From our family to yours, we wish you a very Merry Christmas.
If you haven't seen it already, click here check out our Christmas 2008 Letter.
With love and best wishes...
Friday, December 26, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Memories
I got this from my cousin-in-law.
1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.
1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Opposite day to the MAX!
I feel like I am going CRAZY today! It is to bitterly cold to send the little peoples out to play, and they have decided to make it a blasted opposite day!
I am Ms. Grouch-a-saurus!
We were going to go out to Wal-Mart just to get out of the house, but I got to frustrated and felt so angry inside from the seeming relentless selective hearing that I opted to make everyone take a nap, including myself. I summoned myself to a time out hoping this would cure my grumpy attitude. I threatened the children that it would be in their best interest to not make any noise at all if they wanted to survive the rest of the day.
Apparently they unintentionally wanted to be entertained because they invited TIHOE to join in at nap time.
Once they realized this was serious business they changed the course of the day and all took blessed naps and we are all awake and happy once again. Needless to say I have some major repenting to do from the damage I caused to their kind souls.
I am Ms. Grouch-a-saurus!
We were going to go out to Wal-Mart just to get out of the house, but I got to frustrated and felt so angry inside from the seeming relentless selective hearing that I opted to make everyone take a nap, including myself. I summoned myself to a time out hoping this would cure my grumpy attitude. I threatened the children that it would be in their best interest to not make any noise at all if they wanted to survive the rest of the day.
Apparently they unintentionally wanted to be entertained because they invited TIHOE to join in at nap time.
Once they realized this was serious business they changed the course of the day and all took blessed naps and we are all awake and happy once again. Needless to say I have some major repenting to do from the damage I caused to their kind souls.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Sneezing and other random thoughts
Have you ever noticed that when you are about to sneeze and someone says "Bless you" before you have done the sneeze that for some reason or another your sneeze has been scared away? I do not know what causes this phenomenon, but it really intrigues me.
I am also intrigued at how many days children have, as I call them, opposite days. These are days where they choose to do everything opposite to what you have asked them to do. Frankly I do not like opposite days. They really do make my head feel like it is ready to explode or that "TIHOE" will emerge. I have a couple of theories about this though.
The first being this: God has sent these children to us to help refine us and help us become like Him. By having "opposite days" it helps me to hone my abilities to be more patient and kind in very difficult situations. In essences, these days refine me. Despite the feelings of complete and utter frustration in these moments, I know with a surety that "tomorrow" will be better.
I hope that one day I will be able to respond to my children in the same kind loving ways He does for me. I have got a llllooooonnnnngggg road ahead, but it is a road worth traveling.
The last two weeks Lucy has been going through this interesting phase. First of all she learned the word "meanie" a while back and uses it quite frequently in the situations she is in. At an attempt to help her understand that it is important to speak kindly of others, I have been trying to reinforce when she says "meanie" to her sisters or others, that we need to remember to say nice words about others especially our family members. So she will promptly say "oooh shoorreeyy!"
The second part of this phase is that she has learned how to kick objects, so she had been testing her kicking skills on, well, us! So the first couple of times she kicked us she was sent to time out, which seemed to help her to stop kicking human beings. But now she will be walking around and will kick the air and then quickly say "oooh shoorreey!" I guess she is teaching herself self discipline or something.
I would venture to guess that we are all a little like Lucy. We have been taught a correct principle and then we mess up and say "oooh shoorreeyy!"
I am also intrigued at how many days children have, as I call them, opposite days. These are days where they choose to do everything opposite to what you have asked them to do. Frankly I do not like opposite days. They really do make my head feel like it is ready to explode or that "TIHOE" will emerge. I have a couple of theories about this though.
The first being this: God has sent these children to us to help refine us and help us become like Him. By having "opposite days" it helps me to hone my abilities to be more patient and kind in very difficult situations. In essences, these days refine me. Despite the feelings of complete and utter frustration in these moments, I know with a surety that "tomorrow" will be better.
I hope that one day I will be able to respond to my children in the same kind loving ways He does for me. I have got a llllooooonnnnngggg road ahead, but it is a road worth traveling.
The last two weeks Lucy has been going through this interesting phase. First of all she learned the word "meanie" a while back and uses it quite frequently in the situations she is in. At an attempt to help her understand that it is important to speak kindly of others, I have been trying to reinforce when she says "meanie" to her sisters or others, that we need to remember to say nice words about others especially our family members. So she will promptly say "oooh shoorreeyy!"
The second part of this phase is that she has learned how to kick objects, so she had been testing her kicking skills on, well, us! So the first couple of times she kicked us she was sent to time out, which seemed to help her to stop kicking human beings. But now she will be walking around and will kick the air and then quickly say "oooh shoorreey!" I guess she is teaching herself self discipline or something.
I would venture to guess that we are all a little like Lucy. We have been taught a correct principle and then we mess up and say "oooh shoorreeyy!"
Sunday, December 7, 2008
My favorite time of the day
My favorite time of the day is when the girls and I have story time right before bedtime. They each pick a story and then we read the 3 stories. We usually sit in our special reading area. (It use to be a closet, but the renters we had in here broke the door, so we converted it into our special reading area.) The 2 older girls sit on either side of me, and then Lucy sits in my lap.
For me, this is a sacred time. It is the time where we can go anywhere or be anyone. I love looking at the girls faces as I read and make different voices for different characters. I love seeing their imaginations run wild as they try to put themselves in those "mystical" places. I love leaning forward and smelling Lucy's hair and then she will typically raise her cute little head up and I will kiss her forehead and then her eyes will light up as she gives a beaming smile. This time is sacred because I know that in a blink of an eye they will all be grown up and being all sorts of independent on their own.
It has taken me a few years to figure out the whole night time routine . In the beginning there was the first child. Let's just say I was a freak when it came to sleep and the child. I had her on a very rigid schedule. Nap time was not to be messed with, and if it was, you had to deal with me. It was not pretty.
With the second child, I was still rigid in the schedule, but was not as much of a freak. For the third child, I had learned that it is not the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it if a child does not get a nap or does not get to bed at precisely 7 o'clock p.m. I became a new person. I believe I started becoming someone that people wanted to actually hang around again. It only took me till the third child to figure this out, but it is better late than never.
I look forward when Kady can be a more active participant in our nighttime ritual. Now, she literally begs to go to bed no later than 6:30 p.m. Frankly, that is too early to gather the chicks around to start doing our story time. She will be ready by the end of spring, when she will get transplanted in the "big girl" room with her sisters before the new baby arrives.
When I was a child, my fondest memory of bedtime is my Father sitting outside of our bedroom in the hallway with his guitar and he would sing to us. He would sing songs he had made up or some of my favorites were Love Potion #9, Rainbow Connection, It only takes a spark.... His voice was so soothing to me. Those songs took me to "mystical" places. In a way it was his way of reading to us but in a different form.
What kind of rituals do you do with your children, or if you may not have any, what kind of good memories do you have of when you were a child?
For me, this is a sacred time. It is the time where we can go anywhere or be anyone. I love looking at the girls faces as I read and make different voices for different characters. I love seeing their imaginations run wild as they try to put themselves in those "mystical" places. I love leaning forward and smelling Lucy's hair and then she will typically raise her cute little head up and I will kiss her forehead and then her eyes will light up as she gives a beaming smile. This time is sacred because I know that in a blink of an eye they will all be grown up and being all sorts of independent on their own.
It has taken me a few years to figure out the whole night time routine . In the beginning there was the first child. Let's just say I was a freak when it came to sleep and the child. I had her on a very rigid schedule. Nap time was not to be messed with, and if it was, you had to deal with me. It was not pretty.
With the second child, I was still rigid in the schedule, but was not as much of a freak. For the third child, I had learned that it is not the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it if a child does not get a nap or does not get to bed at precisely 7 o'clock p.m. I became a new person. I believe I started becoming someone that people wanted to actually hang around again. It only took me till the third child to figure this out, but it is better late than never.
I look forward when Kady can be a more active participant in our nighttime ritual. Now, she literally begs to go to bed no later than 6:30 p.m. Frankly, that is too early to gather the chicks around to start doing our story time. She will be ready by the end of spring, when she will get transplanted in the "big girl" room with her sisters before the new baby arrives.
When I was a child, my fondest memory of bedtime is my Father sitting outside of our bedroom in the hallway with his guitar and he would sing to us. He would sing songs he had made up or some of my favorites were Love Potion #9, Rainbow Connection, It only takes a spark.... His voice was so soothing to me. Those songs took me to "mystical" places. In a way it was his way of reading to us but in a different form.
"The most beautiful and the most profound emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical." --Albert Einstein
What kind of rituals do you do with your children, or if you may not have any, what kind of good memories do you have of when you were a child?
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