Only a Mother?

Maybe this is something only a mother can appreciate...

In sacrament meeting, Abree leaned over and handed this program to me. At first I didn't think much of it, because she is often handing me little pictures and notes during church (sweet girl). But as I looked closer at her drawing, it touched me.

I believe it's her and the Savior side-by-side. I love the pink glorious light lines coming from Jesus. :) So sweet.

I think I'll keep this one.

The Conversationalist

Karen was out-of-town and Tim had to work, so it was a cousin day for us.

Audrey- with her cute jack-o-lantern smile.
Katelyn-eating her graham cracker snack.

Sydney- on her 3rd graham cracker snack of the day.

There was a little bit of Saturday morning cleaning and a lot of Barbie/baby/dress-up and house playing. We also fit in some park time, a movie and bouncing on the trampoline too. --The older 2 girls were perfectly content playing with their cousins and I barely saw them. Sydney was happy too, but she had to check in with me and was my buddy for the day. Or maybe I just seemed to be the most qualified person to get her COLD water. She would still have water in her sippy cup, but would NEED cold water.... and a snack. :) Funny girl.

That evening, as I was getting ready to go to General Women's Conference, I had just hopped out of the shower and was getting dressed, I heard someone come into my bathroom. I popped my head out and realized it was Sydney.

I said, "Sydney I'm getting dressed. I'll be out in a minute."

She said, "You don't have clothes on!"

My point EXACTLY. :)

Then after I was dressed and was putting on make-up and doing my hair, she became quite the little conversationalist.

She walked up to me and looked up and said, "You are vay-wee tall."

"I like pink and purple."

"You are wearing like Straw-baywee Shortcake."

"Your hair is pretty."

"You are vay-wee pretty."

When asking about my flat iron..

"Is that hot?"

"Only for you to touch? Only mommies."

Then she went on to tell me this whole story about Audrey falling off her bed. She went through some of the motions and what Audrey looked like and how she told mommy and how mommy helped her.

Then her play turned imaginary and she had a whole story about a mountain, bears and falling. Oh boy!

She was a little sad when I was getting ready to leave. I told her I wouldn't be gone long and I would be back soon. She said, "Can I have a hug?" --Awww, so sweet. I tried to get Taylee to distract her as I slipped out the door.

When I arrived back home, she came to me and told me, "I cry for you. I cry and cry and cry." --Awww. I asked her if she needed another hug. Yes. We hugged and all was well again.

Sweet, sweet Sydney... thanks for being my buddy and letting me be yours. It made my heart happy. :)

Going to the SPA

Do you want to S.T.A. or go to the S.P.A?

The first week in my Positive Parenting class, Sister Tanner taught us about using the atonement in our every day lives. When we think of the atonement, we may think of it as a big, lofty thing or like a trophy put on the shelf, shined up, but not used. We should be using it every day... wearing it out like an old comfortable baseball glove.

How do we do this?

She referred to a conference talk given by Elder Lynn G. Robbins, "What Manner of Men and Women Ought Ye to Be?" --We need to BE..not only DO.

When discussing the article as a class the next week, someone told us of an acronym to help us to remember the steps in using the atonement in our every day lives..

1. S- Stop

Stop the unbelief, self put-downs, feeling frustrated with spouse/kids, self-pity, negative thoughts, etc.

2. T- Turn or

P- Pray

Turn to Heavenly Father and Jesus. Pray to know what to do. Pray for guidance and understanding (may have to remove yourself from the situation or just count to 10).

"I don't know what to do. I can't do this on my own. Please help me."

3. A- Act

Do what you are prompted to do. Make a positive move. Take the next step.

I have yet to be totally successful in doing this. My hope/goal is to use it as the kids are getting out the door in the morning. I seem to have a lot of frustration during that time. I would love to do a lot less reminding and keeping them on task and have a whole lot more peace.

SPA's are peaceful. I need to go to the SPA!!!

Positive Parenting

You've heard me rave about Carleen Tanner's "Positive Parenting" class, now you can check it out yourself.

Andrea, a member of the class, has set up a blog to share notes from class. Her notes include; scripture highlights, referenced conference talks and homework from Sister Tanner.

I'm excited that you now can get a glimpse of what I've been talking about. Here's the address:

carleentannersparentingclass.blogspot.com. She's encouraging us to leave our experiences of what has worked and not worked for us, in the comments section.

Check it out. Tell me what you think.

PS- She also has several CD's on the different topics. They are $10 each. I haven't listened to them, but I bet they are good. :)

FHE

I've had something on my mind for some time now..... money.

Saving money, to be more exact.

Jason and I have done a great dis-service to our kids. Through the years, we've kind of talked about savings and our kids have saved up short-term for items, but we've never established or required our kids to put money away in a savings account for their future. With Rylee being in high school and college just around the corner, I thought we'd better get going on it.... it will be here before we know it.

We started out by giving them money... Monopoly money. I handed them a stack of dollar bills equal to what our monthly paycheck is. Then I showed them a list of all of our monthly expenses. Next, I had them "pay" me one-by-one for each item on the list (mortgage, electricity, gas, food, etc.). It was interesting to hear their comments.

I asked Taylee to give me $100, for the City of Meridian.

She said, "Really? That seems like a good deal."

Then I said, " Remember when you saved up your babysitting checks and cashed them into that 100 dollar bill? Remember how much that felt like? Can you imagine spending that WHOLE 100 dollar bill on ONE thing..like water and garbage pick-up?"

She had to admit that spending $100 on utilities wasn't all that fun and maybe NOT such a good deal. :)

After the monthly expense exercise, we had a whole $31 left!

(Jason and I were a little excited and surprised. J/K)

Then we talked about how far that $31 dollars could stretch and what expenses we hadn't included in the exercise. We also tried to explain, that when we said we didn't have money to buy pizza, go to the movies, buy that cute pair of shoes, etc....we REALLY didn't have it. We weren't just trying to be mean.

Next, we talked about the future... and about saving for the future.

We first talked about how much money a mission costs. Today a mission cost $400/month or $9,600 for 2 years. Treyson is 10, so has less than 9 years to save. We rounded up (knowing that there will be inflation) to $10,000, in 8 years. Treyson needs to save $104.16/mo to have enough for a mission, when he turns 19.

Next, we talked about college.

Rylee has this idea about going to Weber State to be with her cousin Jade (who lives in Ogden). We've talked about out-of-state tuition being a whole lot more than in-state, but had never put numbers to it.... until that day. :)

I researched and found that to go to Weber State it would cost;

in-state=$4,081 and out-of-state=$11, 547.

Then I looked at other colleges.

For BSU; in-state=$5,566.

For BYU-I; LDS=$2,280, non-LDS=$4,560.

All of these numbers are for one semester of course, so times that at least by 8, for 4 years...and that doesn't include books, supplies, living expenses, etc.

I had Rylee on the calculator entering numbers and coming up with totals. It became quite overwhelming to her... but a good reality-check too. She started saying she didn't really want to go to college. We told her she didn't HAVE TO go to college, but she got to save for her future any way. :)

BYU-I was definitely the best tuition cost... but I wouldn't know how to predict all the living expenses from living away from home.

So how would they get all this money for their future?

We had to brake it to them that they will be the ones to do it.

So how do we save all this money?

The system I grew up with (and Jason too, kinda) was 10% goes to tithing and then whatever was left over, 50% went to savings and 50% went to spending (on whatever we wanted). I told them that this is what I would like our family to do too.

There was weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth (Oh boy, we should have done this when they were little!). Needless to say, it didn't go over well. Through the tears and comments of unfairness, we talked a bit longer and tried to console. In the end, all of them agreed to our new saving system (for some it took longer and a "check in" shorter agreement was made). They each shook my hand to bind our agreement. Here we go!

For our activity I made up a game "How much does it cost?" I made a list of every day items and had the kids guess how much they thought each item would cost. Then we went to Wal-mart and wrote down the real price. It was surprising for us to see some of the real prices. I was surprised at how much a candy bar was!... has it bee that long since I bought one? :)

For the treat, we gave them a challenge, "Here's $2, buy a treat for the whole family, only using the 2 dollars." They ended up choosing Little Debbie Swiss Rolls... 6 in a package for less than 2 bucks! :)

Maybe not the most fun FHE we've ever had, but definitely worth it. We promised as they committed to this new way of saving, they would be blessed because they were doing what's right. I have faith that this is true. I hope they will be able to see it... at least in the long run.

PS- Recently, both older girls have had the opportunity to get their hair cut and highlighted by a ward member...without charge! I see this as an immediate blessing. If they don't see it, I may have to motherly point it out to them. :)

Hanging Out with Lizzy & Levi

Levi and Lizzy were my other little visitors of the week.

There was some toy playing. Some book reading. A snack. Some trampoline bouncing. And lots and lots of stair up & down.

Levi LOVES the stairs!

He's getting pretty fast going up, is quite confident about standing up (makes me nervous) and is also getting the hang of how to turn around and come down on his tummy.

Lizzy wanted to do silly faces.

And take a turn with the camera, to capture my silly face too.

She did a pretty good job as a photographer, don't you think?