Small Blogging Break

My family was planning on going on vacation this week to visit my husbands grandmother but sadly a week before our planned trip was able to happen she passed away. We've been out for her funeral and have been spending time with my husbands family, so unfortunately I've had to take a break from blogging.

When I do get a chance to get back to blogging, I thought I would write a piece on death and what I've learned about how to talk to your kids about it.

It will probably be a boring piece but it might be useful down the line.

For All Those Escape Artists

A couple of weeks ago we found out that while Aaden was in his car seat he would slide his buckle down and wiggle his arms out of the straps. There was nothing I could do to keep him in his car seat safely. We tightened the straps, I scolded him, I tried to reward him, but the fun of becoming Houdini was much more exciting.

So I went online to find out if there was any solution, any gadget I could buy or quick fix I could do. After about 5 hours of scouring the internet all I found was a whole lot of parents that had the same problem, other parents scolding them for not being better parents, and not a lot of help.

What I did find was a lot of reccomendations to switch out my buckle to a more child proof one, but at the time Aaden wasn't unbuckling the buckle he was just sliding it down (a different story now). The buckle they recommended I change to is this one (Link to Amazon) . I also found a website (unfortunately I couldn't find it again) that sold these little gadget that you clip onto the strap so that if your child does open the buckle the straps still stay were they need to and your kid doesn't get out.  But, they charged $19.99 per fancy clip plus shipping costs and I took one look at it and realized I could make the exact same thing for under $10.

At first I found this at Walmart:

Mitten clips. They were on sale for only $2 since they are out of season. And it worked great till Aaden figured out how to open the clip. So I bought suspenders that had a smaller clip that he couldn't open and  made my own.

Here is mine:

I cut and hand stitched the strap together. I'm not trying to go for fancy or make more to sell, just trying to get something to work to keep my son strapped in. So far it has worked, but that's just for quick around town drives. I'm curious how it will do keeping him secure in his seat on a long drive. Once we go on one I will let you know. OR! if you make your own and test it out, PLEASE let me know how it works for you.

I first put the clip under the buckle because he hadn't figured out how to undo it yet, he just knew how to slide it down and wiggle his arms out

Now, Aaden knows how to unbuckle the buckle so I moved the clip above the buckle so even if he gets it open the straps stay where they are at and he stays safe.

I know in these last 2 pictures his buckle is too low but I just put him in the seat so I could take the pictures. You can tell he was so happy about it :)

Bring On the Pregnancy Comments...

This post is from my cousin-in-law, Abbey,  who I just love so dearly. She writes her own mom blog called http://thenaptimereport.blogspot.com/ which I love reading and I completely recommend to everyone. Abbey is incredibly pregnant right now and sent this post to me to put up that she wrote right before she had her first child. I thought I'd put it up because, If you have ever been pregnant you have run into at least half of these comments, and I hope you laugh and associate with this as much as I did.

Thank you Abbey!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

In case you were interested in unleashing the wrath of pregnancy hormones, here are, in my opinion, the 10 most incredibly annoying things I have heard in the past 8 1/2 months. Please note: if you have, in fact, uttered one of these statements, please don't feel bad (or offended). Mostly, these things are just annoying in repetition. Because you weren't the only one saying it. I decided this post would be a helpful, informative guide to dealing with the preggers in your life.

10. It's a shame that such young girls are getting pregnant these days. There are several variations to this comment, and I've had a few. This is partially due to the fact that I look like a pregnant 5th-grader (I'll appreciate my youthful looks when I'm 40, I think). This is also partially due to the fact that people are not smart. Seriously. Take a look at my left hand. I'm married. And my age is none of your business. But just to get you off my back, I'm almost 25 and have been married for 3 years. Plenty old enough to be starting a family, in my opinion.

9. You'll need practice for when that baby comes. Spoken mostly by other parents, this comment really pisses me off. Obviously, I have no idea what I'm doing. I get that. But, do I want to practice on your child? Absolutely not. Especially since your child is the one screaming/throwing a fit/running down the hallway.

8. Your life is going to change once that baby comes! What?!?! You're kidding me! A newborn is going to change my schedule a little? I'm shocked, really shocked. I might be a first-time mom, but I'm not an idiot. That being said, I can guarantee you that I'll still be going out to eat, watching my TV shows, and taking the occasional nap. I do have a husband (see #10).

7. You've got way too much stuff for this baby. I really just don't understand this comment. First of all, what is it that I'm not going to use? The carseat? Maybe the stroller? Perhaps the diapers? Or, maybe the crib. Second, who cares if I've got a lot of stuff? We've had a long, hard road to parenthood, and I'm excited to welcome this baby into our family. If that means I have "overprepared", then so be it. You ought to be excited for us, too.

6. Your feet are really swollen! Really? Because I hadn't noticed the throbbing pain every time I take a step (or just stand up). Also, I hadn't noticed that NONE of my shoes fit. But thank you so much for telling me!

5. You're about ready to pop! Closely related to #1, this deserves its own section. In church on Sunday TEN different people said this to me. Ten! Really, people, I'm NOT ready to pop. First of all, I've still got 5 weeks to go. Second, that's just another way of saying "you're fat".

4. What is the baby's name? This question in and of itself isn't annoying at all. I really don't mind when people ask me. What I do mind, though, is when people continue to pester me after I tell them that we don't have one picked out yet. Honestly, we don't have a name, and you standing here asking me repeatedly isn't going to change that.

3. I never got THAT big with my babies! Well, good for you! I, however, am this big with my baby. Have you looked at my body type? I am barely 5'3" and am pretty short-waisted. Where do you think this baby is going to hide? In addition to that, my baby is growing in my arms, face, thighs, and rear end. But thanks for pointing out that you were never as big as me.

2. Whoa! Are there two in there? No, actually, I'm just very large. But thanks for bringing that to my attention.

1. Haven't you had that baby yet? Hmmm...is that a real question? Because isn't it obvious by looking?

Easy Clips and the Pull-Through Ponies

I was incredibly excited when I found out that my first born was going to be a girl. I have always loved doing hair. As a little girl I wanted a bunch of Barbie dolls so that I could do their hair and once I could braid I was doing friends' hair every chance I could. I assumed that my baby girl was going to be born balled like I was and prepared myself to patiently wait for her hair to go in. To my surprise she was born with a head full of dark brown hair.

But, after a couple of months her thick brown hair fell out completely.

It took forever to grow back in and when it did she had a bunch of fine, thin fly-aways that I had a hard time taming.

I did the sprout look for a long time.

And looking back I really should have stopped doing that and started doing these hairstyles sooner. These 2 styles are the first that I learned and they are both quick and easy to do.

First, The easy sweep over and clip look. It's a fantastic way to quickly give your little girl a clean look.


This all really depends on the clip you use and how you clip the hair in. Thicker hair needs a more sturdier clip like this:

But, if you try to put that into my daughter's hair it would slide right out. We use these kinds of clips:

Now, the quick way of setting the clip in the hair is to slide it right in front like this:

This works well on all hair types and will keep the hair in place pretty well. But, I like this look a little better:

You just pull a front section of hair back and place the clip in at the desired spot. If you get enough of the pulled back hair in the clip and you place the clip close enough to the roots it should stay in really well. It takes just a couple of seconds to put the clip in and an easy look for the whole day.

From collages

NEXT! The pull-through ponytail. Once you've mastered this little trick there are so many hairstyles you can do with it.

Take a front section of hair and wrap it with a rubber band. Do not wrap it around the hair too tight, maybe one less wrap than what you would do for a regular ponytail.

Then, push your finger straight through the hair just under the rubber band, from the front of the head through the hair towards the back of the hair next to the scalp. This will make a hole underneath the ponytail to then loop the ponytail hair through.

Bring the hair through the hole by bringing it from the front of the head through towards the back of the head (The same direction you pushed your finger through).

Take the hair that you just pulled through and divide it into 2 pieces and then gently pull them away from each other in order to tighten the rubber band and create that tight pulled-through look.

This will definitely take you a couple of tries to actually get it right and that's okay. Once you do get it down then it's just fun to figure out how you can work it into a new hairstyle like these:

 

Really, just have fun and play with it!

My Shameful Hiding Place

For those of you that don't know me personally, this is where I live:

Yes, I live in a trailer. My first shame I've been working on getting over for the past 2 1/2 years. We moved here very quickly and this was the most affordable and easiest place for us to move into. It's surprisingly nice inside with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and a large step-down living room and was a great fit for our family…at first. Since we moved in we've had another child and we quickly found out that these things don't come with any extra storage space. We put a shed in and have packed that to the brim and now we're busting at the seams in this small space. No closet left unturned, no space underneath beds are unused! 

Now this brings me to my next shameful admittance in this blog piece. I have now resorted to storing things here:

Yes, that is a bath tub. That is the bathtub in my kids' bathroom! I'm so ashamed! We are so running out of space! It all started with storing items from a function I was in charge of, then my work stuff got put in there and now, Easter and birthday presents are being hidden in there. Our kids take baths in our bathroom in the spacious garden tub so this tub has been sitting empty for a while. It was a quick fix at first to get things off our dining room table but now… I just can't think of (or find) a new place to put all this stuff. 

I'm not this person! I have organized, re-organized, eliminated, garage sale-ed, given away everything that I could and still this is what I have resorted to. I try to run a nice, organized home but we've never lived anywhere I really feel like we could stretch out and really make it our home. We're always busting at the seams and that doesn't make me feel like it's our home. I want a place that feels like our home! Not just a house but a HOME for my kids. 

That's not a bad thing to ask for as mom right? and I don't want to keep going crazy organizing and cleaning anymore! Or be ashamed of my storage alternatives ;)

Have a Crazy Eggy Easter!

By Jana

We have spent almost every Easter with my in-laws so truthfully we don’t have that many Easter traditions of our own.  We love decorating Easter eggs and rolling eggs in sand tracks with the family.  We usually have deviled eggs or Egg salad sandwiches. Here is the deviled egg recipe I usually use:

Deviled eggs

6 eggs (Hard boiled)

¼ C Miracle Whip

2 ½ tsp mustard

1/8 tsp salt

Paprika to sprinkle

Peel and have the hard cooked eggs remove yolks and mash with miracle whip, mustard and salt.  Refill egg whites and sprinkle with Paprika

And instead of decorating sugar cookies we have made our own eggs:

PB Easter eggs

6 T butter

¼ C Peanut Butter 

¼ C marshmallow cream

1 ¾ C Powdered Sugar

¾ lb milk Chocolate candy coating

2 T shortening

Cream butter, peanut butter and marshmallow cream together

Beat in powdered sugar drop on wax paper on a cookie sheet and form into egg shape freeze for about 10 minutes.  Microwave chocolate and shortening dip eggs in chocolate place back on wax paper and decorate with sprinkles.

Pretty Headbands!

So, I just bought this group of headbands at the dollar store 2 weeks back and the little pack of rubber bands the other day so I got really excited and revved up to start this little series hairstyle tips for little girls. And since I fell in love with these headbands so much I thought I would start out our little series with them


Now,  I know what your thinking, "Headbands are easy! why would you do a piece on doing hair with headbands?" Well, headbands are easy to put on a head but they are hard to keep them on and looking good. So, here is my way of making the hair look clean and flawless as well as helping keep the headband in all day.

This is what my daughter looks like every morning when she gets out of bed:

I, in no way, changed her hair for this picture. Crazy looking huh! In order to tame this crazy do I use these products:

Spray bottle with water, spray gel (usually this is the cheapest brand), leave-in conditioner (she has very fine, thin hair and we live in a very dry state), plastic hair bands, and I use the roller brush to do her hair but most people use a comb.

Now, in order to get a good look for headbands I put a bit of her hair into a ponytail where the bow is in order for it to look clean and then the ponytail helps keep the headband to stay put. What I usually do is put the headband on her head to gage where the ponytail is to go.

Then I section off the hair and put in the ponytail. NOTE: while making the ponytail hold the hair close to the head when wrapping it with the rubber band.  That way the ponytail will lie close to the head and not point out in a funny way. (If you are wetting the hair and blow-drying it, wet it down before you put the ponytail in and then blow dry after.)

Once you're all done, put the headband back on and this is what it will look like:

And I think that looks better than this:

If you're not wetting and blow drying the hair this little do will only take a couple of minutes. I really like it because with the ponytail in and keeping the headband in place, my daughter is less likely to play with it all day. And this is an easy do to do on any hair length and thickness. All you need to do is just take a small amount of hair from her natural part and hide it behind the bow on the headband. A little effort with a great look for the whole day!

Why My Kids Look FABULOUS! (or at least why I try)

In my opinion my children are a direct reflection of my parenting and home care when we are out in public.  This means that when we step out our front door my kids are dressed well, their hair is done, and I expect for them to be on their best behavior.

From collages

Now, I do realize that when we are out they are likely to misbehave and probably mess up their outfits but at least I try every time we leave our house. I believe that by taking care of them and their appearance I'm also teaching them to take care of themselves, value themselves, and that although appearance isn't everything, it is something. As they grow and learn to take care of their own appearances, they're learning how to appropriately dress for different occasions, their gaining self respect, modesty, and cleanliness. That is my job as a mother to teach them these things.

I don't think throwing on whatever I grab for them first out of the dresser, not brushing their hair and running out the door is teaching them anything good or reflects well on me and my capabilities as a parent, especially as a stay-at-home mom. I should have the time to take care of them and do them up right before I send them out the door.

I know that not all parents have the time or financial means to send kids out at their very best or what is at least your ideal best. I also know that there are some very head strong kids that refuse to wear clothes their parents pick out for them or want to dress themselves in their own outfits. My friend's daughter goes through picky phases. For a couple of months she would only boots no matter what, then she went through a pajama pant phase where even if her mom got her to wear pants out the first thing she would do at home is put pajama pants on. Right now, she's moved on from the pajama pants but refuses to wear jeans. And during all of this she goes in and out of letting her mom do her hair. And I actually think it's cute when I see little girls walking around stores in princess dress up costumes.

 I get that there are kids this way out there and you need to let your kids have room in their lives to explore their style and just have fun with it all, and I'm not counseling you to tackle your kids down and make getting ready in the morning a miserable and dreaded experience for everyone involved, but put in the effort each time enriches everyone. HINT: I will let my daughter pick out whatever she wants to wear on days I know we are not going anywhere and I usually don't really do her hair those days just to give her a break. She usually ends up looking like this:

Then she is happy to wear whatever I want her to on the days we do head out of the house.

Now, I also now that parents feel the burden of financial availability when it comes to buying clothes for their kids. I know this all too well because we don't have a lot of money to spend on clothes, but I have found away around that at least for my family. About 80% of my children's clothing is 2nd hand items. The rest are either bought at Walmart or in the clearance section of Old Navy or given to us as presents from their grandparents. I have a strict policy for buying kids clothes and that is to never spend over $8 for a piece of clothing accept for:

Shoes
A good pair of jeans (my kids have long skinny bodies and short legs so I have to be picky with jeans)
Holiday outfits- We get Easter outfits and Christmas outfits every year avg $16 a piece

There is a way to shop at Walmart and thrift stores and get things that don't look like they came from Walmart or a thrift store. And I will explore that in a later post but every spring and fall I spend about $85 a piece on clothes (excluding the holiday outfits and shoes) for my kids and you would never know it (I think).  So, look for that coming soon!

Also, in upcoming posts, I will showcase different little girl hairstyles for short and long hair that are VERY easy to do and very quick to do, so if you use the excuse, "I just don't know what to do with her hair so that's why she always looks a mess" you will no longer have that excuse!

I know that it would just be easy to let it all go and walk out the door with a family that looked "relaxed" but I realized when my little girl was really young that getting her ready for the day wasn't about the convenience for me, but it's for my daughter and all the lessons and moral obligations that I'm responsible for teaching her and all my children.

Foolish Friday!

By Jana

My obsession with holidays has gone too far! My daughter has April Fools in her top three!  We start out breakfast with eggs (vanilla yogurt with an apricot half on top).  For lunch we have our sandwiches inside out (thin breadsticks little cream cheese wrap the cheese slice around a little more cream cheese used like glue and wrap the lunch meat  around it.  For dinner I mix it up the meatloaf cake, spaghetti pie or you can have a milkshake for dinner too!  Have fun foolin’ your friends! 

Milk shake dinner

1 T vegetable oil

1 onion

1 stalk of celery chopped

1 clove mince garlic

1 bay leaf

½ t salt

6 C cauliflower florets

2 C chicken broths

½ C cream or ½ n ½

Heat oil, over medium heat fry onion celery garlic, bay leaf and salt.  Stir occasionally until onion is translucent (8 minutes) stir in cauliflower water and broth bring to a boil.  Reduce heat cover and simmer until cauliflower is tender (10 minutes).  Let cool for awhile then discard bay leaf and blend to puree the soup until smooth.  Let cool completely (I put it in fridge for about 30 minutes).  Strain soup into sauce pan and stir in cream heat over medium heat, until steamy.  Serve it in heatproof glasses and parfait spoons!  

__________________________________________________________________________________

Our April Fools Tradition!

My family has a fun April Fools dinner tradition. Each member participating in the dinner gets in between 3-5 dollars (depending on how many people are coming) and pile into a car and head to the grocery store. Once there everyone goes on their own and tries to find the weirdest/funniest thing they can think of to eat for dinner and buys it. No one reveals what they bought for dinner until you get back home and everyone puts it out on the table. After everything is made, each person has to eat a bit of everything brought back. It's crazy what the dinner will consist of; pudding, cereal, hot pockets, candy, ice cream, fried chicken, little debbie's, and more! 

Last couple of times we've done this with our friends we've all dressed up as wacky as we could to get us in the crazy mood, plus, it's really fun to run around the grocery store looking silly and trying to be covert with your basket of dinner riches!

If  you like silly dinner recipes and want more as well as get some ideas for some harmless April Fool's pranks check out these fun links:

www.familyfun.go.com April Fools Recipes

www.familyfun.go.com April Fools Kid Pranks

My Preschool Blues

Tomorrow my 4 year-old will start her last semester of preschool. September will bring Kindergarden and someone else watching her for the larger portion of the day.  Yoyo (our daughter's nickname) has been going to a preschool provided by the high school as an educational opportunity for both the high schoolers as well as the preschools. It's extremely cheap ($25 a semester) and Yoyo has a great time charming all the kids and teenagers. The down side is that it's only an 8 week program and the focus of it is more small motor skills and social skills not learning letters, numbers, etc. that they need to know before they go into kindergarden.

Luckily, Yoyo loves to learn which made it easy to teach her the alphabet and numbers at home, so I've never been worried about her being educationally where she needs to be in September. What does worry me, like I've mentioned on this blog before, is that Yoyo has some severe food allergies and this preschool has been so good about keeping her safe but I haven't been able to bring myself to trust her future kindergarden/school. The preschool is 3 days a week for almost 2 hours a day and with the little time they have with her they work so hard to make sure she isn't exposed to any foods that could hurt her. Starting next September,  Yoyo will be spending 6 hours a day, 5 days a week away for me and in someone else's care. There will be only one, maybe 2 adults in the class and 2-3 times as many kids in class than what is in her preschool class. I'm excited for her to start school and reap all the benefits that school provides, but I am so nervous to leave her and her allergies in someone else's care for the majority of the day.

 How can I trust that they will do just as good of a job watching over Yoyo as her preschool class does? I keep coming back to this thought as we get closer and closer to September and I hope that with time I can ease my thoughts and find trust in the system.  But, for now, as I send her off tomorrow to her first/last day of preschool,  I will be sad that we are getting closer to her last day in this wonderful program. She has had a great teacher who has been so good at taking care of her and I wish I could express to her how wonderful she had been to the both of us, but I don't think there are words that will correctly express my gratefulness.

What I have to do is take the last couple of months I have left before school starts to prep myself for the change that is coming and learn to trust these strangers with, basically, my child's life and future.

Oh Lord! Give me strength!

From collages

Yoyo on her first-first day of preschool and also on her last-first day or preschool. She's changed so much! And after looking at these pictures I apparently like pink and brown outfits for Yoyo, ha!

Frazzled Monday

(Me and my kids on St. Patrick's Day)

I woke up this morning with the energy and desire to get a lot accomplished within my home. I started piecing a blanket together for my son last night (that I had cut and got ready to start before he was born) and I wanted to start sewing it today. I was ready to clean each room and write a couple of blog pieces and I realized that I could actually (maybe) even get some reading in if I managed my time well. All that excitement was quickly squashed by my kids!

My 21 month-old decided that his own toys were just not exciting anymore and my bathroom drawers are a prefect place to play. My 4 year-old just wanted to play and do all the wrong things at the wrong time and be apart of my phone conversations at the same time. Neither one of them will leave my side! I couldn't even go to the bathroom without the both of them sitting outside the door. Every time I turn around they've destroyed a room, gotten into something they're not suppose to, or are fighting with each other.  Don't get me wrong I love my kids, but my whole day has been spent on the phone catching up with friends and family, being a referee between the kids, and walking around in circles cleaning the same places I just cleaned. I got nothing done that I wanted to get done besides a load of towels in the wash.

To top it all off, today is the anniversary of my father's death and I haven't even got a chance to think about it.

What I realized is that most of my day's lately feel like this. The laundry is never finished; there's always a load to clean and load to fold. There is always something to clean, something to cook, a task to be done, etc.  (I really hate that! There's no brake!) My life is one big circle of the same chores to do over and over again. Clean, tidy, wash, shop, cook, clean, tidy, wash, shop… When is there time for me? How do I find that balance?

I know some mom's that are great at that. They can let something slide in order to do something for themselves. I don't know if I can do that. I feel guilty every time I let something for my home and family slide while I do something for myself.  I'm going to have to figure out how to do it all without guilt because lately I have been staying up REALLY late in order to get some "me" time in.  And that has not made me a happy, energized, patient mom each day especially when my son has started to wake up at 6am.

So, to not just have this be a whining, complaining blog piece; How do you do it? Any suggestions on how to balance my time better? How can I get in all the things that I need to do for the family and still find time for me? And please tell me I'm not the only one that gets like this sometimes!

Village Top ‘O the Morning!

By Jana

This is one of my very favorite Holidays I tend to go a little overboard.  We have a leprechaun who throughout the year is known for stealing a sock or two from the laundry but on St. Patrick’s day he steals shoes and the kids have to search all over the house to find them usually filled with surprises.    The beauty of St. Patrick’s is you can add green food coloring to almost any dish although left over green rice is sometimes challenging! 

Lucky charms are an easy St. Patrick ’s Day breakfast.  

We also like to make Irish flag cake for breakfast.   

1 C milk

6 eggs

1 C flour

¼ tsp salt

Green food coloring

3 T butter

Peaches

Cool whip

Mix milk, eggs, flour, salt, food coloring in blender.  Melt butter in a 9X13 Pan in oven pour batter into hot pan.  Bake @ 450 for 25 minutes it puffs up and waves like a flag.  Spread Peaches on a 1/3 of the flag going up and down.  Then in another 1/3 spread the cool whip and leave the other 1/3 green.  

  

 Couldn’t get my camera fast enough. 

At our house it just wouldn’t be St. Patrick’s day without Shamrock Pop

24 Cups which is 6 Quarts of popped Corn

2 C sugar

2/3 C half n half

1 T light corn syrup

½ t salt

1 t vanilla

½ t green food coloring

Cook sugar, milk, syrup, salt to a soft ball then remove from heat add vanilla and food coloring.  Pour over popped corn and mix put on pan of wax paper to cool.  A few years ago I threw in some (gold coins) yellow m&m’s.     

The Toolbox

My Husband and I recently attended 10 hours of a “Love and Logic” parenting class.  Love and Logic is a parenting philosophy created by Jim and Charles Fay, PH.D. (Father and son).  Nate and I attended thinking we would learn some more tools to cope with the growing unwanted and undesirable behavior from our 4 year old and 1 year old boys.

This is what we found: A very effective toolbox.  The class covered topics ranging from bedtime tantrums, whining, public outbursts, allowance, chores, choices, consequences, and love.  I was reminded throughout the class that children are smart, capable, loveable, and a joy to have.  I consider myself lucky to carry the title of mother.  Parenting is hard and taking this class provided me with a fresh deep breath and a new perspective.   The newest tool I like to carry around in my new toolbox is choices.  I learned to give both of my children a little bit more power, by letting them choose between two acceptable choices.  For example “Wes would you like cheerios or toast for breakfast?” or “would like to turn the TV off now or in 5 minutes?” I have discovered that by giving my boys a little more control over their lives they are happy and we seem to get along better.  I have stopped simple arguments by letting Wes make choices.  He is not always happy about the choices, but he makes them and moves on.  I feel a little less pressure as a mom to do everything and less anger when my kids don’t appreciate the choices I was making for them.  

The class does not guarantee that your children will always be happy and always make great choices, but at least he/she will have the opportunity to make and learn from his/her choices.  My greatest hope is that my children grow up to be happy, healthy, independent thinkers.  I want to be able to look back and feel confident that I provided a loving environment for them to thrive in. Hopefully doing the hard work while they are young enables me to enjoy my children as they grow into adults. I have always loved opportunities to learn and stretch myself.  It was nice to be able to step outside my parenting style and open myself up to new ideas, and strategies.  If this class or its curriculum is available in your area, it is worth your investment.     

Stephanie Halladay

_______________________________________________________________________________

My Quick Thought:

If the class is not available in your area and you're interested in learning more about the Love and Logic method, either click on the link to the Love and Logic site or on the link to Amazon.com where you can buy the book or book on cd. 

I really encourage at least a peak into this method because it's whole purpose is to take the anger and frustration out of parenting by giving you more tools or options to help create a learning and nurturing environment for your kids. It also gives you methods of disciplining without yelling and I've found that helps me enjoy being a mom again.


http://www.loveandlogic.com/ 

Amazon Link to Love and Logic

Stacie

Incredibly Late Valentine's Day Family Ideas

I realized last night at about midnight that my resident holiday specialist wrote a cute post of Valentine's family fun weeks in advance and I completely spaced posting it. I guess this month ended up being busier than I thought it would be. Anyways, to honor her and the great work she puts into creating the holiday posts for this humble little blog I'm posting it late so that you guys can have her great Valentine's day recipe for next year. Actually, I think you should make her love muffins for you're family all year around to let them know you love them.

And I STRONGLY suggest you keep your eye on this little blog for Jana's upcoming St. Patrick's day post . It's her FAVORITE holiday and she has some wonderful and fun traditions to help her and her family celebrate this unique holiday.
___________________________________________________________________________

By Jana

Call for Cupid

I want my family and friends to know I love them not just on February 14^th but EVERYDAY!

There are 5 love languages that a person can use to show their love to others; physical affection, words of affirmation, quality time, service, and gifts.  Food can help people feel loved, it can be a gift, and homemade counts as service!  AND if you do it together you can spend quality time and give kinds words and hugs as you make it!  Which means you can use all 5 love languages while make this recipe together. Nice right?

It is pretty easy to have the kids help in the kitchen and make love muffins.  On Valentine’s Day we make these love muffins which are super easy with a basic raspberry muffin mix and muffin liners.

 How to make the liners into the heart shape:

 Outside of the liners just put in a few marbles to shape the muffin into a heart. 

Then mix and make the muffin mix and poor into the liners and bake as directed on the mix 

And of course you have to make a Love Potion to go with the love muffins!   

12-ounce can pink lemonade concentrate

1 cup raspberry sherbet

12-ounce can of lemon/lime soda 

In a pitcher, mix the lemonade concentrate with the recommended amount of water.

In a separate pitcher, combine the sherbet with 1 cup of the lemonade mixture.  Add the soda, stir, and serve.

Have a happy, wonderful, loving Valentine's day!

Discipline and Punishment…..

This is my 4th attempt at writing this blog post and each time I start out stating all the facts about this story I can't quite get it to go where I want it to. I think I'm just trying too hard to sound like a serious and important writer, which I realized I'm not! But here I am trying it again mostly cause I feel like I can't move on until I get this out and I have a whole line up of posts I've been planning to do for a while now. So, here I am, trying it one last time and this time I'm hoping I get it right!


You might have heard about this story a couple of weeks back; a story about the Alaskan mother of 6, Jessica Beagley, who went on the Dr. Phil show back in November and confessed she has a hard time discipling her children.  Out of her 6 children 2, who are twins, were adopted from Russia and Mrs. Beagley confessed that one of the twins is the hardest of all of them to discipline. With that confession Mrs. Beagley brought with her to the show home videos of her feeding the young boy hot sauce for lying and of her forcing her son to take a cold shower for getting 3 infractions at school. 


I first heard about this story on the Today Show where they interviewed a pediatrician and a psychiatrist who were both appalled at the mother's actions. At first, if I'm going to be honest, I didn't think the hot sauce was all that bad. I was upset at the cold shower. The cold shower felt very much like an out right mean thing to do to a kid. The hot sauce reminded me of when parents punished their kids with bars of soap in their mouths or as Matt Lauer pointed out, there was a time parents made their kids drink caster oil as punishment too. Parents are told to use hot sauce as a deterrent for thumb sucking so it didn't seem that bad until the 2 interviewee's started to talk about the difference between discipling and punishing. 


The overall view was that we want to, as parents, to discipline our kids when they do something wrong not punish them. Punishing only lets the kids know that the parents are unhappy with them and teaches kids to fear their parents and the punishment. It doesn't teach the kid to learn from their mistakes, it just teaches them to fear the consequences. Discipling is a way to teach kids the guidelines, rules, right and wrong and parents HELP their kids keep within those lines. 


The interviewee's suggested that instead of using physical punishment like cold showers, hot sauce, spanking, to take toys away or activities or put them in time-out to show that there are consequences to their actions. After hearing this I realized that both the hot sauce and the cold showers were very wrong things to do to kids. Not that I did either to my kids or was I planning on doing either, but the thought that physical punishment only creates fear and teaches nothing. I know that I have created that fear in my kids with swatting their bums and I have realized that all it does when I threaten to swat their bums that I'm only speaking to their fear and not creating an understanding of the situation. Plus, I'm only getting my own anger out about the situation and I'm actually teaching them that hitting is okay, when it's not. I'm going it for all the wrong reasons. 


I know that I need more information on different ways to discipline my kids and new ways to work on my frustration when my kids repeat the same bad choices. That is something that I admit to needing to change. I feel sorry for Mrs. Beagley and the way she decided to admit to her frustrations with her kids. I don't think she really thought through her actions before she put them on tape and sent them into a national television show. She's now being charged with child abuse for a how she treaded her son on the video tapes. People, there are better ways to admit your problems and find help. Putting them out there on a national television show being hosted my someone who calls themselves a doctor but really isn't is not, NOT, the way to do it.  Talking to family therapists, read books, ask friends what they do, and in this case since this woman is Mormon, she could have easily gone to her church leaders and asked for help. 


So, since I'm trying to use this blog as a way to help other mothers and parents do and be the best for their families I've asked my sister to write a blog piece on a parenting style she's recently taken classes on that specializes in how to discipline kids. The method of parenting is called Love and Logic and my sister's post will be up very soon!

My Break

So I  am completely aware that I have taken pretty much a whole month off since my last post. I needed to take a break because of all of the holiday craziness but once things calmed down I really question if I was going to come back to this blog at all. It feels as if no one is reading it and I'd just be writing it for myself. Which, would be fine if I was using this blog to document my family's life but I already have a blog for that and this one is meant to be more of an informative blog. I can't inform myself with my own information!

But, than I realized I had too many things I wanted to write about and I had so  many of my own reasons to keep going. Then I talked to my brother about how to expand my readership and I think I'm on the right track.

So I'm back and I've got a new post for you below. Enjoy and if you keep coming back I'll keep writing!

When to Intervene In Other's Parenting

So it happened again this week; I pulled into a parking space at a store only to look over and see that there is a child sitting alone in a car. It's the dead of winter here and although both times the cars were locked, that still doesn't make me feel like that child is safe.

The first was a SUV at a grocery store with 3 kids that all looked under the age of 5. The car was running and the middle child was not buckled in. I froze when I saw this. There was no way I was going to walk away from this potentially hazardous situation. The mom came out about 3-4 minutes after I pulled up carrying a new humidifier and a small bag that I assume was full of some kind of medicine. She saw me watching her and hurried to get in the car and pulled away quickly.  The second time happened just yesterday when I pulled into the drug store parking lot. I parked and looked over to the car next to mine and saw a little girl sitting in the back seat and the car was not running. So the kids and I stayed in the car singing songs while keeping an eye on the car next to us. Within a few minutes the mom came out and chatted with who I assume was family sitting in the car next to hers and eventually got in her car to checked on her daughter. The second car had been there the whole time but in now way seemed to be keeping an eye on the little girl. Both times the mother showed up within minutes of me pulling into my space but I have no idea how long each time the kids were in their cars before I got there.

Now, I've been known to leave my kids in the car as I run into a store real quick or run something into my husband's office, but I never do it where I can't have an eye on my car at all times AND if I know I will be longer than 3 minutes. Yes, 3 minutes cause if you're going to be longer than it's worth the time to take you're kids with you. They are safer with you than in the car alone. And my kids are always buckled if they are in the car. That has been ground into our daughter's head that if she is in the car, engine running or not, she has to have her seat belt on.

I know I'm not perfect and in no means am I judging these other mothers. After all, last year while running into my friend's salon to check my appointment time the salon next door called the police on me for leaving my kids in the car alone. I was less than 5 minutes and could see my car the whole time and a customer coming in informed me that my kids were crying in the car. I left immediately and found out later that the cops showed up a couple of minutes later. The truth is that the salon next door called the cops only to get my friends salon in trouble (bitter rivalry), but I was still enormously embarrassed and I felt that they had over reacted seeing as they had been in the car for just a couple of minutes. So I get it, I get needing to run in somewhere without the hassle of getting your kids to behave correctly for such a short amount of time. But when do you say, "I need to intervene!"

This reminded me of a piece I read on another mom blog about when to intervene when you see a parent treating their kids incorrectly in public. Here is a link (Da Momma: When To Speak Up) and I liked her thought process. She made a check list that you might want to do in your head before you intervene in an inappropriate situation between parent and child.

This is her checklist

BEFORE INTERVENING IN SOMEONE ELSE’S PARENTING

1)  Is the child in danger
2)  Check your motivations
3)  Is this something that really needs intervention?
4)  What are your chances of actually affecting change?
5)  If you can help, what is the best way?

If you want more information on why she chose those points to be on her check list check her blogpost at DaMomma Checklist

I use to have a real problem with intervening especially at our local playgroup and after I read this list I realized that I had intervened way too often. I had my own personal thoughts and rules that I had pushed on the other parents and kids and if I had just sat back and let each parent and kid do their own thing I could have been more relaxed and I could have enjoyed those times more.  I might have even burned some bridges and for that I am truly sorry for. I have learned from my mistakes and use this checklist often when I come upon situations that call for it.