Things That Need To Be Recorded

Mirren finally started walking FULL TIME this weekend! Woohoo!! She is so happy and excited to finally have the confidence to be doing this. I feel like I'm seeing the happy little girl I've been missing since she started teething 4 months ago. Although, she is also getting all her molars in right now so I'm not sure how that whole happiness thing is suddenly working again. I guess she is just really excited to be a big walking girl!

We're finding out in 2.5 weeks what we're having, so now is the time to get your guesses in! Boy or girl??  Your vote is wanted!

We are also moving in 4.5 weeks. This past weekend I officially boxed up some more things. Yuck. :P

We're having our own ham this Easter weekend here at home! I'm so excited because I've never made my own Easter dinner, so this will be a first and you all know how much I love doing (most) of my own firsts. I want it to be fairly healthy-ish, so I've got to figure out what to do besides a salad. Maybe some smashed cheesy cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes? We shall see.

The weather here in Idaho Falls is beautiful lately, except for the random windy day on Saturday. Beautiful mild temperatures. I think we could actually call it Spring!! :)

I may add more as I think of it, but this feels like all I've got right now. Have a happy week!!

I've Got a Loverly Bunch of . . . . . . . Marbles

**POST EDIT:  Ha ha ha!! Sorry if you read this and my thoughts were not well strung together thanks to overworking on sewing easter dresses and distractions from children. I hope to have fixed it now.**

Yesterday morning around 4 am, shortly after giving Mirren the binky she lost while sleeping, I laid in bed trying to go back to sleep. (For some reason, when pregnant, if I get awoken I have the darndest time going back to sleep. I really hate it. That's another blog post entirely).

As I lay there, I had a thought pop into my mind about what I needed to blog about because I never had written about it. It's something we've been doing for over a year and I have found it an incredibly effective tool in getting the help I need around the house and motivating my kids to want to help without me having to get grumpy about it.

I originally got the idea from my sister Alyson, who shares lots of her good parenting ideas with me. Luckily she does the trial and error of what works and what doesn't for me!  She has been doing this with her kids for about 3 years I think with great success.

So here's the idea. We all need our kids to help keep our houses clean, whether it's from their own messes, the laundry, the dishes, the bathrooms, etc. Whatever you feel your children are capable of cleaning, here is their reward system! Using marbles as a way to mark how many jobs your child has accomplished, you put them into a jar/container until that child earns enough to earn a reward. What that reward is is up to you. Like my sister told me, rewards are not meant to be stingy things. This is something your child has worked long and hard to earn, so make it something worth all the work!!

 You store your childrens individual marbles in a container of some sort. Jar, rubbermaid container, whatever works for you. It needs to be a smallish/medium sized container.  I found my plastic container with lid at the dollar store. My sister also recommended letting my kids pick out stickers to decorate their work jars so they would each have their own unique container. I got my stickers at the dollar store too. They had a really good variety there and my kids loved picking out their own.  We went home and they decorated their own unique container. I forgot. I also bought my marbles and a big jar to hold them at the dollar store. Seriously, we're talking under $10 to get this thing set up. If you have jars and marbles already, it's even less. Within that first day, my kids were SO excited to start earning marbles! They were asking all the time, "what can we do to earn marbles?". It may help to make a list at first of what jobs there are for your kids to do, and how many marbles they will get for each job. I personally just have a pretty standard list of things my kids can help with at this point. My sister, whose kids are older, tries to keep a running list of unique jobs for each day and how many marbles they are worth for her kids and her kids pick which jobs they want. I'd say either way works, depending on the needs of your house and the abilities of your kids. We found after filling our containers the first time that we needed 95 marbles to fill ours. That sounds like a lot. And it is. But if your kids are working all the time and you are reminding them all the time to be earning, it should only take about 2 months to fill those jars, and lots of time to watch their marble jars grow and grow! By the way, I think my sisters jars are closer to 150 until they are full. So, every family's containers will probably be varying sizes. Just find what works for you!

  Some important things to think about:  I don't reward my kids for cleaning up things they messed up aka they got out all their toys and now need to clean them up. They made the mess, they need to clean it up. I give marbles for EXTRA jobs that they do, and that's just the rule at my house, jobs such as make their beds, empty the dishwasher, wash the mirrors in the bathroom, bring down sorted loads of dirty laundry to the laundry room, etc. Every house will have differences, according to whatever works in your house. I reward my kids with 2 marbles for every load of dirty laundry they bring downstairs to the laundry room. That might only be worth 1 marble at your house because it's not a big job, but my kids have to load it up off the floor (where I sort my dirty laundry) and haul it downstairs to the laundry room and I consider it enough of an effort that it's worth 2 marbles. I also give 2 marbles to them for emptying the dryer and taking the clean laundry to the couch to be folded. It's nice for me to not have to take out every load of clean laundry and my kids like to empty the dryer. I think it sometimes depends on how much a particular chore bugs you. Ha ha!!

One last tip: my kids and I started having some lax issues with kids feeling no motivation to earn marbles and I wasn't sure how to get them going again with it on their own. And then I realized I could kill 2 birds with one stone. I was sick of the tv being on too much, for my taste, at my house. It was PBS, but still, too too much. So I decided my kids had to earn so many marbles to even watch any movies or tv at my house, at all. It's different for each kid, dependent on their age and of course only for the big kids. Mirren will be joining in when she's 2.  This REALLY works for us! Most weeks the tv isn't even on until Thursday or Friday, woohoo!! AND my kids get a good number of marbles every week without really worrying about earning marbles, they are just thinking about getting tv time. Sure we have had 1 or 2 weeks where Aftyn says she just doesn't care about earning marbles but Bronwyn is a superstar and earns them as usual. So Bronwyn watches a movie and Aftyn has to go read books in her room. It happens and nobody fusses about it. Aftyn knows the rules and so does Bronwyn.

We love the marble reward system in our house!! I cannot say it enough. If you try it, don't give up on it if it doesn't work right away. Tweak it in the way that works for your family! My kids love knowing that they get a weekly reward of having tv/movie time AND knowing they are working toward a bigger reward and I love all the help that my kids give me in keeping our house clean and running! It's a win/win!!

Morning sickness . . . . . or is it??

Last Thursday poor Bronwyn didn't feel good.
The next day Aftyn joined her.
Sadly they had to miss a birthday party they had been invited to (they were heartbroken)
 but felt so awful that we were able to talk them down.
And it helped that when Reed dropped off the gift for the child, the parents had goody
bags for both girls which sure helped their heartbreak. ;)
   Mirren seemed fine through Sunday but the other girls were still sick so Reed stayed
home with them and I went off to church to teach my class of Sunbeams.
Monday afternoon I was convinced something wonky was going on with the baby
and I was freaked out.
Turns out, after a few hours I knew I just had gotten whatever bug the girls had.
Still. Aftyn finally woke up feeling fine on Monday, but Bronwyn, Mirren and I have been suffering all week from whatever this horrible virus is.
And yes, it's got to be a virus. It's awful!
When you eat, you feel sick.
When you don't eat, you feel weak but not terribly hungry but the weakness is awful.
 It seriously reminds me of morning sickness!!!
It's horrible!
I only just got over morning sickness about 3 weeks ago so it's still a little too fresh
in my mind to be battling it again.
So little virus, please go away and leave us alone.
And by the way, Reed has had it since Tuesday.
It got us all. Way to go virus.
Now go away.

Things That Make You Cry

Here is an interesting question: Do you like to watch movies/tv shows that make you cry or movies/tv shows that make you laugh??

The first show I remember that ever made me cry was Little House on the Prairie. The episode where the little girl was ashamed of her dad and how fat he was. And then he falls through the roof he is repairing, assumedly because of his weight. I always hated the way that episode made me feel and I would avoid it like the plague once I recognized which episode it was. Until the day I just made myself sit down and watch it. And. I. cried.  Yes, I don't remember how old I was. Younger than 8 for sure. I don't recall ever watching that episode again, but at least I knew why I didn't like it. It broke my heart!!  I recall feeling very grown up as I cried as well. Ha ha ha!!!

   Are you like Debra on Everybody Loves Raymond, who when given time away from her family, turns on a sad movie just so she can cry???   I prefer the end of that episode when Ray turns on "Lady Marmalade" and gets down with his bad self and makes us all laugh at his goofiness.

Yes, I do not choose sad movies. When I'm feeling bummed or just like life is kicking me more than usual, I turn on a funny movie and laugh my cares away. If I want to let out some sad emotions, I am more likely to turn on some music and let myself cry that way. My expectations of movies are to entertained and made to feel happier. Interesting hmmm?

Now to my point. I just watched Big Hero 6. Kids movie?? I think not. Not unless your 6-7-8-9 year old likes to cry and can handle big ticket topics such as
1. Loss of ones parents 
2. Loss of a sibling who dies in a futile attempt to rescue someone who turns out to be evil. 
3. Loss of a loved thing that embodies said lost sibling.

Seriously people, how is this a children's movie??  Are children becoming so de-sensitized that these topics are no big deal?  Don't get me wrong. There were definite moments in the movie that were feel good, but sadly they were surrounded by bigger things like
1. revenge on someone who helped your sibling die               AND
 2. Anger and wanting to kill someone.

When did these become childish topics or anything any child should even think about or worry about?  Yeah, well, as for me and my house, probably never going to own this movie and who knows when I'll let my kids see it. Seriously.

A Post About Growing Up

Big things seem to be happening this week with Mirren.

Yesterday for the first time ever, she pointed at something specific. I got some balloons for my friends birthday and Mirren loved them so much every time she saw them she pointed! It was so cute!! And then when my friend left our house after picking up her balloons, Mirren waved with no additional prompting. First time ever!!

This girl seems to be picking up on stuff! :)  No solid walking yet, but she keeps taking steps here and there and is so much more sure on her feet when we walk holding one of her hands. Her feet are finally facing forward instead of awkwardly going out.

And tonight because I just feel like the timing is right, she is sleeping on the bottom bunk of the bunk bed. No more crib!

At first she seemed to think she was just put there to play, but Reed and I both sat by the bed and reiterated that it was Mirren's bed. I showed her Aftyn in the top bunk and Bronwyn on the other mattress and told her those were their beds. And then I put her back in Mirren's bed and made her helped her to lay down. And told her she needed to stay there. We read scriptures, said prayers and told the girls goodnight! I walked out the door with some solid hope that Bronwyn and Mirren would both fall asleep easily, and they did! Now if the night goes uneventfully I won't know what to do with myself! :)

Our baby is growing up and this is a milestone for her! The next 2 hard ones will be having our new baby and having Mirren be the big sister, and getting rid of the binkies. Luckily we have a few months before either of those things will happen.

   Oh and another frightening thought. Bronwyn is moving to the top bunk tomorrow night. Reed is worried she's going to get hurt falling down the ladder. I say, let her learn. She'll figure it out and it will be okay. She's had plenty of experience already climbing up and down. Maybe when it's a permanent thing she'll learn to be more careful about it.


**Follow up** Other than waking up early again, 6:30 am, Mirren slept the whole night! Yay!!

Vagueness

      You know, sometimes life has yucky things happening in it that we don't want to talk about.

Such was the case with my last post and I apologize for the vagueness, but I wanted to remember

how awesome the regional conference was and how I was profoundly affected by the messages

shared in it.

     Also, sometimes it's good to remember the vague yucky times so in the future when

things work themselves out, because they always do, you can look back and feel blessed at where

you are now. 

    

Keeping it Positive

Today in our regional conference at church, there were some amazing talks.

It felt like each one had a message for me specifically, and I needed to hear each one of them.

I walked out of the meeting with renewed hope for myself, with vigor and energy to change.

I had a great day! We even had my niece and her husband for dinner and dessert, followed

by a fun game of Rummikub. Who remembered that game was so fun?!?

And then this evening, even though I felt an uncertainty in my heart, I followed through on

something I've been meaning to do for a long time.

What might/may have been a blessing may also have been a tool of Satan's to bring me low,

to cause horrible heartbreak and a sense of discouragement and bleakness to my point of view.

I still remember the lessons I've been taught today, and I'm trying to bring my chin up and keep

my eternal perspective but I must admit that sometimes life can be just too hard to face.

And some hurts cannot be erased without the healing power of Christ's atonement.

Knowing that He has felt this hurt, that He can hold my hand and lead me out of it brings

comfort to my soul even as I am awash with grief and pain.