I don't want to grow big

Parenting comes with a big learning curve. Even with four young children, I sometimes forget that growing up is hard for little ones. We just think they are throwing a tantrum or trying to rattle our nerves, but really, it is a challenge for them to deal with all the emotions and complexities of life. I was reminded of this tonight when I was putting Becca to bed. I was trying to get her to stay in her bed and go to sleep, and I was sitting in the hall waiting to herd her back to her room if she came out, but she just sat on the floor and cried. I asked if she wanted me to tuck her in bed, but she didn't say anything. Finally she said, "I don't want to grow big mommy, I just want to stay little". I think she is really feeling the transition from babyhood to preschool age. She turned 3 a few weeks ago and life has been changing a lot for her lately. She is potty training, next week she will be in Sunbeams instead of nursery at church, and in general she is just getting older and definitely no longer a baby. I get frustrated with her tantrums and her attitude, but after tonight I think I will be able to respond with more empathy and remember what growth spurts felt like, and how sometimes you just need an extra hug and a little extra understanding.

Charlie just lost his other bottom front tooth. It fell out during primary. I am the Primary music leader and I was doing singing time and he was trying to get my attention. Finally I called on his franticly waving hand and asked him what he needed to share, and he pointed to his empty space in his mouth. On the way home from church he lost his tooth in the car, so he didn't have it to put under his pillow. I told him he could just write a note and the tooth fairy would come. He woke up this morning and he said, "the tooth fairy didn't come". Oh, that forgetful toothfairy, that wasn't the first time she forgot. I asked if he remembered to write the note and he said no. Well, now we know why the toothfairy didn't come, there was no note and no tooth. Lucky tooth fairy that she gets a second chance to get it right.

2010 Family Home Evening Lessons

On Sugardoodle website, Angie Campbell has posted weekly lessons for the year of 2010. Click here to go to this great link for simple FHE more geared to younger children.
Although this is not mine to give, it is free and available for personal use. If I could, I would print one out to send to my friends and family as Christmas gifts, but I guess my gift is letting you be aware of this and you will have to print it out for your self.
Merry Christmas.

Enjoy the Show

I love Christmas lights. Some people have too much time and money, but I enjoy their creativity. This video I got from youtube is a must see for all Christmas light lovers.

card

I put my scrapbooking skills to good use and helped my friend Kara make this for her Christmas card to send to friends and family. I also took the pictures of her cute family. I am happy to be able to use my skills to help other people. The great thing is they think I am helping them, but really they are helping me. My skills are able to grow and expand when I am challenged and I was happy to see that I was able to put together something that is beautiful to me and Kara seems happy with it too.

beach day

For all those who are bundled with furnaces cranked up and snow swirling come join us for a day at the beach. We went to Marco Island today, which is about a half hour south of where we live. We wanted to go for a bike ride and go to the beach. There isn't anyplace we have found that we can ride along the beach, so the closest we could find was riding along the sidewalk past all the resort hotels that are beach front and than we parked our bikes and enjoyed some time at the beach. We just did some digging and collecting. The kids found over 20 dead stingrays. They had a lot of fun running up and down the beach collecting them. Even Becca was picking them up and carrying them back to our stash pile.

photo shoot

I wanted to share some photos I took for my friend Kandis. They turned out so cute. I always get nervous about taking pictures for other people. Sometimes I think I would like to be a photographer and do family and kid pictures, but I'm just not there yet - my skills of interacting with the "subjects" and knowing how to pose them and feeling like any of the shots are going to turn out. In the end the pictures always turn out good (or good enough anyway), and I feel fine doing it for friends, hoping that they don't expect too much of me, but the thought of having to please a paying customer is stressful and I don't want the thing that brings me pleasure (photography) to be the thing that brings me stress. So for now I'm fine with family and friends allowing me to practice on them and let me express myself through this artistic medium. I think one thing I need to remind myself of is I do better with non-posed pictures. I like to observe and let people do their thing and take pictures of what is going on. Most of my favorite pictures I've taken are when people are just doing their thing and I take a picture of it.

What a cute little family. I am so happy we got so many fun shots and the place that served as our backdrop was beautiful, so many textures and colors in one small area. Kandis was great because she had great ideas and suggested many of the poses and locations. I like working with people that know what they like - it makes it easier for me- plus, then they are usually happy with the results, because it is what they had envisioned. 

Family Night Fun

 

Little Lou

What a cute stinker. Lydia is my little monkey (well, all of my kids have been and are monkeys, always climbing on things and into everything). All these pictures are within a 10 minute time period. We put our Christmas tree up on a stand we created out of food storage buckets and a big box, so Lydia can only reach the very bottom of the tree. After three older kids and years of not decorating the bottom half of the tree we finally got smart to move the tree out of reach. However, I think we could have put the tree at regular height. I have successfully trained Lydia to not touch the DVD player which is right at her level and very demanding of her attention. "uh-oh" is a very powerful statement, when combined with short time outs in her high chair. Now all I have to do is say "uh-oh" and she turns around and walks away from the DVD player, or whatever else it is I don't want her to touch.