March 29, 2011

Johnny asked me if he could play the Wii after school today, since it was an early day and he had played outside for quite a while I told him that he could. I sat down to read my book thinking that he would be downstairs playing. About 30 minutes later our little neighbor boy, Mason, came over to play. I looked everywhere and I couldn't find Johnny. I looked through the house three times, inside all of the lower cupboards, John's work room, circled the house twice looking in each of the window wells, and all of our neighbor's yards . All of our close neighbor boys Johnny's age were outside playing, and he wasn't with them. It was so strange, he usually doesn't do anything without telling me first, and I was starting to get very worried. Finally I went to my room and prayed, I prayed that I would be able to find him and wherever he was, that he would be safe. Finally, after asking Hannah for the second time if she had seen him, she said, “Maybe he's at Bridger's house.” No, he couldn't be, he called Bridger before he had asked to play the Wii and he had Karate practice. I had no other options, so I decided to call anyway. Bridger's mom answered the phone and I asked if Johnny was over there. He was! Huge sigh of relief on my part. Bridger didn't have to leave for another 30 minutes! It turns out that Johnny had thought that he had asked if he could go over to Bridger's, but without thinking had asked if he could play the Wii instead. I had to laugh when I discovered the reason for my worry. I know he is my son, I do this all of the time. I often think one thing and something completely different spills out of my mouth. I am thankful that he was safe.

Just a thought

I was released from my primary calling about a month ago, I had been Maddie's teacher ever since we moved into the Burton ward. I was in Nursery with her, and then I moved up to Sunbeams and then CTR 4. Surprisingly, I loved being with these little children and especially with Maddie. We live in a very large ward now, and there are more active members than available callings. I'm not used to being without a calling for this long. I kind of feel displaced without something to do, but I know deep in my heart that the Lord knows what I need right now. I am trying to use this extra time to strengthen my spirit, get to know my neighbors and figure out my children. I love Relief Society and am glad that I am able to attend every week. Yesterday I learned an awesome way to keep track of spiritual inspiration and make sure that I do something about it. Just fold a paper into three sections and in each section record (1) What I saw/heard (2) What the spirit told me (3) What I will do about it. Yesterday I spent a few minutes just folding papers getting them ready for future spiritual inspiration. I am already starting to fill out a paper, sometimes I just skip the saw/heard section because sometimes the promptings come unsolicited. I have always been a list person, it's the only way that I can get things done. I feel like this is a good way for me to keep track of and act on spiritual promptings. Last week one of the ladies in Relief Society quoted this poem from a General Conference talk from Thomas S. Monson in April of 2004.

“Father, where shall I work today?”
And my love flowed warm and free.
Then he pointed out a tiny spot
And said, “Tend that for me.”
I answered quickly, “Oh no, not that!
Why, no one would ever see,
No matter how well my work was done.
Not that little place for me.”
And the word he spoke, it was not stern;...
“Art thou working for them or for me?
Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee.”

March 28, 2011

This is the first day of my challenge to myself to look for times when I have felt the Lord's hand touching our lives. As I was thinking about my day today, I realized that I am dealing with my children's not so agreeable moods more lovingly. After quite a few really hard days, and a few tearful evenings where a couple of my children in particular didn't believe that I loved them, I think that I have learned a little secret. About two weeks ago, the frustrations hit their ultimate high, and Hannah told me “Mom, I think that you love me, but you are not very good at showing your love.” Talk about crushingly honest constructive criticism! I was so confused, I thought that I was doing very well at showing my children that I love them. I hug them often, I take care of all of their physical needs, I tell them that I love them...what more could they need? After a few prayers concerning the subject, I remembered a conversation that I had with one of my friends a few years ago. She had told me that she had read “The Five Love Languages of Children,” and that she had learned a lot from it. I was hesitant to check it out from the library because a few years ago I decided that I didn't like self-help parenting books anymore. They were mostly contradictory, and made me feel like my motherly intuition was incompetent. I checked it out anyway and decided that maybe, just this once, inspiration could use a little help from the experts. I have enjoyed the book very much, and I think that it has a lot of good information in it. In a nutshell, it gave me ideas on what might be lacking in the ways that I show my love individually to each of my children. I have tried to be more encouraging, to hold my tongue more when my children aren't actively involved in what they know they should be doing, to spend a little less time nagging, have a little more patience and take a little more time to talk about what really matters to them. I have noticed a huge difference in the spirit in our home, and a shift if my priorities. A verse from the hymn, “Know this that every soul is free” came to my mind: “He'll call, persuade, direct aright, and bless with wisdom, love and light, in nameless ways be good and kind, but never force the human mind.” I am thankful for inspired people who write good books, and I am thankful for the Holy Ghost for helping me decipher the useful portions of these good books.

Random acts of silliness

Hannah is extending her literary works to include satire. I laughed when I read this story that she wrote last Sunday, do you think that she is making fun of her little sisters?

Beautiful Pink

Once upon a time there was a beautiful pink princess. She lived in a beautiful pink castle. She had a beautiful pink horse that she rode all the time. Her beautiful pink horse was named Beautiful Pink. He was a beautiful pink horse with a beautiful pink horn and beautiful pink hooves and beautiful pink wings. One day Beautiful Pink said, "Beautiful pink princess, I want to make my beautiful pink hooves into beautiful pink school glue to give to the beautiful pink school children." So he helped the beautiful pink school children with beautiful pink school glue and the beautiful pink princess married a beautiful pink prince and they all lived beautiful pinkily ever after. Sometimes I wonder where she got her sense of humor, until I have an experience like I did today. We had a total of 8 kids playing at our house today, and only half of them were ours. I love to see our children playing and having fun, but after 3 hours we were ready to send the friends home so that we could hear ourselves think again. As one of Johnny's little friends was going out the door he said, "now I won't have any friends to play with." Without hesitation, and little compassion John said, "you can play with your nose." Surprised at the randomness, he broke into laughter and left with a smile.

Still feeling crafty

The craft bug has hit me hard lately. I think that it may have something to do with the fact that April is only two short months away. I know that once Spring is here (ie: birthdays, yard work, children wanting to play outside more.) I won't have as much time to work on all of the unfinished inside projects that have been haunting me since before Christmas. One thing that I have wanted to do is make Maddie's and Lucy's room a little more interesting. I have decided that I am going to let my kids paint their own rooms when they 12 years old, I know that I am thinking waaaay too far ahead, but it is also giving me an excuse not to worry about painting their rooms now. So in the mean time, I have convinced myself that I can get away with decorating their rooms cheaply and easily. I found these awesome flowers at Target, 24 flowers (if I remember right) for $20. They look like they are metal, but they aren't.

$20 still seemed a little much for me to spend on plastic flowers, but they are pretty durable and there were plenty for the M and L's room, a playroom project (I'll show that soon), and a few left for Hannah's room. I am surprised at how much character they bring to the room, especially when they are spray painted coordinating colors.

Oh, I took Lucy's crib down a few weeks ago and sold it on KSL classifieds. We have had to do a bit of mattress shuffling, and buying, to make sure that everyone has a place to sleep. I can't wait to get started on Lucy's bed, it is in the basement ready to be refinished, but I think that I will have to wait until it is a little warmer outside for that project. The paint stripper is pretty toxic for an inside job.

I also had an epiphany about pants a few weeks ago, I realized that I didn't know how many pants each of my children had, and Hannah was running out mid-week. Since I do laundry every week, they only need seven pairs of decent pants at most right? Some of my kids have more and some have less. I decided to get hooks with 7 pegs for each of them so that I could keep track of the amount of pants they have and need throughout the week. (p.s. this wouldn't have worked well during potty training, I would have needed 3X as many hooks...and pants.) If we have too many then I can cut down and simplify, and I won't be tempted to buy more than they need. Plus I don't have to fold them, bonus! Lucy loves hanging up her own pants. Eventually I want to get rid of the chests-of-drawers and make some closet organizers for each of them, but that's a project for another month.

My favorite boy

I often tell Johnny that he is my favorite boy, it has only been recently that he has started asking "but what about dad?" I'm pretty quick with answers to tough questions, and I immediately told him that dad is my favorite man. I still have a little more time to figure out what my answer is going to be when Johnny becomes a man. I'm going to need it. Tonight I thought about this again as I was tucking the kids into bed. I sang a song to Maddie and Lucy, and the feeling came to me that I should sing a song to Johnny before bed. When he was four years-old, I would sing to him often, but slowly the routine changed and three short years later I was startled by the realization that so much time had passed since I had sung to him at bedtime. So I sat beside him, and ran my fingers through his hair like I used to, singing "Jesus once was a little child" (one of his favorites), I couldn't help choking up a little bit at the realization that he is growing up. A few more years and primary songs at bedtime just aren't going to sit well with him anymore. As I try to figure out how to be a mom to my only son, I hope that he still continues to throw his arms around me a few times a day and tell me he loves me.Johnny's sense of humor is growing every day too, he takes on the job of being the only boy so well. A while ago I started noticing that he never looks in the mirror when I do his hair in the morning, even though I always do his hair in front of the mirror. One day, I realized that I could do his hair pretty crazy, and he wouldn't even notice, so at the last moment I decided to accessorize it with one of Maddie's cutesy flowers. It actually took a few seconds after finishing for him to notice, and if it wasn't for the big grin on my face, I think that it would have taken longer. since then he pays much closer attention to how I am doing his hair. I love this boy.

Playroom!

Never, in my entire life, have I ever experienced my very own room for toys! Never, ever, ever! To say that I am in love with our new playroom, and my very talented husband for making one for me (*cough*cough...I mean, our children) is an understatement. I am having a ball making it FUNctional for our children. I decided to start out with some wall art. I am not good at picking actual art, made by real artists. It always looks different, and not quite as good as I expected when I bring it home. There is something to be said about making art yourself. It may not look the best, but it is meaningful and it seems to fit. Plus, I am cheap. So, this is how I have been decorating our play room. So far, it has only cost me about $15, and I haven't even used up all of my supplies yet. These are the supplies that I have used thus far:

11 old frames that I have been saving for no good reason until now
A left-over swatch of fabric from when I recovered my lamp shade, and other fabric scraps
A can of white spray paint
glue and hot glue gun
Paper from craft store
Camera/printer
Scissors
glue stick
Magnets from old job board
Felt and Velcro that I had laying around

I whipped up some super cute silhouettes of my children and their best kitty friend. I love how it gives the room a certain "Dick and Jane" vintage feel.

I made some frames that I could display the kid's art and easily change it out for new art whenever they bring home a new masterpiece.

I just glued fabric into the old frames and glued little pockets onto the back to hold magnets. I realize that I could have just as easily used a sheet of metal, but I didn't have any on hand, and I like how this turned out. Just place a magnet on the other side of each pocket to hold the picture through the fabric.

We got some storage bins from IKEA. Thanks to my neighbor, Bonnie, for the great organization idea. But I must be one of the last to realize how great these organization shelves are because I just found out that another friend of mine is using the same kind also. I made labels out of felt, and attached them to the fabric bins with Velcro. They are so easy to change and so cute, I think. Plus, Maddie and Lucy actually like to help clean up because they know where everything goes now. Hannah helped me make a few of the labels, nothing gives character to a playroom like a purple teddy bear to label the stuffed animal bin.

This wall is still a very bare, I want to put a full length mirror somewhere on it so that the girls can see how they look in their dress up clothes, and maybe some hooks for their princess dresses and butterfly nets. I also have a plaque that I haven't made yet (but I have the supplies) to put above the little door.

We have a few more pressing projects to do before we are able to put carpet in the basement, but we are hoping to get it in before next year this time. Until then we get to admire Johnny's artwork on the floor. I was pretty upset about it at the time, but knowing that it will be covered up in a year helped me to relax and try to find the positive in the situation. The only thing that I could come up with was, "I'm just glad that he has feet." I really am! Because as far as feet go, I couldn't have picked a more perfect pair to decorate my playroom. I have to admit that I got this next idea from my sister, Kathleen. She has an awesome reading room under her stairs right now. Our reading room looks a little cold still, I am planning on making a shelf to put in here for books and getting a soft beanbag for relaxing. I'm not quite sure how we are going to decorate it, I was thinking about getting some fun wall stickers, but the other day Hannah asked "why don't we just paint a mural on the wall." That's my girl! I don't know if I can, but I'm sure I can try. And if I fail...well, that's what paint is for.