Teaching obedience

Motherhood is a learning adventure.
As a young mother with my first child I read many parenting books, so I could know how to be a good mother. I think all it really did was confuse me and cause me to be too soft or too strict.
Time and children have been a good teacher - and finding others who are good mothers and asking them questions and observing what they do.
I have learned so much along the way and I have so much more to learn.
Today I read two wonderful blog posts written by a mother I admire (pregnant with her 7th child). Although I have never met her, I learn so much from her blog posts.
So her recent topic was obedience and she shared very generously things she has learned along the way.
 (post 1 and post 2).

I am diligently focusing on teaching my children obedience. I homeschool my children and no learning can truly take place if they are not able to obey. There are varied degrees of obedience. My goal is to work towards quick and happy obedience.

In the past when working with and teaching my children if they cried I assumed I was doing something wrong and I needed to change my approach. While that may have been true if I was using a forceful method of some such, reading the above mentioned blog post made me realize that I actually was caving in to my children and letting them be in charge, rather than calmly working through what was a tough moment for my child and helping them gain a skill.

Sunday we had a family meeting and wrote a short list of rules we are working on becoming compliant with. We  posted them in the kitchen so both the children and parents alike could be reminded of our goal this week.
One of those goals is to eat food at the table. Now, this has always been a rule of ours, but when I  am not watching the children will wander off with food and eat in the family room or living room. Last week Lydia had a bowl of cereal (dry, no milk) that she was wandering through the house with and scattered it in about every room of the house.
It was then that I realized that I "allow" many of the messes in my  house since I don't follow through on the "rules" that go unheeded. So mostly the rules are posted to remind me to follow through and help them become habit.

This afternoon, I was reading the second post about obedience and she was saying to follow through with firmness (use the word "no"), yet praise for the littlest compliance. As I was reading Lydia asked for an apple. I told her yes, she could have an apple and asked where we eat food. "table" was her reply. I handed her slice of apple in a bowl and escorted her to the table. She tried to circumvent me and go to the office to watch tv with the other kids, and I gently reminded her where we eat.
She cried and protested, I was firm and kind and gently took her bowl of apple slices and set it on the table. She persisted and I persisted. She laid on the floor to protest and I returned to the computer. After a moment I noticed the quiet and turn to see no Lydia and an empty bowl.
I found her in the office, holding a sock. The sock looked like a guilty accomplice and sure enough she had put her apple slices in the sock to hide the evidence being smuggled out of the legal territory.
I had to stifle a laugh as I carried her and her sock to the table.
I am happy to report that was the end of the battle and she remained at the table and didn't leave until she was done.

Overall I am too permissive as a parent, but reading these articles reinforce my desire to gain the skills of finding the balance of becoming firm and fair, of being fun and easy going and not feeling like it has to be one or the other.  I can see that I have made progress over the years and I am grateful knowing that I have done an ok job so far and mostly my kids obey, when they want to - it's jumping that hurdle and helping them to obey when they don't feel like it. Truly I want to learn to teach them how to be "strictly obedient in all things" like the young stripling warriors in the Book of Mormon. I think that is a worthy goal to strive for, not obedient for the sake of being obedient, but learning to be obedient in the small things helps us learn to be obedient in the more important things - not just to preserve us in this mortal life, but more importantly save our eternal life.

These are my joy

Lydia likes to hide, especially if I am asking her to come to me - like to come get dressed.

Do you see the feet?

Here's the cute face peeking out.

Cute, cute. I don't know how I got such blond little girls, my hair is as dark as theirs is blond.

Friends at first are friends at last.

These are my joy.

Recent photos

I have been going through my pictures and realized I have a lot of pictures I've taken recently. I thought I should put some of these on my blog for family to see.Grandma Smyth stayed with us for a few weeks after baby Lydia was born. Here she is with Charlie and Tom.

Grandma Smyth with Becca and Lydia.

One night Jeremy was putting Becca to bed and he laid Lydia down by Becca - it was too cute to not take a photo of them together.

Every once in a while I try to do Becca's hair. I tried hair rollers, but all they did was make her hair extremely poofy. This was worse than her normal hair, so I wet the poof down and let the natural look be the look of the day.
One day a few weeks ago I heard the kids all laughing together and found them on the front lawn enjoying ice cream. They had carried the baby and her chair outside and luckily didn't try feeding her any of the ice cream.

Sweet sleeping baby Lydia.

Charlie loves his baby sister. He is always carrying her around and playing with her.

What a sweet face. Lydia is an angel baby. She is just happy to be - but don't leave her alone, she loves interacting with everyone.

Lagoon trip

We aren't doing a vacation this year, so we sandwiched in going to the Lagoon in the middle of the week. Tuesday night we drove to Payson and stayed the night with some friends, then Wednesday (yesterday) we went with those same friends and spent the day at the Lagoon. We've never taken our kids to the Lagoon before and the most of a ride they have ever been on before is the quarter rides outside of Walmart. We weren't sure how much they would like it or not. Tom absolutely loved it, even some of the bigger, more "scary" rides (scary for kids). Charlie liked most of them, but the Bat ride he wasn't too fond of and when we were on the Tidal Wave he asked me if the first time I went on that ride if I was scared - he was a little scared and not really sure he liked that ride. He loved all the little kiddie rides. Becca wasn't much of a fan of the rides. The picture of her in the airplane ride is one of the few rides she went on, and I was afraid she was going to try to bail out (good thing the seatbelts sinch down nice and tight). When the ride first started she almost started crying, then she looked like she was trying to decide if she liked the ride or not. By the time the ride was over she was more than ready to get out and was not happy that it took so long for the ride attendant to come undo her seatbelt.
Going to Lagoon A Beach in the afternoon was a very nice way to get out of the heat for a while. It was in the 90's and humid - so not St. George hot, but hot enough that the water felt very nice. The boys loved going down the water slides and I enjoyed that I finally got something to do. Being 8 months pregnant I didn't go on many rides - the pioneer log ride, the tidal wave and Puff (the little kids roller coaster that goes around 3 times for total of 30 seconds). So it was nice to go in the water and splash around and play with the kids.
After the Beach we went on more rides for and hour or two more and then by 7:30 pm we packed up to head home - we drove back to St. George. It really was a quick trip up and back, but it was lots of fun and worth the drive. We borrowed my sister Debbie's car - a Toyota Corolla, definitely not a family car, but worked very well on saving gas - I think it cost us about half of what our mini van would have cost to fill with gas.

Monthly themes for devotionals

I try to do morning devotional with the kids in the morning, but we don't get to it everyday. I decided to create these monthly pages (the info comes from the Primary program outline) so that I can have them out for each month and we can repeat the scripture (every day maybe) and sing the monthly song. I had to share them because I was so excited at how nicely they turned out. The first page took a little bit of time, but the second one (and all the rest) will be really fast because I just use the first as a template.

I know it's probably obvious, but I am absolutely loving photoshop elements - the creativity factor is amazing - the amount of control I have over my design is endless.

Remembering

One thing I've realized as I've been doing scrapbooking is it is hard to remember much detail from events in the past. As I was doing Becca's 10 month page I really didn't know what to write. I would say that the most important thing to be doing right now is writing down details as they happen, because I just don't remember later on. I know when I look at Tom's or Charlie's baby pictures I think, "cute picture", but I don't remember the specifics of that age.

This morning I had to be to church early and let before the kids were ready for church. Jeremy was lucky that he had my two sisters to help him in getting the children ready. When they showed up to church and my boys came walking up to me in their suits I thought, "my, what handsome boys I have".

Becca has a new little dance/walk that she does. She swaggers back and forth and saunters around. Little sassy girl. actually she has a lot of attitude lately and throws fits when she doesn't get her way - I guess she has hit 18 months old (next week actually) - tantrum time. Becca loves toothbrushes. She is constantly stealing someones out of the bathroom. She now has one of her own to chew on, so hopefully we won't have to hunt and search for the other ones anymore.

Tonight we were reading in Helaman of the Book of Mormon about Nephi and Lehi when they were put in prison and the still small voice comes and talks to the Laminites. I asked the boys who the still small voice was and Charlie said, "it's the Holy Ghost. I have a song I made up" and he proceeded to sing a cute little song about the Holy Ghost and how he whispers to us if we are doing something bad and he helps us have good feelings. It's moments like those that I know that I am doing something right as a parent. It's so fun to watch them grow and gain knowledge and understanding.

3 Month Old Becca

I have been going through my digital photos - all 6000 of them - organizing them and trying to decide which ones to scrapbook. I never have made books for my kids and I would like them to have at least a few photos and memories from their childhood. 

Digital scrapbooking has just opened up a whole new world for me. This page of Becca only took me about 20 minutes to do.  I want to try to do a page a day - so not a lot of time involved, but a lot of results to show for the little bit of time.

One thing I'm trying to do is go through my photos and decide which stories to tell through which photos. I have a list of about 20 so far and the only reason the list isn't longer is I haven't gone through very many photos yet.

Tom and Charlie went on Fathers and Sons last night with Jeremy and his dad, Scott, and his brother, Brad. The boys love fathers and sons. Ever since they went last year they have been looking forward to the one this year. Charlie was so sad that it wasn't longer than one night - he wanted it to be a week long. They went up to Kolob - about an hour away. They had dinner with the ward, but then went and stayed at a friends cabin instead of sleeping out - Jeremy said it gets to about 30 degrees at night - I wouldn't want to sleep out either. Charlie said his favorite part was fishing and catching crawdads. The boys came home dirty and I sent them straight to the shower to get cleaned up before I spent time cuddling with them and telling them how glad I was that they were home.

My sister Susan is here for the weekend. We didn't plan a girls night out last night while the boys were gone because she was supposed to do something with friends, but it fell through last minute. I guess I'm getting old and boring because when she asked what we should do I thought, well, maybe a movie, but there was nothing to see, and I had no other ideas than that. If it doesn't involve kid stuff I feel lost - I don't know what to go do - especially at night. At night is when I try to fit in all the things I want to do, like my computer stuff or catching up on housework, etc. I think the problem is that I am fine with being a boring person - I don't require much to keep me occupied and satisfied - a good book, a project and I'm good to go. I do like playing card games and table games, but usually those are more fun with more than two people. Regardless, we had a nice night together and went and got some ice cream, yum.

Muddy Boys

These photos are from 2 1/2 years ago. Charlie was 3 and Tom was 18 months. Tom got it so bad because Charlie was smearing him with mud. The pictures of Tom standing at the window asking to come in are the kicker of these photos - he was sooo done with being muddy. I don't even remember if it was traumatic to clean them up - I'm sure I stripped them down outside and hosed them off and then probably put them in the tub.
The reason they always got so muddy was the yard had a low spot that always puddled with water from the sprinklers. To tell boys to stay away from mud is like telling them to not eat candy that is sitting out - totally impossible. As much fun as it is for them I'm glad we no longer have a mud spot.

Becca watches the bike riding

I created this whole layout from scratch - it was not a template - yay! for me. I'm learning so much. It does take longer to create this kind of page than the one I did earlier of the boys, but this was fun and a stretch for my creative side.

Becca was so cute this morning as she sat on the sidelines watching Tom and Charlie racing down the street. Really, she wasn't paying much attention to them, but she sat on the side for a long time like she was in the cheering section.

Riding Bikes

Charlie and Tom spent the morning taking their bike to the top of the hill and riding down together, again and again.
I took a ton of pictures, I was inspired by Heather's story boards on her blog as a fun way to show multiple pictures and let them tell the story.

Websites to check out

I've been finding lots of great websites and products lately and thought I would share them.

Amazing Action Alphabet - There are a few products from this company that we have - A flip chart of the animated letters, the activity book and the CD. The cd is our most recent purchase, since it just came out, and the kids are loving it. We listen to it in the car when we run errands - they not only love the cd, but there is no fighting because they are too busy enjoying the songs. These product teach the sounds of the letters and they are helping the kids to be able to sound out words.

Food storage - this site - Simply Living Smart - has video tutorials on things like sprouting, fruit leather, storage, etc. They also are a store where you can purchase food storage stuff. I've only watched the videos so far and they are great.

Children's Miracle Music - I don't know if any of you have heard of this yet, but I absolutely love this program. It's a set of cd's, one for morning and one for night, you put them on and the kids do their morning and evening routines. We really only use the evening one, but I need to start using the morning one more. When we turn on the evening cd my kids are ready for bed in 10 minutes. On the nights we forget to use it, it takes 1/2 hour or more. The kids love trying to get the different things (jammies on, teeth brushed) done before the song gets over - it's like timing them, only set to music. Charlie does better with it than Tom. Charlie is 5 1/2 and Tom is 3 1/2. Tom still doddles a little, so I have to stay near him to remind him, but it is still light years better than when we don't use the cd.

Page for Tom

Before






After




















I don't know how to use the papers for scrapbooking yet, so I'm just using white backgrounds. The great thing about digital is I can go back and change this later if I want.

Tom is my smiley boy - and he has the cutest smile. This picture is from 1 1/2 years ago when he was two years old. The only reason I know that is thanks to digital photos that tell you when the photo was taken, otherwise I would have no idea. Looking at this picture I wouldn't have guessed it was from so long ago.

I love photoshop because this was an okay picture when I took it, but a few tweeks in photoshop and I like it so much more. I added the original photo to show the difference. I don't like that this blog puts pictures in opposite order - like how I decided to put in the original photo and it's at the top of the page instead of further in my post - I don't like that because it means if I don't prethink out where I want pictures to be they are in opposite order than what I want.

I have to brag on Charlie for a minute. On Sunday we had family council and set a few goals for this week. One of the goals was to be better helpers - to be quick to obey - when mom and dad asked the boys to do things. Charlie has been doing a great job at this goal. In the past when I've asked him to help do dishes he complained and whined that he didn't want to. This week he has not complained at all and he even has done it right away without procrastinating. His chore is to unload and he can do it all by his self - he just puts the dishes that go up high on the counter and I put them in the cupboard for him. He doesn't like to load up, because he doesn't like touching the dirty dishes - even though I rinse them first - so Tom is the load up guy.

Today I cleaned the bathrooms and the boys helped. I sprayed the cleaner and they used the rags to wipe everything clean. They fought over who got to scrub the inside of the toilet, luckily we have two, so they each got to do one. I love such happy helpers.

Missionary Tom

Here are Tom's "missionary" pictures.
Today was Stake Conference. I was happy that my boys did quite well. We took their new bags that I made - the crayon roll was great - the crayons stayed all together (except every time that Becca tried to empty it out).
The lady that sat behind us gave me a note at the end of the meeting. It said,
"What a beautiful family. Your children are full of love. What a precious gift Father has shared with you. True they are strong willed and determined - but this must be; that they may stand in these last days - and Return With Honor to their Creator. When the day seems it will Never end - remember you are equal to the task He has given you. Prayer is our staple in life. It will heal and strengthen us as we look to Him in all things. What faith our Father has in you!"
What a beautiful note. Even though I thought the children had done quite well at being reverent, I was in and out many times with Becca, and this note was a great boost to me. I'm going to keep it and read it on those days when I don't feel that things are going so well.
Being a mother is a great challenge and it's nice to be reminded of the great gift we have been giving - our children - and the great responsibility we have to teach them. I'm thankful for support and encouragement from others.

Becca Turtle

Becca had me put this sweater on her, then she started pulling on it like she was trying to take it off. When she got it up on her head she left it there and started prancing around. It was so funny, and she knew it - she was doing it for the laughs. Her walking around with that on her head reminded me of ET.

Kids activity bag

Yesterday I was at an Expo and saw some kids bags that were in fun prints and had pockets on the outside for holding their crayons. They cost $30! ouch. I looked at them and thought maybe I could try to make them.
I took the kids to the fabric store to choose their own fabric - Charlie choose army material and Tom choose dinosaurs.
I checked the web and found a few websites that gave me an idea of how to make the bags. After a little bit of trial and error I figured out how to make them and they turned out very well, I was pleased with how nicely they turned out. I put the pockets on the inside - one large pocket and on the other side a pocket with slits for putting in pencils and crayons.
Charlie loves to draw and I hope this bag will help him keep his things together instead of leaving them all over the place.

Future Missionary

Last week I went to buy Tom some new church shoes and I took the boys with me to the store. After we found Tom a pair of shoes I remembered Charlie needed a new white shirt. While I was finding a shirt the boys were trying on suit jackets. "Mom, we need to get these." I thought they looked nice, but didn't really want to spend the money to buy both of them a suit - I couldn't buy just the jacket, they didn't have black church pants, they usually wear tan pants. I gave in to their pleading and begging and bought them each a suit.
I love how handsome they look wearing them and now they look forward to getting dressed for church and looking their very best.
Last Sunday when Charlie was getting ready he said, "Mom, you know what I look like? I look like a missionary". I thought he did too.

Pigtails

My cousin, Jacy, watched Tom and Becca while I helped at Charlie's preschool today. When I went to pick them up she had done Becca's hair. Jacy has two girls and has had much practice at girl hair. I told Jacy I would be over every day to have her do Becca's hair. Actually I just need her to teach me a few tricks of the trade. Becca looks so cute with her hair up in pigtails.
These pigtails were much cuter before her nap, but Becca fell asleep in the car on the way home, so I wasn't able to get a picture until after her nap. The kids had a fun time playing at Jacy's house. They have a dog and rabbits and goats - everything for animal lovers like my kids. At some point I need to get an animal of some kind - I'm thinking rabbits. Tom held their bunny most of the time he was there and was very reluctant to give it up when we left. Even Becca wasn't afraid to touch. Most animals she loves from a distance, but if they get too close she gets scared.

Peter and the Wolf soundtrack

Peter and the Wolf is a classical music story. The characters in the story are represented by a different instrument in the orchestra.

I remember listening to this as a child and loving it. One nostalgic day as I was thinking about it I thought - I wonder if I can find that anywhere. My parents had it on a record and I didn't know if it would be available on CD. There were many to choose from and the problem became finding the right one - I wanted the version I grew up with. I couldn't find the same recording, but the one on the right, with Patrick Stewart as the narrator was the one I ended up getting, and it is good.
The first time I played it for my boys (mind you they are 5 and 3 years old) they complained and wanted me to turn it off. We were in the car driving back from Cedar City (45 min drive) and they had no choice but to listen. Since that first time of reluctant listening they are now avid fans. We have left it in the car and when we go places, even just on errands, the boys request to listen to it. This has been a great way to introduce them to classical music, they love it and I enjoy listening to it. Even though we've listened to it many times I never tire of hearing it.
I have my father to thank for my love of classical music. He had many records and in the evening time he would play them. Sometimes he would put his headphones on - probably so he could hear and enjoy it over the noise of 6 kids, but I'm glad he didn't always use the headphones. Exposure to great music and time are the equation for a lifetime love of wonderful music.

Kids and errands

I can't get the post picture function to function. I have a bunch of new pictures I wanted to post, but I can't get them to load. Computers are wonderful when they work, but are terribly frustrating when they don't.
Today is a cloudy day, a bit of a rarity here in St. George. My mood always feels a bit more somber when it's cloudy. I tried to get some errands done this morning, but only got half of them done. Taking three kids along presents quite a challenge - and today I wasn't up for the challenge. Tom and Charlie have a hard time staying still and an even harder time not touching things.
I was at Target and got one of those big shopping carts with the extra two seats attached to the front of a regular shopping cart (I feel like a bus driver when I get one of those carts). Tom and Charlie were sitting in the seats and Becca was in the back of the cart (I can't sit her in the regular baby seat section because even with seatbelt on she still climbs out). The boys could not sit still and were climbing from the back to the front of the cart and back again. Needless to say this drove me nuts. To top it off the boys had to each use the bathroom - when we were at the back of the store and had to walk all the way to the front of the store. When I took Tom I asked Charlie if he needed to use the bathroom while we were there. No. So we continued shopping. Not ten minutes later Charlie informed me that he needed to use the bathroom.
After Target I needed to go grocery shopping, but there was no way that I was going to attempt that feat - not after my nerves were already rattled enough by a twenty minute stop to Target.
Usually I do my errands while one of the boys is at preschool (they rotate days, Tom on Mon & Wed, Char on Tue & Thur). When I only have two kids they behave like a charm and it's not a big deal. Christmas break is going to be a long three weeks - I'll survive, but we might run out of food (because I am NOT taking the three of them to the grocery store).

love my camera

Tom and Charlie playing in their room. I was playing with my camera trying to capture good light without using my flash. I think these pictures turned out good. The boys don't play with their toys very often (at least not for the intended use, ie. everything doubles for a hammer), let alone play in their room, so this was a rare moment.