Spiritual Resolutions for the Whole Family

This year, we decided to kick our bums into gear and make some family goals. Spiritual resolutions if you will. We decided on the following schedule to help us reach our goals:

Sunday: Family Council (where we discuss up coming events and schedules, complaints and suggestions and basic planning. We also address concerns and talk about other extended family members that may need service or our prayers that week. We also read scriptures to make up for any days that we missed during the week.)

Monday: FHE (sometimes a lesson, occasionally a fun activity. Like this last week. We went down to my mom's in Alpine, and had her show my boys how to grind wheat from food storage and make wheat bread. They helped their grandma measure and mix. The boys each formed their own loaf and put it in the pan. Then we ate the yummy bread right out of the oven with lots of butter and honey! I don't think my boys knew, that wheat, is where we get flour from.)

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: Family Scripture Reading (On these nights, we all meet in the family room at 7:30p.m. sharp for scriptures. We're reading the Book of Mormon. We have an opening prayer, read 4 pages, and close with family prayer. Short and sweet. We felt that 4 pages was a manageable goal for the boys' attention spans. Its worked out pretty good. The important thing is, we're reading!!)

Friday and Saturday are free. We do try to do a family activity together one of the nights-dinner out or take-out and a movie in. Or some other fun activity. Todd and I have date night the other night together, sans kiddos.

For Todd and me, this was huge. We have attempted to do all of these things but have been unsucessful with being able to follow through for a very long time. Or we'd choose one thing to work on like FHE, do it for awhile and give up when the kids gave us grief or when we weren't prepared. I think the trick to making this work for us, was to set manageable and attainable goals in each of these areas. We also have been pretty commited to making it work. And the blessings we've seen and felt...incredible.

This post isn't about tooting our horn. It's about sharing our victory-over the adversary. He is so ever present in all of our lives. Doing these things, help us as a family, to remember we are sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father who wishes our return to him. All we have to do, is do our part.

Oh, Holy Crap!!

It's been far too long since I posted. I had to blow the thick layer of dust off my blog and remove some accumulated spider webs, but I'm back!

So, how was Christmas? Ours was filled with cooking, cookie decorating with cousins, house-cleaning, house guests, gift buying and wrapping and visiting friends and family. This year we even hosted Christmas dinner at our house for Todd's side of the family. Thank goodness he comes from a small family-14 w/ kids-so not too bad. We exchanged board games between the families and then played them together. It was a riot! That was something new we thought might be fun to try. It was.

Ethan, turned eight the beginning of Nov. and was baptised the beginning of Dec. He is so grown up. He has a passion for life and wakes up every morning happy and singing some little song. But, like every kid he comes with challenges-both for himself and his parents. He still sits in the lazy boy with me and snuggles under a blanket while we watch T.V. or read a book together. I'm afraid it won't be much longer til he won't be able to sit on my lap. My lap will be empty and I will truly miss that part of motherhood. The sweet tender moments. I also see my boys transitioning more towards spending more time with their dad. Good for him, sad for me. I suppose that's just the way it should be. Lucky for them, they have a very attentive father who loves to spend time with them. I either need to get a new hobby or a part time job!

The Blue Bubblegum Mohawk

This morning at 6:15 a.m. my bathroom light turned on. It woke me up. I sleepily asked who turned it on. It was Ethan. I said, groggy and annoyed, "Ethan, what are you doing?" He replied, "I'm cutting gum out of my hair!" Not the kind of project you want to wake up to. "Ethan, put the scissors down and I'll help you get the gum out in five minutes. I need to wake up first! Give me a minute." I quickly get my whits about me and stumble out of bed to my bathroom. I thought this would be just a wad of gum in one place in his hair. No such luck. This child, I kid you not, had blue gum in a straight line from his forehead bangs, across the top of his head, down the back of his head ending in a big mess of gum on the skin on the back of his neck! I ran to get the camera so I could remember this precious moment-and to prove to Todd that mornings with our boys are hectic to say the least. But alas-dead battery! Ugh! Unbelievable, a bubblegum mohawk at six freakin' thirty in the morning!! Not to mention, Ethan had cut a couple of nice chunks of gum laden hair from his bangs with my cuticle scissors! I'm thinking to myself-how am I going to get this all out? I ran downstairs to get the Goo Gone. After a soaking application, I began to pull the gum residue from his hair. It took awhile and whallah-gum gone! Now I had to figure out how to fix the bad haircut. I hate it when my kids cut their hair.(talk about a hair raising experience not to mention anguish about how to fix the damage.) A barber girl I am not. A snip here a snip there and he looked pretty Ok. I tried my best. After a shower and shampoo, I sent him off to catch the bus. I was exhausted and it was only 7:55 a.m. This child is going to be the death of me. I know, I know, some day I'm going to look back on this and laugh. However, today, not so much!

Random Ramblings

It's pretty pathetic that my life is so seemingly boring that I haven't had a thing to blog about in 6 weeks! So here are some random ramblings:

THIS IS IT! A couple weeks ago I rented the Michael Jackson movie "This is It." In one word: AMAZING! I had been wanting to see it. Keep in mind that I was a 15-16 year old, living through the era of Michael Jackson when he was in his King of Pop prime. MTV was pretty new to the scene and M.J.'s "Thriller" song and video was all the rage. In the mid 80's everybody loved and listened to Michael Jackson's music.

I am so glad I watched the movie! It reminded me of just what an amazingly talented person he was. He was a phenomenal performing genius! On the flip side, I feel really bad about the fact that he was plagued by so many personal demons during his life. Sad, that despite all of his talent he had to resort to such powerful drugs just to sleep...drugs that would later cause his ultimate and oh so early, demise. What an incredible loss. I would have paid for tickets to see his "This is It" tour. If you haven't seen the movie-I highly recommend it. You'll see what I mean.

Today, Todd and I took the kids to see the new Percy Jackson Lighting Thieves movie. Cole was so excited to see it. He just finished reading the last book in the series a couple of months ago, and thoroughly enjoyed each and every book. For Cole, that's a big deal. He unfortunately, is not a big reader. However, he couldn't get enough of this series. Cole said for him, it was the equivalent of the Twilight series for me. (And you know how much I loved and anticipated the movies.) The movie was exciting and entertaining. It was well cast, too. I can see why he likes the books. I might even be enticed to read them now.

In the last month, I've been able to spend some much needed time with girlfriends. Friends from my old neighborhood as well as my new one. On more than one occasion, I have really felt grateful for my friends. I can't imagine my life without them! Something about getting together with other women just fulfills a need that cannot be filled any other way. Women just understand each other-and we love to talk-about just about ANYTHING! I always come home a little lighter, a little happier and just plain grateful for girlfriends! They are the perfect balance of sugar and spice in my life.

O.K., enough rambling for one day.

The Toolbox

Today, I realized that I did not come with a full toolbox when it comes to solving problems and generally dealing with my kids. Not only did I not bring to parenthood the tools that I needed, but I also didn't get an instruction manual, either. I didn't get a caution or warning label and I certainly did not get a promise that satisfaction would be guaranteed. Today, I am unsatisfied with my parenting and my kids. To tell you the truth, some days I wonder why my children were sent to me to be their mother. I just don't have the tools I tell you. When I asked Todd this question today, he said that, " they were sent to me so that I could learn." To which I promptly replied, "Yea, like what?" Didn't think about that one before it flew out of my mouth. What more could I possibly NEED to LEARN? Um, like how to accumulate some more tools for that toolbox? Where can I go to find the answers I'm looking for to solve the issues I'm having with my kids? My Mom's answer to that question would be simply to pray and read the scriptures. Can it be that easy? Will the answers come? O ye of little faith?

I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed, O.K., maybe today a lot overwhelmed with the responsibilities of parenthood and how to deal with all of the challenges my kids are bringing to the table as of late. I need some more tools in my toolbox, like how to nail Cole's butt down to the chair so that he can get his homework done and put the screws to him about how important grades are and that his performance in school will be in direct correlation to the kind of adult he becomes. Does he care? Nope. Or all the times I try to hammer into Ethan's head the importance of being kind to his friends and cousins, including everyone and sharing and not saying mean things when he doesn't get his way. And that yes, reading is important, everyday to become a good reader. Maybe I'm not motivating them the right ways...Maybe I'm not....Maybe I need to.... Maybe, just maybe, I need to turn this over to the Lord. He'll know. He'll send me the tools I need, right?

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Friends and Family-Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a fabulous New Year!

Note to Self

I just updated the quote of the day (see right). I'm thinking my life would be so much better and easier if I were taking heed to the things in that quote! Why, oh why, is it so hard for me to read my scriptures on a consistant basis? Or, at all some months. I really could use those promises in my life right now. I think I'll dust off my B of M tonight and do some readin'! If you have any suggestions on how you make scripture reading work in your life, I could use some.