby, move, frustrations in my own life).  As we both feel the joy and smiles that come while we are playing together I am reminded of their sweetness and they are reminded of my love.  The change that comes about lasts throughout the day.

The reason they taught this in that class was to establish a foundation on which to build the discipline structure and for the child to have the trust necessary to carry out the discipline.  Interestingly, as they taught, and I have noticed, most times no other "discipline" is needed.  20 minutes of one on one play is a pretty fun way to solve family problems, I have to say!