Today started a little slower, but it picked up for the afternoon and evening. I had a hard time getting moving this morning. Getting to bed really late and and starting days early for the last little bit have worn me out.
This afternoon I got to work at the School Book Fair for a couple of hours. I have done a lot around the school over the years, but the book fair isn't something I have ever done. It was fun to see the families come through the book fair and visit with the parents and children. What was worse was that I loved seeing all of the fun books that the book fair had. I have a MAJOR weakness for books! We probably have over 2000 books in our home.
After the book fair Rick and I went to visit with each of the children's teachers for SEP's (Parent Teacher Conferences). The good news is that all of our children are very smart and doing well in school. Our children tested really well with the different evaluations that they have had done and tests they have taken. I am glad that having so many books in our home has paid off.
The most exciting part was that Mrs. Abney had all of the students fill out a form on how they thought they were doing in school. Michael has struggled for years with self-esteem and being bullied / teased at school. On the form it asked how he felt about school and he marked happy, friends and other positive words. Grades matter to me, but what matters to me more is that my children feel happy, confident and positive about life. That was very exciting to me!
SEP's also motivate me to be a better mom and be more committed to helping my children do better with their homework and helping them at home. That seems to be where we slack in our home. We do things, but are definately not as committed as we should be. I remember my mom always trying to figure out the best way to help all of her children do their homework. I feel overwhelmed with 4, let alone 9 children in school. WOW!
In keeping with my mom's sanity with the topic of school I strive to find balance with each of my children. I know that education is VERY important, but I am a FIRM believer that there is balance with education and living life. We tie education into our daily lives and strive to make it fun. As we are driving on a vacation we will throw out multiplication facts, addition or subtraction facts or say the alphabet with words along the way that start with the different letters. I have had my children count to see how long it takes to get from point A to point B. We will be sitting on the couch relaxing and make up a fun story problem that pertains to what we are doing right then. Then I let my children challenge Rick and I with fun questions or problems that they make up.
It may not always tie into the specific things they are doing in class, but it is educating my children with basics that they will need in their lives.
We read books to each other. My children will read to Rick and I, we read to them and they read to each other. I will encourage my children to share with me things they have learned in school and have them teach me (I probably wouldn't do very well on "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?" since that was so many years ago).
I ended up doing pretty well through Elementary, Junior High and High School and furthered my education in College and got good grades, but we still did MANY fun things in our family and education was more a part of our lives than just consuming our lives and always worrying about only grades.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Another day of canning. . .
Alright, I am a little sad because I wanted to take more pictures today, but my camera died. It is a rechargeable battery and I just didn't pay attention to the battery light until it was too late. So, I thought it would be fun to show some pictures from my oldest in the hospital in January from his sledding accident.
In January, on a Friday evening, we went sledding for a FUN family activity. Michael was supposed to have a Basketball practice, but it was cancelled so with fresh snow on the ground we figured we would go sledding. Of course, I am the nervous mom not wanting my children to get hurt. I could hardly watch them come down the hill with their crazy tricks.
I was visiting with one of my friends and Michael starts crying. I figured it was some small incident so I told him to quite crying and get back up the hill if he wanted to keep sledding. Then I turned my head to look and see what was happening and was in TOTAL SHOCK and PANIC (with 4 boys it takes alot for me to panic :). We ran to the car and loaded 4 boys and 4 inflated tubes into the van. Ran to instacare, but within minutes the doctor was telling us to rush over to the Emergency Room because he was concerned about the swelling growing so fast.
This is what his eye looked like on the way to the Emergency Room. The swelling was growing as fast as I could drive. Zachary and Michael had decided it would be fun to see if Michael could jump at Zachary as he came down the hill with his tube to see if he could stop him. He stopped him alright, with his head.
This is what Michael's eye looked like about an hour after being at the hospital. We ended up going to an optomotrist at 10:45 p.m. to see if he had lost his vision in that eye.
The good news is. . .it has been 10 months now and his eye is healed and he didn't lose any of his vision. We sure are lucky!
The best part was that he decided he didn't want to miss his Junior Jazz game on Saturday so here is a picture of him playing on Saturday morning. He also had team pictures a week later. Team pictures we will never forget :).
Here are a couple of pictures of his eye healing over the next few weeks in January.
We've been starting to get in a good consistent habit of reading the Book of Mormon everyday. We were actually getting to the point that we would read in the morning and in the evening. We loved it and the kids loved it! For some reason we have gotten back out of the habit for the last week. We decided that this morning we would read before the kids hurried to the bus. By 8:00 a.m. the phone was ringing and by 8:45 a.m. I had gotten 4 phone calls. Needless to say, our habit didn't start back up this morning.
Then I ran off to a PTA Board Meeting. I am the Treasurer this year so I had to get there a few minutes early to make some copies. I got done with the meeting and the few things that I had to take care of around 11:30 p.m.
After that I ran over to pick up my son from Preschool and then raced to get my kindergartner off the bus. From there we spent the day bottling tomatoes, making Raspberry jam and making Strawberry Syrup.
In the middle of that I had scouts. We got to go to the Fire Department for scouts today. It was alot of fun and the boys had a good time. Field trips for cubscouts always make it fun for the boys and easy for us. We only have 4 boys and we have a good time.
It is always fun to be with my family. We laugh, joke, work hard together and of course, have our differences every once in awhile :). That adds for great variety and entertainment. I love it!
With the 2 days of canning together here is my mom-sanity thought:
Yesterday I got a phone call asking me to share a thought at the PTA Board Meeting today. Each month we have a Character that we focus on with the students. This month is Tolerance and Diversity. When I got the phone call yesterday we were DEEP into the Strawberry Jam and working with several different personalities. As it got later and everyone was tired and hungry the word Tolerance came to mind.
I am grateful that I have such a wonderful family that shows alot of tolerance for each other. No matter what we go through and our differences we love each other and can work together and find ourselves willing to do things for each other.
In the packet of thoughts and activities for this Character there was a quote that I loved. "The highest result of education is tolerance" by Helen Keller. I find that tolerance and recognizing the best in individuals is very important. I truly believe that most people strive to do their best.
If you would like to see all of the packet or other ideas of other Characters you can go to www.lindoncharacterconnection.com. Then click on curriculum and you can find all of the packets. They are great for office thoughts, FHE topics with your children, etc.
In January, on a Friday evening, we went sledding for a FUN family activity. Michael was supposed to have a Basketball practice, but it was cancelled so with fresh snow on the ground we figured we would go sledding. Of course, I am the nervous mom not wanting my children to get hurt. I could hardly watch them come down the hill with their crazy tricks.
I was visiting with one of my friends and Michael starts crying. I figured it was some small incident so I told him to quite crying and get back up the hill if he wanted to keep sledding. Then I turned my head to look and see what was happening and was in TOTAL SHOCK and PANIC (with 4 boys it takes alot for me to panic :). We ran to the car and loaded 4 boys and 4 inflated tubes into the van. Ran to instacare, but within minutes the doctor was telling us to rush over to the Emergency Room because he was concerned about the swelling growing so fast.
This is what his eye looked like on the way to the Emergency Room. The swelling was growing as fast as I could drive. Zachary and Michael had decided it would be fun to see if Michael could jump at Zachary as he came down the hill with his tube to see if he could stop him. He stopped him alright, with his head.
This is what Michael's eye looked like about an hour after being at the hospital. We ended up going to an optomotrist at 10:45 p.m. to see if he had lost his vision in that eye. The good news is. . .it has been 10 months now and his eye is healed and he didn't lose any of his vision. We sure are lucky!
The best part was that he decided he didn't want to miss his Junior Jazz game on Saturday so here is a picture of him playing on Saturday morning. He also had team pictures a week later. Team pictures we will never forget :). Here are a couple of pictures of his eye healing over the next few weeks in January.
We've been starting to get in a good consistent habit of reading the Book of Mormon everyday. We were actually getting to the point that we would read in the morning and in the evening. We loved it and the kids loved it! For some reason we have gotten back out of the habit for the last week. We decided that this morning we would read before the kids hurried to the bus. By 8:00 a.m. the phone was ringing and by 8:45 a.m. I had gotten 4 phone calls. Needless to say, our habit didn't start back up this morning.
Then I ran off to a PTA Board Meeting. I am the Treasurer this year so I had to get there a few minutes early to make some copies. I got done with the meeting and the few things that I had to take care of around 11:30 p.m.
After that I ran over to pick up my son from Preschool and then raced to get my kindergartner off the bus. From there we spent the day bottling tomatoes, making Raspberry jam and making Strawberry Syrup.
In the middle of that I had scouts. We got to go to the Fire Department for scouts today. It was alot of fun and the boys had a good time. Field trips for cubscouts always make it fun for the boys and easy for us. We only have 4 boys and we have a good time.
It is always fun to be with my family. We laugh, joke, work hard together and of course, have our differences every once in awhile :). That adds for great variety and entertainment. I love it!
With the 2 days of canning together here is my mom-sanity thought:
Yesterday I got a phone call asking me to share a thought at the PTA Board Meeting today. Each month we have a Character that we focus on with the students. This month is Tolerance and Diversity. When I got the phone call yesterday we were DEEP into the Strawberry Jam and working with several different personalities. As it got later and everyone was tired and hungry the word Tolerance came to mind.
I am grateful that I have such a wonderful family that shows alot of tolerance for each other. No matter what we go through and our differences we love each other and can work together and find ourselves willing to do things for each other.
In the packet of thoughts and activities for this Character there was a quote that I loved. "The highest result of education is tolerance" by Helen Keller. I find that tolerance and recognizing the best in individuals is very important. I truly believe that most people strive to do their best.
If you would like to see all of the packet or other ideas of other Characters you can go to www.lindoncharacterconnection.com. Then click on curriculum and you can find all of the packets. They are great for office thoughts, FHE topics with your children, etc.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Strawberry Jam
Today was a long, fun, interesting, family and STRAWBERRY day! My dad got 10 BUCKETS of Puree Strawberries. He called to see if we would be interested (actually Jenni did). We had to agree to be over there today to help do the strawberries. I was excited because we go through jam like it's going out of style. We just had to have the other supplies. I figured no problem, I have jars and the other stuff wouldn't be too much. Well, it came out pretty good, but I have to say sugar, jars and pectin add up really quick :). We have sufficient jam to last us the year - I would hope.
Anyways, it started out this morning at 10 a.m. and we got home at 10 p.m. The kids had a blast playing all day at grandma's with their cousins. They ended up FILTHY, but had a great time. We ended up doing 351 jars or cooked jam and 16 boxes of pectin for Strawberry Freezer Jam (I don't have any actual count on the freezer jam). We also did 28 jars of Strawberry Syrup. That was delicious! We are thrilled with all of our supplies. It is nice to be prepared with something.
It was fun to be with the family. We had a great time. By the time 8 p.m. rolled around I think we were all getting close to being ready to being done. I have a sister that is going to do hers tomorrow, but we got through 7 1/2 of the buckets today.
Mom Sanity tip: I loved today, but I missed spending a little quality time with my children. I know that they are alright and in bed sleeping sound, but I missed that few minutes of a visit with them today. The other day I had a friend of mine tell me that in a training she was in that she was told that a child only needs 7 minutes a day of quality, undivided attention from a parent to feel content and happy with their parents. That is such a small amount of time for each of our children. They deserve it!
Anyways, it started out this morning at 10 a.m. and we got home at 10 p.m. The kids had a blast playing all day at grandma's with their cousins. They ended up FILTHY, but had a great time. We ended up doing 351 jars or cooked jam and 16 boxes of pectin for Strawberry Freezer Jam (I don't have any actual count on the freezer jam). We also did 28 jars of Strawberry Syrup. That was delicious! We are thrilled with all of our supplies. It is nice to be prepared with something.
It was fun to be with the family. We had a great time. By the time 8 p.m. rolled around I think we were all getting close to being ready to being done. I have a sister that is going to do hers tomorrow, but we got through 7 1/2 of the buckets today.
Here are some of the pictures from the day (what you see isn't anywhere near all of them):
Mom Sanity tip: I loved today, but I missed spending a little quality time with my children. I know that they are alright and in bed sleeping sound, but I missed that few minutes of a visit with them today. The other day I had a friend of mine tell me that in a training she was in that she was told that a child only needs 7 minutes a day of quality, undivided attention from a parent to feel content and happy with their parents. That is such a small amount of time for each of our children. They deserve it!
Sunday, October 5, 2008
I love General Conference!!!
What a GREAT weekend! I love to hear from the Prophet and others. It is so inspirational to me and gives me motivation and hope. To help my children pay attention to conference I print off bingo cards that have different words that they listen for. We have M&M's (we've used fruit snacks, skittles - whatever the kids like) and they mark the picture / word as they hear it. They keep track of how many bingos they get through all of the conferences and then they get a token at Chuck E Cheese for each bingo. It's nice because it becomes another family activity and they think about conference tied to Chuck E Cheese and fun. We have done this for several years and it has worked really well. They look forward to it every 6 months.
After Conference we had a family council meeting. My dad wanted to talk about the economy and how to survive the challenges that are going on in our economy. Everyone was able to be there except for Ranee and Jerry, Saundra (she was sick) and Tawnya (she's on a mission in Hungary). It was a great family council. You never know how it is going to go when you have 15 people there and a whole bunch of children that are supposed to be entertaining themselves. My dad was in charge of the Family Council meeting and it went really well. There was amazing council that I feel I really needed. The children all entertained themselves and the spirit was right. It was neat to have almost everyone together.
This is the group that got together tonight. This is last years Halloween Group picture, but it shows what a wonderful, close family we have. We do so much together and love each other.
This is my sister, Tawnya, who is on a mission in Hungary. Last year she did this booth for Festival of Trees. She is always willing to serve and is energetic about sharing the gospel and what she has been blessed with.
Here are the top 3 things that my dad counseled us on and I would recommend these 3 items as my mom sanity tip of the day:1. Invite Christ to be a partner in our lives and invite Him to heal our hearts
2. Invite Peace into our lives and homes (Satan cannot counterfeit Peace)
3. Pray Often (includes listening and acting on the promptings)
There were alot of details and discussion, but I have to say that these 3 things sum it up really well and believe that these tips are going to continue to make my life better.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Funny and special start to Saturday
I am sure I will probably blog a little later, but I had to enter our funny and special start to Saturday morning.
I was in my room relaxing and hadn't gotten a start to the day yet when my 3 year old, Tanner came and said he wanted to be a mommy. I was surprised by this, but then I asked him why he wanted to be a mommy and he said, "Because I want to be like you mommy." Then my husband said to Tanner, "You just made mommy's day!" He was right. It's nice to have a little positive reinforcement that you might be doing a good job.
I was in my room relaxing and hadn't gotten a start to the day yet when my 3 year old, Tanner came and said he wanted to be a mommy. I was surprised by this, but then I asked him why he wanted to be a mommy and he said, "Because I want to be like you mommy." Then my husband said to Tanner, "You just made mommy's day!" He was right. It's nice to have a little positive reinforcement that you might be doing a good job.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Spending time with the family. . .
I started out the morning reading with Michael for Milk and Cookies with Mom's. That was alot of fun. I really enjoy spending time with my children in their classroom. I ran some errands, spent some quiet time at home by myself and then went over to the school to collect box tops. It has been a fun class competition where everyone ends up winning! It's great to have an opportunity to earn free money for the school.
In the midst of running my errands I had the opportunity to visit with a couple of friends about being unemployed and the joys of trying to figure out a direction in our lives. I like to have a plan, have it layed out on paper and know what I am doing each day with a schedule. Right now that is not what life has in store for us. I am having to learn to be flexible and fly by the seat of my pants :). Being unemployed is more than just going without money and a job. I had no idea the emotions and uncertainty that it would bring into our lives. Wondering what lies ahead and what is the right thing to be doing. Wondering if I should be looking for a job and questionning what the Lord has in store for us. I feel calm, but just have no idea what lies ahead. Somedays are good and some are not so good.
I feel blessed to be out of the rat race of the previous company we were both with. It CONSUMED our every minute of our lives. We both felt that it was like when we owned our own business, but it wasn't our own business. It's nice to have time to relax and spend time together as a family and enjoy some down time. I know that it was time to get out of that. I truly feel that the stress that was put on Rick was really wearing on him. I know this is where we need to be, but it is hard.
Anyways, after visiting with 2 friends that gave me some good insight I felt refreshed and ready to keep moving forward through this interesting path of our lives. I am trying to learn my lessons quickly so that we can move onto the next steps of life.
Tonight was a nice, relaxing night at my parents. We got to watch the BYU Football game and have dinner together. Alot of the family was together and it is always fun to have everyone around and spend time together.
BYU won, but not with a GREAT win! GO COUGARS!!!
I am very excited for General Conference this weekend. I feel like there is so much in store for me and my family and I love getting a fresh perspective on life.
For the tidbit of Mom's Sanity. . .
Hang in there! I have definately learned that there is gold at the end of every rainbow. It isn't always the gold that we are looking for and think it should be, but it is gold and we need to be grateful for it. I treasure the minutes I have to be with nieces and nephews and my family. I love that my children get to be so close to their grandparents and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles. These are days that I can't ever take back.
In the midst of running my errands I had the opportunity to visit with a couple of friends about being unemployed and the joys of trying to figure out a direction in our lives. I like to have a plan, have it layed out on paper and know what I am doing each day with a schedule. Right now that is not what life has in store for us. I am having to learn to be flexible and fly by the seat of my pants :). Being unemployed is more than just going without money and a job. I had no idea the emotions and uncertainty that it would bring into our lives. Wondering what lies ahead and what is the right thing to be doing. Wondering if I should be looking for a job and questionning what the Lord has in store for us. I feel calm, but just have no idea what lies ahead. Somedays are good and some are not so good.
I feel blessed to be out of the rat race of the previous company we were both with. It CONSUMED our every minute of our lives. We both felt that it was like when we owned our own business, but it wasn't our own business. It's nice to have time to relax and spend time together as a family and enjoy some down time. I know that it was time to get out of that. I truly feel that the stress that was put on Rick was really wearing on him. I know this is where we need to be, but it is hard.
Anyways, after visiting with 2 friends that gave me some good insight I felt refreshed and ready to keep moving forward through this interesting path of our lives. I am trying to learn my lessons quickly so that we can move onto the next steps of life.
Tonight was a nice, relaxing night at my parents. We got to watch the BYU Football game and have dinner together. Alot of the family was together and it is always fun to have everyone around and spend time together.
BYU won, but not with a GREAT win! GO COUGARS!!!
I am very excited for General Conference this weekend. I feel like there is so much in store for me and my family and I love getting a fresh perspective on life.
For the tidbit of Mom's Sanity. . .
Hang in there! I have definately learned that there is gold at the end of every rainbow. It isn't always the gold that we are looking for and think it should be, but it is gold and we need to be grateful for it. I treasure the minutes I have to be with nieces and nephews and my family. I love that my children get to be so close to their grandparents and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles. These are days that I can't ever take back.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Goblin Valley
Over the weekend we had the opportunity to go to Price for the final races of the Mini Sprint Season. On Saturday we chose to get up and head to Goblin Valley and hike around for about 3 hours. It is a beautiful place and our children love it! They beg everytime we get anywhere near Goblin Valley to go again. We have been there 4 times over the last 6 months. It is amazing all of the great things that we can discover everytime! Here are some fun pictures from Goblin Valley.
My life has been so busy for the last few years with giving service to Lindon Elementary as the PTA President, but during this time I found myself loving the idea of sharing ideas and experiences with my friends and family. I found myself asking friends how they do something in their home or friends asking how I did something. Together I felt that I gained great experiences and strength from my friends and family.
With these experiences I decided to start a website called mom-sanity.com with the idea of sharing ideas of how I find sanity in the craziness of my life. That website was on the back burner for the last couple of years, but with starting this blog I have decided to start building step by step and sharing something I did each day with the lines of MOM SANITY. . .
I have to say that I have learned to enjoy the small moments with my children. This last weekend was a FAR STRETCH for us to go since we have been unemployed for the last 7 weeks. With support of family we were able to go. I decided that instead of worrying about our situation back at home that it was important to enjoy the time we took to be together. We laughed, hiked, swam, watched races and played hard together. We ran a tight budget by packing food from home and explained to our children that we needed to enjoy what we had and to work at not spending any extra money. It was fun to work together to make the best of what we had! It was a fun game.
To sum it up. . .Make the best of each days situations. There are blessings in everything!
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