Leesy Lou is Ten!

We kicked off her birthday a little early with a family dinner on Sunday. She requested Hawaiian Haystacks.For dessert she was very specific. She wanted brownies with white chocolate chips on top and cookies and cream ice cream.Of course having her aunts, Jane and Egan, come make it a perfect night for her. They brought sweet gifts too. And of course on the morning of her birthday - only crepes will make this birthday girl happy with LOTS of "whooped" cream.

We love Elise. She is super excited to have a party this year. Pictures to come.

1 - Elise has a great smile.
2 - She LOVES soccer and she works really hard at it. And she is very committed to her team.
3 - Elise loves to sing. All the time. But sadly, singing well does not come naturally to her although she is improving. We still love to hear her.
4 - Elise is a loyal friend. She loves to be with them and she likes to have everyone included.
5 - Elise loves Quinn. She loves her brothers too but she believes that she was meant to have Quinn as her sister. She is a very good babysitter too.
6 - Elise is very independent. She likes to make her own decisions and takes her time to do her own thing. Since she was small she has insisted on doing her own hair and picking her own clothes. She really doesn't want me to be involved. Should I be offended?
7 - She LOVES to read and is constantly devouring a book in her room.
8 - She loves being with extended family. It is a regular thing for her to beg to go on a trip to visit grandparents or cousins.
9 - Elise loves to be creative.
10 - Elise loves the Gospel and choosing the right. She is a great example to us.

Book Club 2012

I love my book club. All of us lived in London together a long time ago. While our husbands worked a gazillion hours a week, we played and explored.

Now we get together once a month and discuss our books and lots of other stuff too.

We just picked our books for the year and I am so excited. Lots of variety. But my list of books on Goodreads is always growing, so I hope to read a few more besides these. The only way I can really do it is by checking out the audio book from the library and listening to them when I work out or drive around.

February - Moloka'i by Alan Brennet

March - To Mormons with Love by Chrisy Ross

April - The Silent Governess by Julie Klassen

May - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs -  

June - Divergent by Veronica Roth - Young Adult fiction.

August - Room by Emma Donoghue -  

September - How to Love an American Man by Kristine Gasbarre

October - The Survivor's Club by Ben Sherwood 

November - Pick your own Adventure 

Read a parenting, marriage, nutrition (self-help type) book and report to group

First Indoor Tri

Teague has been very interested in doing a tri ever since he saw Egan do the Utah Half Ironman. Then he saw this awesome video called Dayton's Legs. You should watch it with your kids even if they don't want to do a tri.
So he has been running (thanks to xcountry) and he is on a local swim team. And he has been training on the indoor spin bike as well. So he was ready for his first indoor tri.
The race was for kids 8-12. The challenge: a 50 yd swim, 8 mile bike, 1 mile run. We knew he could do it and those distances were probably too easy but it was a good way to start.
Teague is DETERMINED. And he is competitive. He wanted to win BAD.
His main competition was a 10 year old kid who has done 7 triathlons.
HE WON. He beat him by about 15 seconds.
It was awesome to watch him work so hard with that cute smile on this face the whole time. He loved every minute of it.
He wants to jump straight to an Ironman but I think we will work up to that. :)

Wall O Friends

I love Christmas Cards. And I love our friends and family. We look forward to adding to our wall all month long.

And I just hate to take it down. I get kind of sick of Christmas decorations and can't wait to pull the house back together (sort of). But the wall o friends - I could leave that up all year. I love seeing all these great cards, clever thoughts, pictures of wonderful families, great examples, and so much support. Thanks.

But I finally decided it was time to let it go. Till next year...

8 is Great!

Gavin is Great! And he is excited about being 8!
He can't wait for his baptism (which we are waiting a little longer for but it will be worth it).
This might be a first - but for once the one thing he wanted for his birthday was not an office supply or tool.
An ipod Touch. He had to pay for half of it so he has been saving his money and working hard. He was very, very happy that we made it happen for his birthday.

Gavin is easy to love for so many reasons. On the day of his birthday he was the VIP in his 2nd grade class. Each of the kids said something nice about Gavin. Sweetest thing to hear students talk so nicely about your kid. LOVED IT!
1 - So excited and happy about just about anything.
2 - Hard worker (at most things but not reading)
3 - Loves to help and be involved
4 - Loves details
5 - Tenderhearted
6 - overly organized (it doesn't always appear that way in his room but he has a method to his chaos)
7 - Wants to choose the right and wants to help those around him choose the right
8 - Loves to be with family

PS - He requested the oreo like whoopie pies. He did not want cake. I used this recipe. Loved it.

Need a Chore Chart?

So I think I mentioned I am re-thinking chores around here.

My brilliant and talented friend, Jul, created a chore chart. You can customize it and print it. Hooray!

No excuse now. Get those kids working.

PS - If you need a couple good reads on the topic -Read The Entitlement Trap by Richard and Linda Eyre. Quick read with so many good ideas. Even if you don't plan to use their system exactly - it will get you thinking about what we are trying to do as parents.And I liked The Parenting Breakthrough by Merrilee Boyack. I need to look at it again but it had so many good ideas of what kinds of chores and skills children should have at each age. And I always love anything Love and Logic.  

And PPS - I was not looking for any compliments on my last post. But thank you. Just merely trying to remind myself that we can do hard things. I could work on doing hard things with a better attitude for sure. 

Those Dumb Hard Things

You know that motto - "We can do hard things." I like it. I love it. I want to live by it. Most the time. But dang it, when you are in the middle of something hard it isn't such a cool motto. I was having a total meltdown a few days ago about something that I felt was too hard. I didn't say those words. I was just complaining and worrying about all the parts of this dreaded event. And yep. Kenyon says, "But you can do hard things." Gag. I really didn't want to hear that at that moment. But it is true. And obviously he was right. We can and I did. And I survived. And the kids claim it was the best ever. I don't feel that way but I made it.

(*free download from the wonderful blog Simply Fresh Designs)

What was that dumb hard thing? Taking all 4 kids to Las Vegas (the worst place ever) by myself. With no help. 6 hour drive. It may sound wimpy of me but it was seriously stressful. Every part of it. The hotel alone. Getting around. Sitting at hours of soccer games with Quinn. Find places to eat.Trying not to damage my children with all the terrible sites but still show them some fun. At one point when I was stuck in stopped traffic with a HUGE billboard truck next to us of mostly naked women - I thought. I'm done. This doing hard stuff is LAME. But we got Toy Story going and they were distracted for long enough. But not long enough. I still had to spend all of dinner trying to explain why they have trucks like that and why people do that. Nice.

Here is why do we hard things. Elise probably won't love these pictures but they are awesome. She worked so hard this weekend. And she is so sore to prove it. She loves her soccer team and even though they didn't win they really gave it their all. Quote of the night: "Mom, did you see me foul that girl?" Me: "Yes." E: "That was the best. I was so proud of myself. I just took her down." Should I be proud? 

Re-Thinking Chores and Stuff

Look how we (the kids) spent their Christmas break. Yep. I really did make them clean out all the kitchen cabinets. Fabulous. I am tempted to keep them home from school forever. And they even look so happy. No tears. No yelling. It really was brilliant. Here is why it worked: 1) they really needed money to buy their siblings Christmas gifts.  2) all their friends were still in school and they were bored. Result: the insides of my cupboards are clean and organized. Wahoo!

I am in the process of creating a new chore chart/system and allowance program. So many factors. It needs to be simple. The kids need to be motivated. It needs consequences. By the way, I need a chore chart for myself. I am getting so behind on the housework too.

Anybody have any brilliant ideas?

Our Version of the Nativity

For Christmas Eve, we went to my Grandma's house in Bountiful. She asked me to be in charge of the nativity. Wow. I learned that I will never be a good play director. It was pretty silly and we all laughed a lot. Quinn was a shepherd but wanted to take care of the baby and was pretty ticked when she saw Joseph (who also looked like a shepherd). She thought Joseph (aka Gavin) was trying to upstage her. She stormed on the stage and shoved him off yelling, "You not a shepherd. I is a shepherd." If only it was on video.

Besides the acting, the craziest part was how bad one family can sound singing the simple little Christmas songs. But it made for some good laughs and memories.

Hopefully some touch of the real meaning of Christmas got through all the silliness.

We love going to Grandma's though and it was a wonderful evening.

New Year's Goals

I have been thinking A LOT about my goals or at least in general the things I want to improve on.

Here is a blog that will address what most of us want to improve on. I have told you about it before but in case you forgot or fell off the wagon for a bit (like me), jump back on. Let's make some healthy changes. He breaks it down into pretty simple, doable challenges. Take one at a time.

Word of Wisdom Living


Other goals me for include - learning how to use my new camera to take better pictures, take pictures, and post them on this blog. I want to post more often than I have but I am trying to figure out if I have anything inspiring, meaningful or motivating to say. Working on that. There are also all those parenting, financial, exercise, crafting, spiritual, mental goals to work on too. Yikes.

Tonight I reviewed 2011 with each of the kids using this cute form my awesome friend made. I asked Quinn all the questions and her answers were amazing. My favorite: "Quinn, what do you want to do next year?" Quinn's answer, "I want to watch a movie when you and Dad are gone and I babysit." She is sure that she is actually the babysitter when I leave. She has mastered the skill of bossing everyone around. Good times.

Starting Off 2012

We are always a little late to the game. I know this came out forever ago but I got it for Christmas and we watched 17 Miracles as a family last night. What a perfect movie for us to kick off a new year and a focus for a our family that I have been thinking about for a long time. That whole idea about how "we can do hard things."  And the message of the movie is "that it is all worth it."

I just started the most interesting book that has me thinking constantly. It looks at the most amazing stories of survival. How did the people survive? And how can we increase our chances of survival? And what kind of survivor are you?  (I know you are all singing Destiny's Child in your head right now. Keep it up.)

2011 Highlights

 

I love a new year. I love a new blank calendar. I love the chance to start over. I don't really love "resolutions" but I do think through all the things I want to do better or change or improve. And I do love setting goals (thanks to my family goal group). And I have plenty of big ideas for this year. We'll see...

But I have not been cheering to see 2011 go. I saw lots of posts/status updates/tweets declaring good riddance to 2011. It certainly had some challenging moments but overall it was not a bad year and I am sad to see it end but ready to get geared up for a new one.

I asked the kids to help me think of all the things we loved about 2011 (basically our Christmas card repeat).

Bear Lake was #1 in everyone's list. No question
Cousins Camp at Heber Valley
4th of July in sunny Southern California with our Bourne cousins and Aunts
Teague - trip to DC and xcountry
Elise - soccer
Gavin - giving up the blanket, getting a filing cabinet, performing in Chinese at the Capitol
A trip to St. George with friends
Having our Aunt and Grandma live with us
Cheering on Aunt Egan in the Half Ironman
Learning to ski/snowboard
Annie - Meeting Pioneer Woman, sisters trip to Seattle, completing a year in nursery
Kenyon - he got new knees (now he just wishes they would all work right)
Going without SUGAR for a month

A day at Lagoon
Quinn - owning a fish for a day, her birthday and playing dress-ups with her friend Isaac (who always protects her from the bad guys).