Happiness is a form of courage

This quote by Holbrook Jackson describes Jude perfectly. I'm amazed at how happy and courageous he is. This picture was taken on April 17th very shortly after I brought him home from the ER. He just broke and badly cut his thumb (a wheel barrow that was leaning against the house fell on his finger) and received 5 stitches. He did so well in the ER while being X-rayed and stitched up, I think I was crying more than he was. I'm also inspired at how strong he is and quick to adapt. He is left handed and easily switched to eating with his right hand, and is carrying on almost as if nothing happened.

sick, sick, sick, sick, sick

This last week in a half 5 of the 6 of us have been/still are sick. Jenea showed symptoms first, now the other 3 kids and I are going through the flu.

I prefer to use natural means of treating illnesses if at all possible. I've just started learning about essential oils and their healing properties. I lower their fevers and ease their nausea by putting a couple drops of peppermint oil on the sole of the kids feet, and stopped them from coughing by placing eucalyptus oil on the feet soles. Amazing.

I just ordered a bunch more to have on hand. I had no idea that oils could do so much! Here's one site full of information about the many uses of essential oils http://www.doterraoil.com/.

Here's a funny video about one way to prevent spreading "sick" germs around.

Bean Jar

I'm one who believes in the importance of catching children behaving, and making a special effort to give them positive attention for it then. The idea is to give them more attention when they are behaving well, instead of what is often easier to do, ignore the child till they are behaving badly and give them negative attention then.

A tool that we are trying out in our family right now for this purpose is what we call the bean jar. It is just a bag of beans (we use pasta, anything dry and small will work, rocks, marbles etc.) and a jar to put them into. Simply stated, how it works is; whenever Paul or I catch a child doing something correct or admirable they get to put a bean or two into the jar. I keep this in the kitchen bay window so it's within easy reach.

We all have character traits and behaviors that need to be improved upon, and things we need to learn. For example I have one child who is mostly whines when speaking, another who is struggling to share their bedroom with a sibling and another who is struggling to experience new activities. I specifically watch for those behaviors which my children are currently struggling with (they don't know this of course) and recognize when they are improving upon those things by giving them a bean or two, verbal recognition and sometimes a little hug.

As an example, today my son whom I've not required learn to make his bed yet, proudly showed me how he made his bed. He got to add to our bean jar.

Sometimes I get silly and give them beans for putting their shoes on the right feet, using their spoon to eat their cereal, or hanging upside down on the monkey bars, just to keep it light, a game.

The children are on watch, catching each other behaving, and reporting that to me. We are all working together to reach our goal as a team.

When the jar is full we do something fun as a family that we have previously decided upon. This last month the reward was a day at O.M.S.I. (see slide show) Ideally I would add to that some kind of family service project to do so that we are not only rewarding ourselves, but blessing others as well.



This also works well for encouraging children to learn things that they may not be so interested in. In our family with such young children, some examples are memorizing scriptures, praying, reading, writing, dependability, service to others, and developing new skills.

I'd love to hear others thoughts to what you have done or how it can be improved upon.

Love and blessings!

Tying shoes

I just taught my 6 year old how to tie his shoes. I could not believe how easy it was nor how quickly he caught on. That was yesterday, today he confidently put his shoes on and tied them himself. I found a couple of cute poems to help children learn to tie their shoes.

Teepee Tying

Use different colored shoe laces so that you can cue the child on which side they should be working with at a given step In the poem below each line corresponds to one step of the tying process.

Build a tee pee Come inside Close it tight so we can hide Over the mountain And around we go Here's my arrow And here's my bow!

Loop It and Swoop It

Teach your child to tie his shoes using the standard tying method, but as you go through the motions say, "loop it, swoop it, pull." Do this over and over while repeating the same three, simple instructions until your child is able to tie his shoes on his own. Encourage him to say "loop it, swoop it, pull" each time he attempts tying his shoes until it becomes second nature.

Fear

I had a midwife appointment last week when I was 31 weeks pregnant. I found out that my baby is measuring 4 weeks small, is posterior (face up) and my hemoglobin levels keep going up. These are not good things, but they can be taken care of. Needless to say, fear has been on my mind. Besides those issues I'm facing, since the beginning of the pregnancy I've been afraid of:


-the pain of giving birth.
-things that can go wrong while birthing.
-birthing at home.
-the severe hormonal changes I often experience after birthing.

I've enrolled myself in a home study course called hypnobabies which has helped me to learn to relax deeply. Daily I'm practicing relaxing and I'm visualizing my ideal version of the birth of my baby. I've never prepared for birthing before. I've always just done it.

I'm glad I'm preparing this time. I've met some amazing people, and learned many wonderful things that I wouldn't have otherwise. I have learned that fear does not exist in the present. It is always about what is going to happen, or what has already happened to myself or someone else, or what someone tells you has happened or is going to happen. As long as one truly remains in the present, there is no fear.
In Doctrine and Covenants 38:30, the Lord tells us, "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear." I"m preparing for this birth and in doing so I'm replacing my feelings of fear, to feelings of faith and trust in God.

Everything's Amazing, Nobody's Happy

My children know that good and bad can be found in EVERY situation. I encourage them to look for the good. Enjoy this funny and true to life you tube video:

Musical houses

September 2008 (the month I found out I was expecting our 5th child) I decided that it was time to move into a larger home. We sat down as a family, and decided what kind of home and neighborhood we would like to live in, wrote it down and picked a target date.

This is the gist of what we decided we would like in our next home:



-move in summer 2009
-2500-3000 sq feet home
-5 bedroom, living room, family room
-2 bathrooms
-with in walking distance to the LDS church
-in a quiet neighborhood with sidewalk lined streets
-home is newer (20 years or less) or completely updated
-large back yard
-full size basement
-beautiful garden area in back yard
-wooden play structure for the children

The home we currently own is just a little 1000 sq feet, 3 br, 1 bath ranch in an old neighborhood.

How were we going to do this? Very simply, we explained to the children the following:

You see, what you focus on in your life is what you will create in your life. Here is a simple formula from Mike Dooley's book, "Notes from The Universe."

How to manifest absolutely anything.....
1. "Ask" once
2. Give thanks often

That's it! We ask God, then act as if we've already received it and give thanks daily for that what we asked for.

It's like going to a restaurant and placing an order. After we place the order we patiently wait for the food to come, we don't ask again and again, we don't leave the restaurant in a fury because we don't expect the food to come. We wait with anticipation and gratitude. We do our part

For the last several months I've been doing my part by packing, re-painting and preparing the home to sell. As a family we have been pretending that we were living in our larger home. I'd tell the kids to go downstairs to be noisy, or go use the other bathroom, etc.

On Monday for family home evening we were so excited to tell the kids that we will be moving this July into a larger home. Here are the details:

-move in July 2009
-4000 sq feet home
-5 bedrooms, sewing room and office (total 7)
-3 1/2 bathrooms
-family room, living room, rec room downstairs
-w/i walking distance to LDS church
-in a quiet neighborhood, on a cul de sac with sidewalk lined streets
-15 year old home
-large back yard
-large finished basement
-beautiful garden area in back yard
-no play structure, but we can add that (o=

It's better than we imagined! The "how" came in a way I NEVER would have expected.

God is great!