This is our life: March 2012

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Batter up...

We finally signed Bode up for t-ball. He was so excited! He loves going to practices and was a little nervous about playing in his game. It has been fun to watch the chaos. It has only been a few weeks but he has already improves. He is throwing the ball better and is working on catching it.

He looks so grown up in his little uniform. To bad it is black! It is going to be so hot come the end of the season.

I put off signing him up for anything because I know once we start with the after school activities they won't stop. This quote by Julie Beck really sums up how I feel about my home and motherhood...

"Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world"

I know it is just t-ball but I can feel the pull of the world taking us out of our home. Just to clarify, I do want my kids to be involved in activities, to have friends and to fun things, I just want them to know that the most important thing is family. My kids are getting more friends, going to people's houses to play and getting invited to do more things. I just want to work hard to do less. I don't think kids need to be over scheduled. They need time to use their imaginations without structured activities. I don't want to fill up our days with play-dates, lunch-dates, trips to the zoo and other things. When days are filled up like that there becomes no time for one on one moments that are the most important. Some may think it is lazy of me to not take my kids to the children's museum or to the library every week. But we have fun at home. My kids dig in the dirt, jump on the trampoline and build forts. We spent time together and that is the best thing I can do for them. No amount of "things" can replace the time we have together.

Her hair...

So last week, I think it was a Wednesday night, I put the kids to bed. Night time gets chaotic but this night went very smooth. We did jammies, books, brushed teeth, prayers and then off to bed. I went down stairs to relax, watch tv and fold some laundry. About an hour after I put the kids to bed I went back upstairs to put some laundry away. I heard some noise in the kids' bathroom. I got to the top of the stair to peak in the bathroom and this is what I found...

Holy crud! Laine cut off her hair. I gasped. She looked at me, dropped the scissors and started crying. I don't think she actually realised what she was doing until that moment. She cried, "my hairs, my hairs" and wanted her daddy. Being the great parent I am... ;)... I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture. I, for her sake, didn't yell at her or make her feel worse. I just told her that it was so sad she cut her hair and that is NOT how we use scissors. I did how ever call my husband and nearly cried. Her hair had taken so long to grow out and was just barely long enough to braid and put in pony tails. But what was done was done so we had to fix it. She told me she was cutting out her pretties. Her pretties are what we call the rubber bands to hold the ponytails. Sure enough, when I cleaned up the mess, there were 2 pretties on the floor. They were still holding the ponytails together.

That night I evened it out just a little and thought we would see how it turned out in the light of day. After I cut off the mullet and put piggies in she said she felt better. As you can see my the above picture she was a bit distraught by her hair.

The next day I decided it for sure needed to be cut. I looked at some hair cut ideas and decided that the only way to salvage it was to do a pixie cut. Lucky for me one of the little girls in my preschool mom does hair. She was happy to help. Laine was feeling like pretty big stuff getting her hair cut at a real salon. It was her first real hair cut.

It turned out so, SO cute. Although it isn't really what I had planned for her hair, we couldn't be more pleased. I think the little pixie cut has made her even more sassy! The day after cut her hair a friend came over with a bunch of bows for Laine. Then we spent the evening at another friends house making more headbands and bows. I need to make a few more because she is loving them. I told her that since she cut her hair she can't go anywhere without a bow or headband. Since then she has reminded me every morning to get a bow so she can choose one for the day.

I am not sure she could get much cuter. Oh how we love her, even when she does naughty things!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The zoo...

Last week Laine and I went to the zoo with my preschool and another preschool. It was a fun morning. I let Laine set her own pace, explore and go whatever way she wanted for the most part. We ended up walking with friends . She loved looking at all the animals and running free.

We walked through the aquarium last. She was pretty worn out by then. Even though she was ready to go, she got a kick out of this penguin. By the looks of it, he liked her too. They stared at each other through the glass for quite a while.

I love this little girl right now. Three has been a good age so far. She talks so much and has so much sass. She is such a joy and bright spot in our lives!

A birthday does only come once a year...

Can you believe this kid is 6!

It is really hard for me to believe.

He had quite a birthday this year. It started the Friday before his birthday. I brought cupcakes into his class. He was so excited! He kept telling me, "on Friday mom, bring them in", "don't forget Friday mom!". He got sung to by his class, handed out cupcakes and got a birthday crown. He was feeling pretty special,

Saturday-Monday we went up to Pinetop to visit my parents. We had fun in the cold weather. He got cake and ice cream there along with a present from my parents. It was a great break. Wish we could go up there more often.

Tuesday we went over to Jeremiah's Dad's house because his Grandma flew in for a visit. We staying in a motel where the kids enjoyed swimming, staying up late and having breakfast.

Wednesday morning Bode got to go to Target with Grandpa to pick out his birthday present. We drove home that afternoon and had cake and ice-cream as family. Bode and Laine had so much fun jumping on the trampoline with these balloons.

Then since we only do birthday parties every other year and it was Bode's year we took him and a few friends up to jumpstreet.

I guess you only turn 6 once! Might as well make it an event.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Sometimes...

you look in the mirror and you just don't like what you see.

This was last week coming home from my parents house. The kids needed to stretch their legs so we stopped at the Target in Fountain Hills. I took Laine into the bathroom and had Piper with me. Normally Little P loves to make happy faces in the mirror. Not this time. She was not in a good mood. Maybe it was the public bathroom, the spit up on her shoulder or the late hour. Who knows? No matter the reason she pulled some really cute sad faces I had to get picture of.

Friday, March 16, 2012

I am a mother...

I have been thinking about my role in life these days. I love my life. It is a good one. I have good days and bad days. There are days that I feel run down and defeated and, tired. Other days I go to bed feeling like I conquered the world and accomplished everything on my list and even took special time with each one of my children.

Lately I have been trying to bring the spirit into our home. That means that I have been working on listening to better music, and editing out television shows that are inappropriate. Instead I have been reading and listening to uplifting music and words from church leaders. I feel renewed and uplifted after listening to these talks.

Here are a few things I have taken to heart. I was listening to the Mormon Channel. It is a great app on my phone you need to download it an explore all the great things it has to offer. Anyways, a talk was given about motherhood. A lady told the story of her children. She was busy telling them about all the things they needed to to that day. She told her kids they could choose to do one thing or the other. Her 5 year old looked up at her and said "mommy, choose me". Those little words hit my heart. Our children are begging everyday for us to choose them. As mom's we get so busy with the list of things to do, we choose those things over our children all the time. I have been trying very hard to choose my kids more the past few weeks. Things still have to be done around the house but I must choose to manage my time more wisely so I can choose to spend more one on one time with them.

I love the quote up above. Children are not to be squeezed into a busy schedule. They are what I have time for. I think so many people delay having children for selfish reasons. I am aware that there are valid reasons and physical reasons that delay or prevent people from having children. A few weeks ago we went to Sedona for a quick trip with the kids. We ate dinner at a fun little BBQ place. We were seated next to two couples. We were busy with our kids and the other couples struck up a conversation. They ended up talking about their children. The older couple, I think in their late 50's, had 2 grown children with a few kids of their own. The younger couple, in their late 30's, had one daughter who was around a year old. The younger couple had been married for 12 years and said that they had finally decided they had, as they put it, "had enough fun and had made the big money" and decided the next thing to do was have a child. Jer and I had a good little chuckle about that comment. Here we are in our 20's three kids, little money and having a blast. I feel very blessed that we are able to have children. We are having fun with them! Sure we could have both worked for awhile and put ourselves in a stronger financial situation. We could have gone on trips, bought fancy cars and had "fun". I love our little life. We are strong, young and can keep up with our three little tornado's. We have learned to be smart with our money and know how to survive on one income. It would be nice to go on a few big vacations or drive nicer cars but I am fine with our cars and the vacations we go on. I am glad for that path that we have been blessed to walk down and I would not have it any other way. I am glad that we didn't squeeze having children into our lives. I didn't tell that story to put down the other couple, everyone has the right to choose what makes sense for their families. I am glad we chose to make children a part of our lives early on.