Five Kids in Five Years

Family Love Celebrations

2012-02-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Part of this post is from an article I did last year for the Deseret News - but it helped me to re-read it and I thought you might enjoy it as well:

I went through my teenage years and 20s dreading Valentine's Day. It seemed like a horrible holiday that caused a lot more pain than joy as it reminded every unattached girl and woman of what she wanted and didn't have.

On the few occasions when I did have someone I was dating or interested in around Valentine's Day, there was plenty of angst trying to figure out what actions or lack of actions on Valentine's Day might MEAN.

Then when I was married, I quickly found that the angst didn't go away! Plus, I realized that getting flowers and going out to dinner on Valentine's Day wasn't all good: The price of flowers in February is crazy, and getting a baby sitter and a table at a restaurant can be way more trouble than it's worth.

But in the last few years, I've come to love Valentine's Day. While my husband and I do some special couple-oriented things around Valentine's Day, we've decided to focus Valentine's Day, and really all of February, on celebrating FAMILY love, not just romantic love.

One of my favorite February family activities is the "heart attack" we give each other. Toward the beginning of the month, we cut out construction paper hearts (all sizes and colors), write down what we love about a family member on each heart (the little kids dictate to someone who can write), then stick the completed hearts all over our kitchen cabinets.

Another favorite is our "Jar of Love." We got this tradition idea from a friend last year and it's become a favorite. Together, we brainstormed a list of simple, fun little act of service that would show love for family members, friends, neighbors or relatives and write our best ideas on little slips of paper that go into a jar (examples include "leave a secret love note on someone's bed," "read a story about love," "do a secret service for someone in your family," "give an extra lot of hugs and kisses," "say something you like about everyone else at the dinner table," "do a secret service for someone NOT in your family," "write a letter or make a Valentine for someone you love who you haven't seen for a long time." take a treat to a neighbor"). Then for the whole week of Valentine's Day (leading up to the day and a few days after), one of the kids gets to pull out a slip of paper at breakfast and we do what it says on the paper sometime that day. It only takes a few minutes but it's great to prioritize these little acts of love. And since we still had our jar from last year with all it's little slips of paper in it, we didn't need to re-create it this year and it's been extra easy.

Favorite "jar of love activities" this year:

Today we drew out "read a story about love together." We pulled out some old favorites from when the kids were really little - Guess How Much I Love You, You're All My Favorites, and The Very Best Thing is Bub. We all piled on Silas's bed and I read them all three books. We read chapter books together now so it was fun to go back and do picture books together again. I fell in love with my kids and those books all over again.

And yesterday, we did "write a letter to someone you love who you haven't seen for a while." The kids all did letters for their grandparents. Here's a favorite:

Here's one favorite hearts from the heart attack this year (should have taken more photos but it just didn't happen):

And here's a post about these two traditions from last year with lots of photos and more info:

http://looslifamily.blogspot.com/2011/02/our-heart-attack-and-valentines-jar.html

Adventures in St George

2012-02-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhhh St George. Love the place. A piece of my heart will always be there.

We spent last weekend down there enjoying the warm sun and brilliant blue skies against the red rock while fixing up a few things on our house there to prep it for what we earnestly hope will be a somewhat quick sale. It's so hard to say goodbye to a home we designed and built ourselves and that we've loved so dearly. But our renters moved out and we're feeling we need to stay here for the forseeable future so it feels like time to pass good old "Krawnchie Boo" (the name the kids gave the house ages ago) along to new owners. It was so nice to stay at our beautiful home again and enjoy those views and all the great amenities we don't have here (not-so-steep stairs, tons of windows, huge kitchen, big mudroom, open floor plan, a big bathtub, theater room - I'd better stop before I forget that we really DO love the house we live in now and that there are simply trade-off's).

It was great to visit old friends and go to our old church. It was also great to do something I've wanted to do since we moved to St George seven years ago - climb Red Mountain (the mountain we could see from every room in our house, the landmark that defines our area of St George).

Here's the view of Red Mountain that we woke up to every morning for the 6 years we lived in St George:

Hiking Red Mountain was a little harder than I expected. I knew it would be a serious climb. I knew there would be plenty of steep rock climbing sections. I knew it would be best to just take the three older kids and leave the twins playing at a friends' house because while they are great hikers and wouldn't bat an eye at the difficulty of the hike, they'd be scary to have along with all those drop-offs.

What I didn't know was that the hike would involve countless super-steep stretches of loose rock and dirt. I love love love hiking but I really really really don't like that feeling of sliding down a cliff that the loose rock and dirt offers. In fact, I'll go ahead and use that "h" word. I hate hiking on steep places with loose rock and dirt.

See that barely-there path? All loose rock with lots of sliding -
and I couldn't stop and pull out my camera to capture the worst parts....

Isaac at the half-way spot

ready for the final steepest assent! See that part behind Ashton?
It's just loose dirt you have to crawl through going straight up.

It was a gorgeous, perfect day. There were some sketchy areas but it was OK and we all made it up to the very top. The views were breathtaking and we had the whole mountain to ourselves. We could see Snow Canyon, our house, our church, all our friends' houses and pretty much all of St George from up there. It was BEAUTIFUL and so worth the climb.

The way down was not fun, to say the least. I was fine as I hiked along with Eliza, listening to her tell me the plot lines of several books she's read lately and keeping my mind off how much I hated all the stretches of loose rock and dirt that made me feel like I might slip to my death at any moment. Then when it just kept going FOREVER and Eliza got ahead of me and Jared was nice enough to stay behind and keep his slow, fraidy-cat wife company, I started being a baby. My hair was in my face and I couldn't see anything. The rock slides seemed never-ending. Crawling/sliding backwards down a steep mountain with prickles in my hands and dirt in my shoes was really getting to me. Jared was so patient as I inched along and the kids were already almost to the bottom. He gallantly pulled out one of his shoelaces to tie back my hair and told me I was doing a great job (a lie but hey, it was nice). My legs were burning and I felt like sitting down and giving up and that make me feel like a wimp and I HATE feeling like a wimp. But there was no choice other than to keep going and ultimately, slowly but surely, I got down that mountain in one piece. We were about 2 hours late picking up the twins. Luckily it worked out fine for the dear friends they were with.

I was humbled. My legs were like jello (and my thighs have been killing me since then!). But I did it. I've hiked Red Mountain. I'm glad we did it. But I've vowed never again to hike in dirt and rock slides!

If you happen to know of anyone looking for a great house in St George or if you're just curious to see our house there, here's a link to the blog we made about the house:
http://snowcanyonhome.blogspot.com/

Maybe I'm secretly French?

2012-02-08T09:17:00.001-07:00

I had no idea. My husband and I are actually parenting like French parents. And it's working like a charm - so far at least. Have you read any of the many articles floating around about a new book called Bringing Up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman, an American living in France? Pretty much everything she said about French parenting methods echoes what Jared and I believe and have implemented in our parenting.

Here are some of the questions that led Pamela to write her book:

"Why was it, for example, that in the hundreds of hours I'd clocked at French playgrounds, I'd never seen a child (except my own) throw a temper tantrum? Why didn't my French friends ever need to rush off the phone because their kids were demanding something? Why hadn't their living rooms been taken over by teepees and toy kitchens, the way ours had? Soon it became clear to me that quietly and en masse, French parents were achieving outcomes that created a whole different atmosphere for family life... I decided to figure out what French parents were doing differently. Why didn't French children throw food? And why weren't their parents shouting? Could I change my wiring and get the same results with my own offspring?"

Here are a few points that especially resonated with me from the articles I read (links to articles at end of this post):

Parents are supposed to be in charge. The French believe in "an iron fist in a velvet glove." Jared and I believe in being firm but kind and making boundaries very clear. We believe in making one meal and expecting our children to eat what is placed before them thankfully. We believe in explaining rules and consequences and gathering input from our kids on many things. We believe in giving our children lots of choices within certain parameters. But we're the parents, we're in charge of how things go down around here, and our kids totally get that. As stated in one article, "Kids are not king in France...Though they love their kids passionately like everyone else, the French generally don't subvert their identities to the lives of their children...Kids are essentially expected to adapt to the grown-up world and not the other way around."

Children need to learn to wait. Jumping to meet the requests (or more especially the impolite demands) of our children immediately does not help them learn patience - and it often leads parents to resent their children and dislike parenting (a 2009 Princeton study showed that compared with French moms American moms considered it more than TWICE as unpleasant to deal with their kids). The Wall Street Journal Article (link below) cites that study done ages ago where 4-5-year-old American children had a marshmellow placed in front of them and were told that if they could wait to eat it for 15 minutes, they'd get TWO marshmellows in the end. Few children could wait more than 30 seconds. The study followed the children over the years and found that the children who waited and received the two marshmellows were better at concentrating, reasoning and handling stress. My kids know they need to wait until I'm off the phone, to politely ask for me to get them something when I'm done with whatever I'm doing. They need to respect what others (including their parents) are doing and wait a little bit for what they want. The need to earn up money for toys and activities they'd like to do. They don't get what they want right away. And I think that's really good for them.

Get rid of guilt over things that are just fine. The article talks about how "French mothers certainly don't suffer the same guilt about everything." In a kid-centric society, guilt is a big, sad part of so many moms' lives. I used to put my kids in the child care at the gym for an hour three times a week so I could work out. They loved playing in there and I loved the uninterrupted time to work out. But when I mentioned that I was doing this to some friends at a play group, a couple of them seemed shocked. "Do they have good caregivers in there?" "I've heard there are a bunch of sick kids in there and it isn't that clean so the germs get passed around" I started to feel guilty and I looked more carefully at the interactions between caregivers and kids and the cleanliness of the child care the next time I took my kids. I found that the caregivers seems fine. Not stellar but fine. The place seemed clean. Not sparkling but clean. I decided I was a much better mom and person when I had my hour to work out and that my kids weren't suffering at all that I could see so I kept going. And it all worked out just fine. I think we can put our own needs first sometimes while ensuring things are fine for our kids and that's OK. Our kids don't need "perfect" or "stellar" all the time and it's good for them to see that their parents have needs as well. I love that my kids see me prioritizing exercise and reading and going out with friends - not at the expense of prioritizing time with them - but in addition to prioritizing time with them.

Here are a few overall tips from French parenting as stated in the Wall Street Journal article linked below:

Children should say hello, goodbye, thank you and please. It helps them to learn that they aren't the only ones with feelings and needs.
When they misbehave, give them the "big eyes"—a stern look of admonishment; speak to them kindly but sternly. Make sure they know you mean business by being consistently firm and following up with lots of love.
Allow only one small snack a day. In France, it's at 4 or 4:30. (then they're actually hungry at meal times and eat what's put in front of them much better)
Remind them (and yourself) who's the boss. French parents say, "It's me who decides."
Don't be afraid to say "no." Kids have to learn how to cope with some frustration.

If you want to read the articles I've read about French parenting in full, here they are (thanks for the links Margaret!). There are great stories and example in these articles that illustrate the points above.
French Parents: Vive La Difference? (Huffington Post)
Why French Parents are Superior (Wall Street Journal)

Tomatillo Chicken Chili

2012-02-03T13:59:00.000-07:00

OK, after that last post going on and on about healthy food not being so hard and receiving lots of requests for recipes, here's a favorite very easy and very healthy recipe. It's one of our family's very favorite meals and we have it at least every other week. It's especially nice in the winter. Just spend 5 minutes putting everything in the crockpot after getting the kids off to school in the morning and then, just before dinner time, take another 5 minutes to shred the chicken and add the corn.

Tomatillo Chicken Chili

Put everything below into your crock pot, mix together and cook on high for about 6 hours:
2-3 cups dry navy or small white beans (about one small bag if you buy them bagged - you don't have to pre-soak or pre-cook them - just put them in hard and uncooked and they'll be fine; use more beans if you like more beans, less if you like less; use a little Bean-o or something like that if you want to reduce the gas that can be involved.)
1 16 oz. jar of tomatillo salsa (I usually use La Victoria Thick and Chunky Salsa Verde since that's been easy for me to find - used to use Trader Joe's green salsa - most any kind works well - medium heat doesn't give much of a kick once it's with all the other ingredients; if you want to spend a bit more time you can use fresh tomatillos, onions and jalepeno peppers but it's a lot easier and about the same price to get the salsa)
2 cups water
4 cups chicken broth or vegetable stock (can use canned or make it with "Better than Bouillon)
2 tsp ground cumin (or chili powder if you don't have any cumin on hand)
1/2 - 1 tsp garlic powder (based on how much you like garlic)
1 tsp salt
2-3 large frozen chicken breasts (I usually just use 2 breasts - I like a little less chicken and a little more beans)

After 6-8 hours, use two forks to shred the chicken. It should mostly fall apart. Then, shortly before serving, add:
2 cups of frozen corn (warm in microwave first so it doesn't make the soup cold). You can use canned corn but the frozen is a little tastier.

Serve with a little chopped cilantro and a dollop of lite sour cream or plain yogurt as a garnish.

Makes about 10 one-cup servings.

Enjoy!

Is it really so hard to feed our kids healthy foods?

2012-02-01T16:31:00.002-07:00

I heard a statistic the other day that really struck me - a third of the world's children suffer from hunger and/or diseases associated with malnutrition while another third of the world's children are on a trajectory of over-eating and wrong-food-eating that will likely lead them towards self-esteem issues, away from active sports, and then towards depression, joint problems, heart disease, diabetes and even early death. Crazy huh?

I'm really busy with other things, but as a small group of valiant moms are trying to take on the issue of adjusting what's on the menu at our kids' school, I've felt a pull towards helping them as much as I can - especially since they're getting some real resistance from the administration. I'm appalled at what is offered in the lunch room. With all the information we all have about what is and isn't healthy for our bodies, why in the world are government-sponsored lunches for kids in schools so totally out-of-tune with what kids' bodies need? The menu for this past two weeks: breaded chicken patty sandwiches on white buns with fries and some "salad" (iceberg lettuce smothered in ranch), hamburgers, pizza, sloppy joes, hot dogs, taco salads (I asked the kids what this is and they said it's tortilla chips with meat on top and you can add cheese, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes). Precious little sign of any whole grains or lean protein and while veggies are offered, they are drenched in ranch and/or optional. They do offer fruit rather than dessert and that's a really nice thing our school does that other schools don't bother with. If the kids don't want the regular main course, they can get a pb&j sandwich - one of those little "uncrustable" ones stuffed with corn syrupy jam and sugary peanut butter on white bread. Simple changes could really make a difference. Why can't we phase out the chocolate milk that's currently offered every day? I'm all for chocolate milk as an occasional treat but kids don't need it for breakfast and lunch every single day (in fact, if they drink chocolate rather than regular milk at school, they're adding 2 full GALLONS of sugar to their diet each year). Would it be so hard to switch white bread and pasta for whole wheat? Couldn't we gradually phase out some of the fatty meats in favor of beans and hummus and pasta with red sauce, stuff like that?

Sure, parents can send healthy homemade lunches to school with their kids - and many do exactly that. But so many kids get and really need free school lunch. Shouldn't those kids who are already getting a pretty poor diet at home have a chance to be exposed to healthy foods at school?

Enough on schools. On to parents - with all the information available to parents, why are parents still so heavily buying these "kid foods" that really don't give their children the nutrients and energy they need? Yes, I know the pre-packaged, pre-prepared kid-focused foods like mac and cheese and chicken nuggets and pb&j seem like the easy and normal way to go and I know it's hard to buck the trends around us. But seriously, we can make better choices, can't we?

Here are the main reasons I hear about why schools and parents don't feed their kids healthier foods:

1. "Kids won't eat healthy food." Kids complain up and down about what's offered right now in lunchrooms across the country and I see them toss most of what's on their trays in the garbage as they run out for recess. So if they complain about healthier lunches and keep throwing away part of their lunches, no big difference there. It seems like kids will complain about food at school, at home, anywhere - especially if they think their complaining will lead to getting the food they want. My kids have always loved the healthy, colorful, tasty, well-prepared meals we've hyped up and given them at home. My kids and all their little friends who are in and out of our house all the time happily eat apples and grapes and oranges and carrots and snap peas for snacks. They love the 7-grain Kashi TLC crackers with a thin slice of sharp cheddar on top. They love air-popped popcorn with a touch of salt. They don't miss the fruit snacks (seriously, does anyone out there NOT know that fruit snacks are NOT better than candy?) or chips or soda that people think of as "kid snacks." They don't compare because there's not a chance to compare. This is what we have so this is what we eat. Ultimately, kids eat what's available. I'm not saying we don't ever have treats around here. We do eat candy and store-bought prepared stuff sometimes. But the norm for us is healthy fresh foods and kids generally accept whatever the norm is once it's established.

2. "Healthy food is more expensive." Healthy food is NOT more expensive. I'd venture to guess that my grocery bill is less than pretty much every family out there with 7 people. We eat fresh fruits and veggies in their season. We eat lots of rice and beans and lentils (serious cheapness - and deliciousness). We eat brown bread and whole wheat pasta (which is pennies away from white bread and white pasta). We go easy on the meat which is generally expensive. We eat homemade cookies that are healthier and cheaper than store-bought ones. We work together to prepare our own food rather than buying pre-prepared food full of fat, sodium and ingredients with long crazy names you can't pronounce. We buy bulk foods and it's cheaper and easier on the environment that way. I make quick, easy, tasty meals using in expensive ingredients and good recipes that focus on spices that give flavor rather than the salt and fat that many meals depend on for flavor. Yes healthy food CAN be more expensive. But it doesn't have to be. If you buy individual packs of pre-cut apples, yep, that'll add up faster than fruit snacks. But if you buy apples for 68 cents a pound and take 30 seconds to chop them up for your kids, I think you'll fill your kids up more cheaply than you would with a bag of chips. If you think you always have to serve ranch dressing or cheese sauce or a bunch of butter with all veggies, that'll add up. Eat some naked veggies in front of your kids saying "mmmm" and "yum" and point out how cool those little peas are inside the sugar snap pea pods and teach them the joys of fresh green beans cooked just right and lightly salted. Fresh food, unpackaged, naked and in season is NOT expensive. And there are tons of home-cooked healthy meals that are much cheaper than eating off the dollar menu at a fast-food restaurant.

I am nowhere near perfect when it comes to eating healthy. I eat more sweets and cheese and pasta than I really should and I certainly overeat sometimes. We make cookies a lot. We love good ice cream. And we indulge in yummy Italian crusty white bread as well as hamburgers and pizza when the mood strikes us. We aren't super strict about food. But we usually eat things that are as "close to the earth" as possible. We love brown bread. We eat our veggies. We love our fruit. And we don't buy hardly anything pre-prepared or packaged. I feel good about what we eat around here for the most part.

I know that some kids have real eating issues due to allergies, the way their bodies work, special tactile sensitivities or especially picky personalities. I know that moms and dads and kids can't control everything about their kids' food intake or how their little bodies react to food. I get that. But I also get that parents and schools have huge influence over what kids eat and I think that we should all try to do the hard thing and the right thing more seriously and more often and get more healthy foods in front of our kids so their bodies can be nourished properly. I know it's very hard work to get certain kids to eat anything remotely outside their comfort zone. But I've seen parents work hard and keep trying and find ways to help their kids eat healthily even when the going is really rough.

We teach our kids that what we eat is about our health - not about our looks. Healthy people come in many shapes and sizes. I focus on teaching my kids to cook, prepare, savor and enjoy good food. We read the labels on food packages and watch YouTube videos about where our food comes from. We enjoy soda on special occasions and milk once or twice a day but other than that, we just drink water from the tap and we save tons of money by spending almost nothing on drinks (let alone saving the environment by avoiding all that packaging involved in drinks). We make cookies or brownies from scratch pretty much every week and we love good treats. We politely eat what we're offered at other people's houses and accept that everyone has slightly different needs and different taste buds and traditions that will lead them to make different choices and that's OK. But overall, we teach our kids that it's important to feed our bodies as healthfully as we can so we can maximize our energy and live long, healthy lives.

I've got a big post half-written about how I became so interested in healthy eating and other stuff on this topic. I'll finish that and post somewhat soon. Plus I'll keep posting some of my favorite healthy recipes. But what got me thinking about all this especially was this post that was forwarded to me today and all the comments at the end of it:
http://www.hlntv.com/article/2012/01/31/mommy-bloggers-ashamed-twitter-party-raises-awareness-about-anti-obesity-ads?hpt=hp_c2

What do you think???

Beautiful Weekend in LA - Serious Happiness

2012-01-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

I'm totally on a high after spending a glorious weekend of beautiful weather, lots of great discussions and lots of laughter in LA with 65 really wonderful mothers. My well is full. My often-neglected social needs are met. My idea bank is overflowing. My belief in the importance and beauty and wonder of motherhood is at an all-time high. And my love for my own sweet children and husband is deeper than ever. I came home completely exhausted but after a good night's sleep last night and a chunk of time catching up on emails this morning, life is looking good. Very, very good.

This was Power of Moms Retreat #11 and it was especially fun for me. I've now got more confidence and a lot less worries and jitters than I did with those first Retreats. I can go in there and present without tons of preparation and I know pretty well what works and what people might ask and how to handle things. Plus I love presenting alongside April - after doing this so much, we know how to go back and forth and cover everything pretty darn well between us. We had other great presenters there as well who did a fabulous job and as always, some of the best ideas and points and stories came from the wonderful moms who came to the event. The moms who come to these Retreats are a self-selected group of truly amazing people. The sad part of each Retreat is that there isn't enough time to hear the stories and ideas of every single mom there. We had moms who've been through cancer and bankruptcy and hard, hard stuff with their children and rocky marriages and infertility. We had several moms of twins that I wanted to talk with a lot more. We had everything from new moms to a mom of 11 children. What a plethora of mothering knowledge and questions we had there in that room of 65 wonderful moms! (This photo only shows about 1/2 of the moms who were there - we were so busy chatting and presenting that we didn't think to take a photo until half an hour after the Retreat ended and lots of the moms were already headed home at that point. Oh well!!!)

The setting was as perfect as can be - gorgeous weather and the loveliest home perched on a ridge overlooking Los Angeles (our discussion groups and lunch were extra nice outside). We're so very grateful to our hostess, Lisa Palmer, for opening her home to us and dealing with all our little requests for everything from platters to safety pins to refills of toilet paper. (Lisa's sister Julia went on study abroad with me to London about 20 years ago and when she heard we were looking for a place in LA for our Retreat, she suggested her sister's place and it all worked out beautifully. And I found out that the Palmers lived in Boston for many years and that they'd known Jared and my sister Saydi through church there - small world!)

We're so grateful for Sarah, Susan and Amy - three wonderful women who are sisters-in-law (they married three brothers) and who've attended or helped with a few Retreats now. They took care of registration details and copies and chairs and food and helped make things so wonderful for everyone - especially for me and April who've handled far too many details on our own at some Retreats. Sarah picked up the chairs and got everyone registered with her cute baby on her hip. Susan made beautiful desserts complete with the cutest individually-made fondant daisies (like the Power of Moms logo) and a "shot glass" of milk to go with it all. Amy made chicken cacciatore for dinner that was so delicious I'm still thinking about it. And so many other wonderful moms pitched in to help with set-up and clean-up and everything in between. Plus we're super grateful to Panera - they donated delicious sandwiches and cookies for our lunch. I love that place! Wish they had it in Utah.

It doesn't matter how many times I do a Retreat, I always learn a ton. Here were some little specific resolutions from this Retreat:

Prioritize social time more. I had the chance to fly out and back to the Retreat with one of our Power of Moms writers and presenters, Allyson Reynolds. We talked and laughed the whole way there and back and learned so much from each other. I had great conversations with lots of moms at the Retreat during structured discussion sessions and during breaks and before and after sessions. Everyone has such interesting stories and great ideas. I need to make time for more conversations like this and stop letting everything else get in the way. I just emailed Allyson to schedule a time to get our families together rather than doing what I typically do - keep saying "we really should get together sometime" and then getting around to really scheduling something all to seldom.
Start doing awards again. I'll write a post about this soon but as I presented about our Sunday dinner awards ceremonies with our kids, I realized we've been forgetting to do this for way too long and the kids really need and want it.
Speak my husband and kids' love languages more. Susan gave a great presentation on Love Languages - not a new concept to me but one I don't think about enough. I've got to give Oliver and Silas more hugs and tell them I love them more (their love language is verbal and physical - they're ALWAYS hugging me and hanging on me and saying how much they love me and I don't do those same things for them nearly as often as I should). I've got to write Eliza more notes (her notes are so sweet and when I actually remember to write her a note, she's over the moon. In fact I'll write one and put it on her bed right now before I even finish this). I've got to hang out and really listen to Ashton when I tuck him in bed at night (he's not a big talker but he has lots of things he wants to tell me about the latest electronic gadget or something that happened at school when I tuck him in - but I'm usually in too big a hurry. He really needs individual time right now in his life and I think some of the problems he's been having are because he needs more attention). I've got to give Isaac more hugs and tell him what I specifically appreciate about him more (he was such a hugger as a little kid and I think he still needs and wants that and he just blooms when he's praised). I've got to do more acts of service for Jared (he's so good about serving me and I know he loves it when I make time to do something special for him).
Be more purposeful about what I eat. Someone mentioned keeping a food diary and how that holds you more accountable to yourself. I've been eating whatever, whenever since Christmas and that extra weight from the holidays is going to be mine to keep forever if I don't start paying attention. Beth Aldridge talked about her new book, Real Moms Love to Eat and that really got me thinking about some things...
Be more consistent about playing the Bloom Game. When I set those little goals every week and keep that rolling, I feel so much better about my life and prioritize important things way better.
Get outside every day. While we sure don't have the amazing green and flowers and sunshine I experienced in LA here, I can still get out and go on a walk around the block and find something beautiful in nature almost every day. I can get out there and feel the sun on my face for a few minutes when it's cold. I can get the benefit of fresh air a lot more often if I make it a priority - and I sure need that. And I've decided we need to schedule a Southern CA or St George trip at least every couple months during the long cold winters here. If I prioritize it, it will happen.

Here are some of the beautiful things I saw in the snippets of time I had between everything else going on. I love love love the trees - their different shades of green, their different shapes and sizes, the dappled sun that comes through their branches and leaves. I loved seeing the blossoms (it's already spring there!) mixed with the left-over fruits of fall. It was all so beautiful there!

Happiness IV - quick thought

2012-01-25T11:08:00.001-07:00

I just saw this pop up on Facebook. It spoke to me.

I need to live in the present. Living in the past can only offer happiness as a memory. Living in the future can only offer happiness as a hope or an expectation (and expectations can be dangerous). Living in the present and looking for the good stuff right here, right now, is a pretty good recipe for present happiness.

Happiness III: What do you focus on?

2012-01-22T23:25:00.000-07:00

OK. Here goes part III of my thinking about happiness posts.

So I'm happier this week. I'm still stressed and worried about a lot of things. But I'm learning to accept that since I'm a worrier and since my life seems destined to be full of excitement and projects and opportunities (quite a bit of which I DO thrive on), I need to learn to find happiness amidst the stress and hard times rather than entertaining the thought that happiness is something that comes AFTER the stress and hard times are over.

What do you see in this photo?

I walked past this scene the other day and it brought me joy. The flowers looked so lovely in the sun and I love my old windows. I love fresh flowers but I rarely feel I've got money to spare to buy something that seems a bit "frivolous." These flowers were given to me for a speech I did last week and they've lasted amazingly long and brought me lots of joy.

My camera was sitting right there so I snapped a photo.

Then I realized there were a lot of not-so-pretty things in the picture. Did you notice the messy papers and piles? What about the chips and scratches on the table? Did you notice how dirty the window are in the background? What about those snowflakes the kids made that have been up there for a couple months and should probably come down? Did you notice how close our neighbor's house is right through those windows? (Luckily we love our neighbors but I do wish they'd thought to put just a few more feet between these houses...)

And that got me thinking. I'm happy when I notice and celebrate and focus on the beauty and goodness that is always to be found in life. I'm happy when I choose not to dwell on the imperfections and hard stuff.

As I think back on this past week, I choose to focus on the coziness and tastiness and fun of making cookies with the kids while beautiful snow finally fell all afternoon on Saturday - rather than focusing on the big spilled oatmeal mess and the way the boys whined about shoveling the driveway. I choose to focus on the excitement and accomplishment the kids and I felt at how good their rooms looked after a thorough cleaning and rearranging rather than the frustrating moments when the kids got off-task. I choose to focus on how cute Ashton was saying goodbye to the little kids he babysits when I went to pick him up rather than the fact that he forgot an important homework assignment right after we had a another big talk about school and grades. I choose to focus on how nice it was to watch a movie snuggled between the twins with Isaac reaching over to play with my hair and Ashton offering great commentary rather than focusing on Eliza's grumpiness about our movie choice and insistence on sitting in an uncomfortable way on the floor to try to make us all sorry for picking a movie she didn't like when she couldn't even think of anything she didn't like about it. I choose to focus on how Jared fixed a leak in the basement and did umpteen other really helpful and kind things for me and for the kids rather than focusing on a couple things he did or didn't do this week that made me feel a little bit invisible.

Happiness is all in where I place my focus.

This isn't exactly a brand new idea. And it's not so easy to focus on the positive when the negative is bearing down upon you or your mind just isn't feeling all that open to happy thoughts. But still, I can work on this more.

My Favorite Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

2012-01-19T22:36:00.001-07:00

I grew up in a cookie family. Some families are pie families. Some families are ice cream families. Some families are into cake. The Eyres were firmly into cookies. As teenagers, my sister Shawni or I made cookies all the time after school. Our friends and younger siblings and all their friends had handfuls of cookie dough (a lot of times, the cookies never made it to the oven and we never really heard of salmonella but no one ever got sick) and fresh hot cookies for their after school snacks in our crowded kitchen - always the gathering place. We experimented with lots of recipes and borrowed lots of ingredients from our very patient neighbors who probably wondered why in the world we kept starting to make cookies without verifying that we had all the ingredients first. Sure, we probably could have picked a healthier after school snack. But we also could have picked something worse... At least there wasn't corn syrup or partially hydrated oils or chemicals involved...(and I've got a whole post 1/2 written about my theories on healthy eating for kids so maybe that will make up for some of the non-super-healthy focus of this post...)

Now, whenever we get together, someone is whipping up a batch of cookies at least once a day. Our kids have been trained in cookie-making from young ages and they do a lot of the cookie baking these days. Most of us have developed our own special versions of the primarily oatmeal chocolate chip recipes we made growing up. Shawni brought a great oatmeal-heavy recipe from her mother-in-law to our family. Jonah perfected a fabulous recipe including ground flax seed instead of some of the butter. Saydi created a recipe that includes coconut and rice crispies for an added twist. Oatmeal is a staple in all our recipes as are semi-sweet chocolate chips. And we're all into cutting out some of the butter and sugar - we like a little lighter taste and figure that if we're going to make and eat cookies a lot, we'd better make them a little healthier. Everyone has their strong opinions about what's the best recipe but luckily, since we make cookies repeatedly when we're all together, everyone gets a chance to make their favorite recipe.

Here are a few photos I found quickly and easily of cookie-baking experiences over the years:

my sister Saydi making cookies with Ashton and Isaac the night before the twins were born

Ashton doling out the cookies to siblings and cousins

Liza and Silas work as a team to make cookies
(this is how many should fit on a cookie sheet for the recipe below - and the cookie scoop is a great thing!)

Anyway, over the years I've fine-tuned what is now MY favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. And here it is - for posterity - and for those who might want to try it out!

Here's how the cookies from this recipe are supposed to look
(the twins wanted them for their birthday "cake" a couple years ago)

BestOatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

LoosliFamily Favorite

This isthe recipe we use at least a couple times a month for after-church cookie baking orfamily home evening treats. It's super yummy and we love doingdifferent variations – sometimes with chocolate chips and driedcherries and coconut, other times with chocolate chips and raisins,sometimes with chocoate chips and walnuts. As this recipe uses ½ thebutter of most recipes and has lots of oatmeal and some flax seed,it's quite healthy as far as cookies go.

2 cubesbutter (1 cup) - softened

½ cupground flax seed

1 ½ c.brown sugar (loosely packed)

1 c.white sugar

3 largeeggs (or substitute one egg for ¼ c. water to cut down on fat)

2 tspvanilla

MIXTOGETHER, then add:

1 ½ cwhite flour

¾ c.whole wheat flour

1 tspbaking soda

1 tspbaking powder

1 tspsalt

MIX INwith the rest, then add, one cup at a time:

3 ½cups quick oatmeal

1 c.chocolate chips (or 1 1/2 cups if you like them more chocolaty)

Optional: (you can cut down a bit on the chocolate chips if you want to add all this stuff)

1 c.raisins, craisins or dried cherries

1 c.flaked sweetened coconut

1 c.rice crispies

Preheatconvection oven to 330 degrees. Drop by spoonful (or cookie scoop)onto a cookie sheet. Should fit on two cookie sheets if you do 5 rowsof 4 (plus there will be a little dough to eat!). Cook for 8-9minutes. Take out when slightly brown on edges but still a bit doughylooking in the middle. Once cooled, put in the freezer if you'd liketo have them remain super fresh for use in the future. Or eat the dayyou bake them!

Makes the equivalent of a double batch of most recipes - about 40 cookies.

The Best Serendipity of my Life

2012-01-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

Today is Oliver and Silas's birthday. Oh how I love my little guys! What would I ever do without them?

Seven years and seven months ago, I had a total deer-in-the-headlights feeling when a midwife wielding an ultrasound wand told me she saw 2 heartbeats - I was already completely overwhelmed with three tiny kids and felt like I was "stepping out into the darkness and reaching out for the hand of the Lord" in accepting the strong prompting that we needed to go for a fourth child. It was one of those surreal moments that will forever be crystalized in my mind when the midwife turned the screen towards me and pointed out those two blinking kidney beans. And when I managed to somehow drive my shocked self home to where Jared was watching the kids so I could go to the doctor, he just about passed out when I showed him the ultrasound pictures.

And then, after getting so excited about the two little boys who'd be joining our family and trusting that it would all work out somehow, I'll never forget the afternoon when I was about 5 months pregnant and was having lunch with friends and quite suddenly, there was blood - quite a lot of it. I rushed into the doctor, leaving the kids with the friends I'd been with at lunch. I sat there for what seemed like forever until they could get someone to do an ultrasound. Oh what joy when two little hearts were still beating in there! What a beautiful crystal moment! But the placenta was inexplicably tearing away from the uterine wall and I had to go on modified bedrest - not that easy with my three tiny kids and no family nearby and a husband who needed to be on the other side of the world for work quite a bit. But friends and members of my congregation pitched in and we taught baby Eliza how to climb into her high chair and crib and carseat by herself since I couldn't lift her and we were as careful and prayerful as can be. Those little hearts kept beating strong at each doctor visit until the placenta finally healed itself.

And then there was that crazy night exactly 7 years ago when our two babies were born. After going through a quick but intense natural labor, I rejoiced as I held precious Oliver in my arms, and felt wonderful adrenaline and joy as I got ready to push his brother out. But Silas was stuck. It was pretty sad news to hear that there'd be no more triumphant pushing but instead, a scary emergency C-section. That night is full of more poignant and blazing memories - the most beautiful of which involved finally holding my two babies in my arms, drugged and groggy and in intense pain, but so very very grateful to have both babies delivered safe and sound.

I've had plenty of other crazy, sweet, hard and crystalized moments since the birth of my little guys. Oh, the messes and scary moments and general chaos that they've brought into our lives! There were the many many many sleepless nights with two newborns. Then there was the time a stranger showed up at our door holding a dirty little Silas. "Is this yours? I found this baby crawling in the street." Great moment there. Jared had inadvertently left the door slightly ajar when he got back from work and Silas must have somehow slipped out the door while I was focused on feeding Oliver and the other kids were gleefully greeting Jared after work. All it took was about 3 minutes.

There was the day they smeared vaseline all over the new carpet and new Pottery Barn bedding I'd saved up so carefully to buy while I was cleaning up a potted plant they'd upturned in another room (and nope, vaseline doesn't come out - I tried everything). And there was the time they figured out how to open a 25 pound bag of pinto beans in the pantry - wow, those beans sure roll everywhere!

Then there was the time they both split their chins open in the very same spot just a few days apart from each other - one tripped and fell onto a sharpish edge on our eliptical machine and the other one slipped while doing a spontaneous dance in a restaurant when he hit a wet spot on the floor - identical scars.

And there was the time last summer at Bear Lake when the twins and one of their little cousins were playing on the old tractor we use to launch the boat and ended up accidentally starting that thing while the rest of us were busily and noisily making dinner and didn't notice. After a joyride/scared-to-death ride involving somehow making three loops around an empty lot without hitting anything or getting killed, they steered the tractor up a sandy hill and luckily that caused the engine to stall and stop. Not knowing exactly how to explain what happened, they headed into the cabin to eat dinner and the story didn't come out until their cousin let it slip and we found the tracks and the tell-tale tractor stuck in the sand. Lots of big talks on that one.

Never a dull moment when Oliver and Silas are around! And I could go on and on but you get the idea. If one smart, busy, curious little boy can get into a lot of things, just imagine how much more craziness can happen when two identical smart, busy and curious little boys put their heads together!

But the sweetness and laughs and beauty they've brought into our lives is vastly more important. They are the most loving, funny, sweet, smart, fun, enthusiastic little boys and I love them so very very much. They shower kisses and hugs and "I love you's" on me every single day (especially on the hard days - they seem to be so in tune with what I need) and never cease to make me smile. They're the best serendipity of my life.

Seven years ago, these were my little guys.

5 years ago, these were my little guys. (We laughed our heads off watching these next few clips as part of our birthday celebration today)

4 years ago, these were my little guys.

2 years ago, these were my little guys. (The big kids think this one should be featured on America's funniest home videos - but it might just be extra funny to us - see what you think. They've attributed some pretty interesting stuff to Micheal Jackson.)

And here they are a couple months ago.

Yes, I'm biased, but aren't they pretty darn cute?

I'm blessed beyond measure to have these sweet boys and I'm so grateful for all the crystal moments they're always bringing to my life - both the crazy times and the beautiful times - and the times that have been crazy and beautiful simultaneously.

Here are a few photos of today's festivities for their birthday. Ashton did a fabulous magic show for 10 mesmerized little kids, we did pinatas in the backyard on a perfect sunny afternoon, we did a family trip to Kangaroo Zoo (the twins have been begging to go there forever and it did not disappoint) and we topped it all off with a pizza party with my parents. What a day we had!

Opening presents after their chosen birthday breakfast - egg burritos

Good times at our family party at Kangaroo Zoo

coming down the slide in a train

The friend birthday party started with a great magic show by Ashton

ready for cake and ice cream (they asked for banana cake and I found a super
good recipe for banana chocolate chip cake with cream cheese frosting - yum!)

pinatas in the back yard on a perfect sunny afternoon
(thanks dad and mom for the random pinatas found while cleaning out your house - they were perfect!

Waiting in line to hit the pinatas

grabbing the loot - we stuffed them with popcorn packets, hot cocoa packets, granola bars, fruit snack packs -
fills them up faster and makes for slightly more surprising and healthy loot

pizza party to end the day with Grammie and Grandfather

Happiness - Part II

2012-01-13T12:10:00.001-07:00

OK, so I've been working on happiness. And it's working.

In the last few days, I've prioritized some of the items on my happiness-inducing list in the last post and in the next few days, I'll prioritize more of them.

I went running outside in the cold on Wednesday and this morning. I was NOT looking forward to the cold or the running as I headed out the door both times, but I felt ALIVE as I ran in that cold and I felt so proud of myself when I got back home. I needed that fresh air and I needed the energy of mind, body and spirit I get from vigorous exercise (#3 and #6 from my happiness list). Plus the mountains are so pretty. And that hot shower feels so good afterwards.

I went to lunch yesterday with a couple friends and heard their latest stories and it was so nice to just talk and be out and about. I need to do that more. (#8 on the list)

I've found chunks of time to read lately and I'm almost done with Minding Frankie. There's this social worker in the book who doesn't hardly know how to smile. I don't want to be like her. We had another little read-a-thon snuggled up on my bed last night. It was so nice. That takes care of #2 and #4.

I finally put new caulk in the kids' shower. Jared drilled out the old messed up caulk about 2 months ago and it was my job to put in new caulk (I'm just a teeny bit better at neat caulking than Jared - let's just say the shelves he caulked, bless his heart, looked pretty goopey). I've had that caulking job on my to-do list for 2 whole months and no one's been able to use that shower this whole time. I finally blocked out yesterday morning to do it. Oh how good it feels to finally accomplish something I've been putting off forever! And I listened to great music while caulking - love Pandora - love my Plain White T's station. So that took care of #7 and #9 quite nicely.

And I've got a new thing to add to my list. Here's #11:
11. Do something spontaneous that's NOT on my list and that I don't really have to do but that's just fun. Yesterday when I went to lunch, my friend pointed out a flower shop along the way that said "If your name is Oliver, come in for a free rose." I guess they put up different names there all the time. So after school, even though I had plenty of other things to do, I surprised Oliver - took him for a little drive, pointed out that sign and he was overjoyed to go in there and choose any rose he wanted. He got a gorgeous orange one and they wrapped it up beautifully for him and he was pleased as punch. I need to grab the moment and do fun little things like this way more often.

As I've been focusing more on doing the things that make me happy, I'm also realizing that it's important to simply RECOGNIZE that I'm doing things that make me happy. Then I'm happier.

What is Happiness?

2012-01-11T13:28:00.002-07:00

My sister-in-law gave me a book called The Happiness Project for Christmas and although I've only read a couple chapters so far, it's really got me thinking.

Am I happy?

I haven't had a chance to think a whole lot about whether or not I was happy in the past dozen years or so. I remember contemplating happiness back when I was single and had plenty of quiet moments. But since having kids, I've been so busy doing everything that comes along with dealing with the needs of small children while trying to juggle a couple websites and involvement in my kids' school and in the community that I never got around to thinking about happiness much. There were times when life was really hard and I did some thinking about how to pull myself out of a slump. But mostly, when I've had time to think in the past dozen years, I've thought about goals and to-do lists and plans for helping the kids and myself and everyone around me become all that they can and should be. And I do think happiness is quite interconnected with progress and growth and helping others - all of which I've experienced in great abundance especially since launching into my motherhood career.

But now that all the kids are in school and I have a few more quiet moments to myself each day as I chip away at my endless to-do lists, I'm feeling the need to figure some things out. Am I happy? Am I as happy as I ought to be? Should happiness be a pursuit or a goal? Or is it silly and selfish to devote much time to thinking about my own happiness?

I experience lovely fleeting moments of happiness every day. Joy jumps up in my heart when I see fresh snow or a brilliant blue sky, hear a sweet comment from one of my kids, feel little arms around my waist, see my child be kind or accomplish something he or she is proud of, watch my kids run up to me with huge smiles when I pick them up from school, snuggle with my little ones as we read together. I feel a satisfaction kind of happiness whenever I accomplish something or complete a task. So I'm experiencing happy moments a lot and I'm so grateful for each of them.

But do I feel happy in general? Not so much.

I feel worried and stressed and overwhelmed much more often than I feel happy. And I think this is partially because I think about what I need to DO much more than I think about who I need to BE or what I NEED. I think about accomplishments far more than optimism and gratitude. I think about good works far more than faith, hope and charity. And while I do believe happiness relies quite a bit on progression and helping others, I don't think I've thought enough about the other things happiness relies upon.

So this week I'm going to focus on figuring out what makes me happy - other than getting things done (I've got that one down pretty well). Then I'm going to figure out how to bring more of this happiness-inducing stuff into my life more regularly. I've realized that in order to be the mom and wife and person I need to be, I've got to figure out how to be a happier person. And it's not just going to happen by itself.

Here's my first step - making a quick list of what I love to do off the top of my head:
1. Cook tasty food that's quite simple but has great spices and flavors and that my whole family loves (I made thai food on Sunday and it was a pleasure to cook and a pleasure to eat)
2. Read beautifully-written novels with great characters and a story that sucks you in and makes you think (really enjoying Minding Frankie by Mave Binchy right now).
3. Exercise (actually I really don't like exercising much but I love the feeling I get AFTER exercising)
4. Read with my kids (we all snuggled on my bed Sunday night and read out own books together and it was so cozy and made me so happy).
5. Travel. Visiting a new place - be it a new part of town or a new country - always gives me a rush. I love meeting new people, seeing new sites, figuring out new favorites, and seeing my kids get excited about it all.
6. Go on a hike or walk. Moving my body while enjoying fresh air and nature always offers elevates my mood and gives me sparks of joy and renews me. I need to be outside every day - at least for a few minutes. But I don't make time for that every day.
7. Hear great music. I need to have music playing more regularly. I need to crank up the music and dance more. I miss singing. I miss playing the violin. I need to make as well as enjoy listening to music more.
8. Have a good conversation. I'm not getting nearly enough of this. I'm alone too much. I email all day with people but I'm not with other adults enough.
9. Finish something. I'm getting quite a bit of this one - at the expense of the others.
10. Laugh. I don't laugh nearly enough. I'm way too serious. Anyone got any really funny YouTube videos or TV shows are articles you'd recommend?

So there's my quick list to get me started. I'll work on what to DO about these needs soon.

And I'd love any tips or ideas anyone else out there has!

A Beautiful Rite of Passage

2012-01-09T23:00:00.002-07:00

I love rites of passage. I think we generally have too few of them in today's world. I'm so grateful to be part of a church and a faith that offers beautiful rites of passage.

On Saturday, Jared and I took Ashton on a special hike preisthood-preparation hike in the mountains near by. Jared planned the whole thing out. After a weirdly snow-less winter, it finally snowed on Friday night and we woke up to a winter wonderland. The snow made the hike perfect in a way we couldn't have imagined. We had the mountain to ourselves and it was gorgeous.

When we reached a lovely overlook with a nice gathering of rocks to sit on, we sat down and Jared pulled out some scriptures. We read and discussed the passages that explain all about the duties of the priesthood with a focus on the duties of the Aaronic priesthood and of a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood. Ashton had good questions. I love that the Lord entrusts humble, eager, wide-eyed 12-year-olds with a piece of His power and expects them to step up to certain duties. We sat there talking about God's power surrounded by God's creations. It was beautiful and quiet and holy.

We finished our little meeting with some hot chocolate. Jared brought a little camp stove and kettle and we drank in the warmth of that nice chocolaty stuff while looking out across the valley and talking to Ashton about the climbs and vistas he has ahead of him in life.

Saturday afternoon, I took Ashton shopping for a nice new white shirt and a sport jacket for his big day the next day. After initially turning up his nose at the idea of dress-up clothes, when we found the right shirt and coat, Ashton came out of the dressing room with a big smile and a swagger and wanted to wear the new stuff home. We didn't need to buy him a tie. We have 4 ties that belonged to Jared's dad who passed away a couple years ago that will go to each of our boys. We figured they could each pick one of them to wear on the day they receive the priesthood. Ashton got first pick.

On Sunday at church, Ashton received the Aaronic (or preparatory) priesthood and was ordained a Deacon. As a priesthood holder himself, Jared was able to lay his hands on Ashton's head and confer the priesthood upon him and my dad, my brother Eli and other good men from our congregation stood in a circle around Ashton, placing one hand on Ashton's head and the other on the shoulder of the man next to him. I felt that power. It is real.

At the close of the blessing, Ashton hugged or shook hands with each of these men. I love seeing these circles of good, humble men, using the priesthood to bless others.

I love that there are certain things that only I can do for our children and certain things that only Jared can do.

As a newly ordained Deacon, Ashton had the chance to pass the Sacrament for the first time. He was so nervous and excited. He did an excellent job. I caught his eye as he passed the tray to the row behind me and he flashed me a beautiful quiet smile of accomplishment. This boy is ready, willing and able to do God's work. I love this boy of mine and all the wonderful men in my life who honor the priesthood and use it in love and humility.

Jared's birthday and New Years

2012-01-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

In our family, Christmas is just the beginning of the festivities. We follow Christmas with a trip to Idaho to party it up with lots of Looslis, then we head to Park City to party it up with lots of Eyres, then we celebrate Jared's birthday and New Year's Eve on December 31st, then we usually have a big party with my mom's extended family New Years day or thereabouts, then we top it all off by celebrating Ashton's birthday on January 3rd. Then we can take a breath and relax from so much celebrating for a few days until it's the twins' birthday on January 14th. Meanwhile, it's someone in our extended family's birthday pretty much every single day in January. I wouldn't mind it if some of these special occasions were more spread out, but hey, what can you do? I feel bad for Ashton because by the time we get to his birthday, everyone's partied-out. But he's a great sport about it and we try to make it special for him.

Anyway, here are a few shots of Jared's birthday and New Years:

Jared's birthday tradition is going bowling - we went with my parents and my brother Noah and family
to a pretty swank bowling alley in Park City and had a great time.

Jared's birthday breakfast at my parents' house

Birthday cake time

We had tons of fun with my brother Noah and his wonderful wife and kids

Silas was excited to meet his new cousin Bennett who has the same middle name as him -
they both have their grandfather's name for a middle name - Richard
(I just realized Bennett seems to be flipping us all off. I'm quite sure he didn't mean it.)

Isaac couldn't get enough of new baby Bennett. He loves babies so much.

After lots of great times with family in Park City, we headed home for New Year's Eve night.

The kids were excited to have their own little New Year's party with lots of treats

Jared and I headed out to a grown-up New Year's party with friends for a couple hours

And then it was done. 2011 is done. It was a good year. It was a hard year. 2012 is going to be awesome!

Ahhhhhhh....

2012-01-05T12:28:00.001-07:00

The Christmas stuff is put away (after sitting grouped together for a few days until I had time to box it up - my office looked like a Christmas shop for days). The tree is in the backyard, the pine needles are swept up and the living room is rearranged back to normal. I'm almost caught up on the most urgent Power of Moms stuff that piled up over the holidays. The sugar intake is way down, the routine is back in place, and we're all nicer people with less sugar and more sleep. The kids are back in school. There's a warm glow of happiness still eminating from the great times we had over the holidays. And randomly, it's totally warm and sunny. Feels like spring. Went for a lovely run yesterday. Weird. But nice.

Life is good.

But a couple days ago, life wasn't so good. I was trying to make Ashton's birthday special while feeling totally overwhelmed by my Christmas-shop office and the dust, pine needles, candy wrappers and bits and pieces of Christmas toys strewn throughout my house that had been sorely neglected while being in and out of town the week after Christmas. I had like 500 emails in my inbox. The kids were wound-up and/or grumpy. I had a to-do list a mile long and was worried about a lot of things that I'd put off worrying about over the holidays. And I was hormonal. Life seemed pretty darn awful.

I guess that's how life goes. Up, down, up, down. I just need to get better at remembering that things will be totally fine soon when I'm in the midst of a hard time!

My Young Man

2012-01-03T14:04:00.001-07:00

Today is Ashton's 12th birthday.

How can this be? How can my little baby be such a big boy? When I hug him (which he doesn't exactly love but tolerates quite well - he was never much of for hugs), he's this big solid person in my arms and he doesn't fit beneath my chin anymore. His feet are bigger than mine now.

I miss my baby Ashton.

But I love love love the young man I've got in his place.

This is Ashton after his indoor sky diving birthday present today. He LOVED it!

In the past 12 years, my little baby Ashton has developed into his own person - a person I really like a lot who has skills and abilities and interests that I can take no credit for. I remember the first time Ashton told me something I hadn't taught him. He was two and had picked up a new idea from the lesson in nursery at church. I can't even remember what it was that he said but it struck me that my little boy's world was expanding and that he was starting the long road of becoming who he needs to be - part of which will certainly be rooted in who I am and who Jared is and what we've taught him - but much of which will be shaped by who ASHTON is and by the experiences and people he encounters beyond our family and home.

If motherhood has taught me anything in these past 12 years, it's taught me that children are seedlings, not lumps of clay. They come who they are. They need water and sunlight and a little pruning now and again from their parents. But they need to become who they're meant to be - not who their parents may think they ought to be. Sure, there are bits and pieces and even whole chunks of me and of Jared in each of our kids. But I sure love seeing how they put those pieces together and add their own special stuff to become their own person. And what a joy it's been to see Ashton grow and bloom these past 12 years.

Ashton is the master of every electronic gadget he lays his hands upon - he's dabbled in pretty impressive computer programming, he's beautifully edited all the Deliberate Mothering videos for Power of Moms, he's got our old phones turned into game stations, you name anything you want done and he can do it. He decided to be a snow boarder this year and picked it up quite nicely in just one day. He's mastered tons of quite amazing magic tricks and took it upon himself to research and join the local magic club. He was totally undaunted when he walked into the first meeting and found mostly middle-aged guys there - he's become a solid contributing member of the group. He can read a big fat book in a day if his mean mom doesn't tear him away from his book. He's wonderful with little kids and has become a sought-after babysitter. Nothing warms my heart like seeing him with one of his adoring little friends or siblings. He's an excellent public speaker and I was so proud of the excellent job he did as the MC and narrator of this year's Children for Children concert (and when people keep commenting to me how impressed they were with him). He knows what's going on in the world and has interesting opinions and great ideas that are uniquely his. He's cool and tough and fun yet sweet and smart and mellow. Sure, we're all dealing with the mood swings and surliness that comes with being a pre-teen, but all in all, Ashton is coming into his own quite beautifully. And I'm so glad to catch glimpses of the man he is becoming.

Here are a few favorite shots of Ashton over this past year:

On Antelope Island for Memorial Day

with cousin Emmaline at Bear Lake

getting his Arrow of Light award back in February

Ashton's end-of-the-year school party with some of his best friends from last year

Results of a lego-building marathon led by Ashton

playing his guitar and earning money at the Farmer's Market (with a lap-top screen saying "tips appreciated")

hanging out with the family downtown (did this a lot this year)

hanging out with his revered Grandfather and his not-so-revered little brother

Ashton's pumpkin this year reflected his interest in cyclops and all mythology thanks to the Lightning Thief series

Ashton out in the middle of the Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake

With one of his fans - our little neighbor

Ashton with family and friends ready to do some indoor sky diving today

I love this boy of mine.

Happy Birthday, Ashton. Here's to all that you are and all that you are becoming. We love you so much!

Can you do me a favor?

2011-12-29T00:21:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year!

As a little New Year's gift to me, it would be really wonderful if you could do three things for me (and my "baby," The Power of Moms). It will take you about 3 minutes to do these things and you'll be helping yourself and maybe also your friends and family while you're helping me. Total win-win going on here.

1. If you do Facebook, click here to visit our Facebook page and "like" Power of Moms so you can get the little updates and links we send out.

2. Click here to become a registered member of The Power of Moms. If you register before January 3rd, you get the regular free gifts we give everyone who registers plus two special holiday gift programs including a free podcast series I recorded with my mom and sisters last summer that I bet you'd like a lot and a webinar on boundaries and margins that offers info that was pretty revolutionary to me when I first heard it. Let all your friends know about these special offers just for joining our website if you like.

3. Share what you like about Power of Moms with all your mom friends - use email, Facebook, word of mouth, whatever works for you. A really easy way to share the site is to share this link to our Welcome Page on Facebook or email. We get so many emails from moms saying that they've found something on Power of Moms that has changed their lives. Please help us reach moms who might need this stuff!

Why is it important to me that you do these three things? Mostly I just want all this hard work I do for Power of Moms to reach more moms who need it. But also, the larger our numbers, the better chance we have of getting sponsors to help support our site. We're needing some support so we can reach all the moms we need to reach and provide great programs at great prices without dipping into our own pockets so much.

So can you do those three things? Pretty please? Thanks!

Oh, and one last thing. If you buy stuff on Amazon, it would be wonderful if you could first click on our Power of Moms Amazon store. From there, you can go anywhere you like on Amazon right then or visit Amazon to make a purchase of ANYTHING (whether it's something we recommend or something else) anytime in the next month and anything you purchase will result in a small percentage going to help support our work at Power of Moms. Doesn't cost you anything but helps us out - plus you might really like some of our recommended products if you're looking for a great book for yourself or quality toys or books for your kids. If you can visit our store before buying something on Amazon, it would be very nice.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-28T23:59:00.000-07:00

Here's the story of our Christmas (mostly in photos):

Temple Square:
Christmas officially began once we met up with my sister Charity (beloved Aunt ChiChi) who arrived on the 23rd from San Francisco to spend Christmas with us. We met up with her at Temple Square to see the lights and delighted in beauty and wonder of all the lights and crowds and music of the place. The cold air and bundled families and sparkling lights make for such a festive evening - especially with Charity's added spark.

Christmas Eve
Then Christmas Eve morning, we had our traditional breakfast (this yummy quick quiche - will post the recipe later because man, it's good - and pretty darn easy too).

Dessert for Christmas Eve breakfast was the gingerbread house we built the day before (with much frustration mixed with glee - the thing would not hold together - wow - not my favorite Christmas tradition but the kids won't let it go...). Eating it proved to be MUCH more fun and WAY faster than building the thing! Plus we found out that Ikea's gingerbread house kit provided by far the best-tasting gingerbread we've had in a pre-made kit.

Secret Elves
After devouring the house, we guessed and then revealed who everyone's secret elves were. We drew names of people who we'd be "Secret Elves" for the week before. Everyone had so much fun all week doing nice little services for each other and leaving notes and treats for each other. Everyone did a great job but Silas was my secret elf and I think we all agreed he was the best. He left a sweet note or treat under my pillow every night. He left a dot-to-dot for me to do one day (it made a cool pattern). Another day he made me a "popskl making kit" that included instructions wrapped around a popsicle stick. The instructions said: 1. put apl jus in a cup. 2. put this stk in the cup. 3. put the cup in the freazer for a few owers. 4. eet yr popskl! He was SO cute about the whole thing, asking me each day in a calculatingly casual way whether I'd got anything from my secret elf. When I'd excitedly tell him about the awesome stuff I got, he'd try to conceal his obviously huge happiness about how much I appreciated what he'd done. You can see some of the joy of giving on Silas's face in this photo right after he revealed he was my elf.

Wrapping and Puzzle Time
We spent a lot of Christmas Eve wrapping presents (it was my big goal that I actually achieved this year to get all the shopping done the day before and be able to relax a fair amount on Christmas Eve). Then when the last of the presents were wrapped and under the tree, we worked on a puzzle together and it was a really fun family project. I think we'll make this a regular Christmas Eve tradition.

We went over to our neighbor's house for an early dinner featuring their traditional pierogi (Polish dumplings - 100's of them, all handmade - delicious!). We enjoyed meeting some of their friends and enjoyed great food and great conversation. I didn't think to take photos. Oh well.

Nazareth Summer and Nativity
Then we came home and had our traditional Nazareth Supper - a tradition my parents started long ago. We dress up, turn off all the lights and use only candles, and pretend to be Mary's family enjoying a farewell dinner as we send her and Joseph off on the journey to Bethlehem while we eat pita, goat cheese, pomegranates and other foods they'd have had in Jesus' day. We use simple costumes I made years ago from fabric I found on the dollar table at Walmart mixed with some real head bands and robes my parents picked up on travels in the Middle East. We also use special plates I bought in Jerusalem years ago. So fun to have Charity there to round out the conversation over supper as well as help with the traditional Nativity play we put on at the close of the supper.

For the supper, Charity was Mary's cousin Elizabeth, Isaac was her husband Zachariah and the baby is baby John (who's pretty darn small for his age - he's have been about 6 months older than Jesus I think). Ashton choose to be a cousin who was also a donkey-dealer and hooked Mary and Joseph up with a great donkey for the journey. Silas was Mary's brother. Oliver was Joseph and Liza was Mary (she gets to be Mary every year and is quite pleased about that - she's got the role down pat). Jared and I were Mary's parents - Anna and Joquime (according to some sources).

Then Ashton became the donkey and the rest of us transformed into innkeepers, shepherds, kings and angels.

Mary and Joseph head to Bethlehem with their trusty donkey

Joseph talks to an innkeeper

The baby was born in the stable

The angel pointed out the star to the shepherds and sang to them

And the wise men, angel and shepherds worshiped the newborn babe

As we knelt around the baby in the soft glow of the Christmas tree, we sang Away in a Manger, Silent Night, In a Little Stable, and What Child is This. After some silliness here and there during dinner and some frustration about posing for photos and some disagreement about who should do what, it was great to feel the Spirit really rush in as we knelt there together at the end and sang.

Christmas Eve Present

Then we finished off the evening by opening one present which proved to be - as always - new pj's.

This is how we left the tree when we went to bed - with visions of sugar plumbs dancing in our heads.

And this is how it looked when we checked to see if Santa came before
we let the kids come downstairs Christmas morning

Christmas Morning

When the kids wake up on Christmas morning, they can peek into their stockings that Santa leaves on the end of their beds (Father Christmas delivers stockings to the end of the kids' beds at Christmas in England so I grew up with that tradition and it stuck). Then at 7:30, they can wake us up by singing carols on the stairs. Here they are:

We opened up our stockings (some fun little puzzles and games plus all the regular candy - jelly orange slices that grow on trees at the North Pole, candy canes, oranges, and each kid got a favorite exotic fruit - mangos, kiwi, and Isaac got his favorite - an avacado)

Then it was time to head downstairs and see if Santa brought anything else. Do you think they're excited???

Santa Gifts

Eliza got the Madame Alexander doll she asked for - named her Ava.
And she fit perfectly on the horse her cousins gave her a couple years ago.

Liza was excited to introduce Ava to her other dolls - Susan and Tasha. I love that Liza's still so into dolls.

Oliver got the K'nex roller coaster he'd been dreaming of and spent the rest of the day excitedly working on putting it together. We thought we'd have to help him quite a bit but he totally figured out the instructions himself. It's going to take quite some time to finish that thing but Oliver is totally undaunted.

Ashton got a pretty awesome Syma helicopter that Jared's always begging to fly.

Silas got the seemingly awesome race car set pictured above from Santa. But apparently some less-than-stellar elves built this thing. It totally didn't work. Silas was pretty sad and Jared and I felt awful since Silas was also the one who had his Christmas gift from last year fall off Santa's sleigh and arrive a few days late. Ooops! But luckily Silas got happily sucked into helping with Oliver's roller coaster. And when he got this really super cool rocket ship from one of his cousins (pictured below), the day was thoroughly saved.

Kid Gifts
As usual, one of my favorite parts of the day was watching the kids open the presents they'd carefully saved up and bought for each other. This year the older kids went beyond dollar store gifts since they've been earning more money mowing lawns and babysitting. Ashton and Isaac were SO excited about the gifts they had for the twins and Eliza. And the twins and Eliza were perfectly delighted with what their big brothers bought for them.

The twins did tons of jobs around the house to earn up money to buy everyone something at the dollar store and were SO excited to give their gifts.

All the kids chipped in on a megapack of cotton swab/q-tips for their dad. He was pretty excited.

Brunch
We ate our traditional eggs benedict for brunch. Yum!

Church

We rushed off to church after brunch. I have to admit I wasn't feeling much like changing out of our pj's and breaking up the day with church after we'd really spent a lot of quality time already focusing on the spiritual aspects of Christmas. But some of my favorite moments of Christmas day happened as we sat on uncomfortable folding chairs at the back of a church gym. As we listened to the choir sing and heard great talks about how angels are all around us and how the Christmas story teaches us about the beauty and importance of parenthood alongside other things, the twins were both on my lap, patting my cheeks and snuggling up to me, Eliza was snuggled up on one side, Isaac was reaching across Eliza to hold my hand and squeeze "I love you" with three hand squeezes, and Ashton was smiling at me whenever I caught his eye. It was so nice to sit there nestled together with no presents to distract and really think about the powerful messages of Christmas that the speakers were presenting. I pulled up this photo on my phone and passed it along the row so everyone could really examine it during the talk about how angels are always around us. I love how this painting makes me think and feel when I look at it carefully:

"Nativity" by Brian Kershisnik

After church, we came home for more present-opening and fun (and too much candy).

Charity and I randomly got the same slippers and they are AWESOME!
My parents picked out Charity's for her and Jared surprised me with mine.

My parents' big gift to us was a Kindle Fire. Of course I haven't exactly been able to get my hands on it yet (other than for this photo) but it sure seems great and everyone in the family is enjoying it.

Jared and I said we weren't going to do gifts for each other this year. But Jared apparently didn't really mean it. He gave me some great stuff. My favorites were a beautiful letter he wrote to me (since I know writing is NOT his thing, this meant the world to me) and a wireless speaker (ihome) that will play music right from my phone. I've been missing music and this thing is so great!

Christmas Dinner
We closed the day with a fancy turkey dinner including traditional English Christmas Crackers filled with jokes, prizes and a paper crown so we could all be kings and queens for dinner. Since Charity went on her mission to England and I grew up in England, we needed some good British stuff thrown in.

What a Christmas we had! Full of traditions and joy and giving and love and playing and worshiping the One who Christmas is really about in word and in deed.

Post-Christmas in Ashton

2011-12-28T00:26:00.003-07:00

I'll finish my post on Christmas soon but there are still quite a few photos to edit for that one and I like to blog about the day it actually is as much as possible.

Today we're in Ashton, Idaho at the farm with a bunch of Jared's family. We got up here yesterday and have been talking, playing games (the big hit of the season has been Reverse Charades - the teenagers were begging to play it pretty much all day every day and everyone laughed harder than they have in a long time), playing in the snow, laughing, opening more presents and eating non-stop since we got here. As always, this is a very fun and relaxing place to be - no big plans, lots of unstructured time, Jared's mom making great meals with everyone else pitching in to help, kids laughing and playing, plenty to do but nothing really required.

There's not a lot of snow but enough for kind big cousin Mark to
take kids on countless sleigh rides towed by a 4-wheeler

As the sun just started to dip in the sky, I went for a nice solitary walk. I fell in love with the beauty of this place all over again and felt so full of joy and life as I walked along in that crisp air surrounded by such splendor. I love the subtle and somewhat bleak beauty of winter here at the farm. I love how the weeds along the road become such lovely shades of gold and auburn. I love the angles of the tilted fence posts and how they add dimension and focal points to the scene. I love the clean white of the snow and the changing colors of the vast clear sky.

This is some of the Loosli farm buildings from down the road.

Beauty. I'm so grateful for beauty. And relaxation. And games and laughter. And conversation. And family.

Our Christmas Card

2011-12-22T17:19:00.000-07:00

(click on the photo to enlarge)

As pictures typically capture the good times and happy faces, it was a great exercise in gratitude to go through photos and create our traditional annual Christmas card collage. Sure, we've had plenty of hard times (involving far more hard work and stress than is probably healthy - a big resolution for 2012 is to slow things down...) but I'm struck by the beauty we've experienced, the great people and places we've enjoyed, how cute the kids are, and how many fun and wonderful adventures we've had. All in all, the good stuff in 2011 has far outweighed the not-so-good stuff.

Here's an overview of the year (mostly represented in the photo collage above):

HOME: We've lived here for just over a year now and this is really feeling like home. The kids finally settled on a name for our beautiful old house - Ida Mimzy. Ida is my great grandmother's name and was one of the top names in the 1880's when this house was built. And Mimzy - the kids came up with it and I think it adds a little whimsy to the whole thing. We've done plenty of projects to get Ida whipped into shape and she sure has her quirks but we love our house and neighborhood dearly.
SCHOOL: We've had our scholastic challenges this year as the kids have gradually adjusted to a good school that makes them tow the line academically and encourages some stretching that is uncomfortable for some of the kids. Eliza begs for extra homework and projects, Isaac bemoans the hours he has to put into homework but faithfully plows through, Ashton has a hard time remembering that he has homework at all which presents some problems, and the twins whip through everything easily and are reading up a storm. So if you average out how everyone's doing academically, I guess we're at a nice level "fine" when it comes to school.
SNOW: Having spent 6 years in the Bay Area and then 6 years in St George, snow is a pretty new thing for our kids. And last winter it kept snowing through April! The kids built countless snowmen, became fearless sledders, and impressed us with how quickly they took to the ski slopes. This year we've been low on snow and we're all crossing our fingers for at least some Christmas flurries.
SPRING BREAK ROAD TRIP: Our spring break trip this year involved great adventures and loads of family bonding time in the car (so grateful for audio books and kids who are old enough to be pretty civilized during car trips). We went to visit my brother Jonah and family on the Olympic peninsula and had a great time exploring Seattle, hiking in the lush rain forests of the Olympia National Park, visiting a beautiful old lighthouse on the Canadian border, hanging out with the Eyres' many cool farm animals, and relaxing with some of our favorite people. Then we drove down the coast and spent a few days in our beloved San Francisco with my sister Charity and Jared's sister Kathryn and family. We went up and down the roller coaster hills of San Fran, basked in the diversity and excitement of the city (the kids were especially impressed with the street performers and naked bike riders we saw), enjoyed a wonderful Easter at the Pritchett house and loved visiting our old house and ward (congregation) in San Jose.
HIKING AND BIKING: After enjoying 6 years of beautiful red rock biking and hiking in St George, we were sad to leave that behind when we moved here. But we've loved exploring great new hikes and bike rides in the mountains five minutes from our new home and we've been back to many of our old favorite hikes in St George this past year. The beauty, fresh air, bonding and exercise involved in hiking and biking has proven to be an important part of this family's well-being.
ASHTON, IDAHO (a.k.a. "the farm"): We've loved living nearer to Jared's mom and brother and the farm where Jared grew up. Some highlights at the farm this year included helping out with the annual Bull Sale, feeding cows, seeing the newborn calves, snowmobiling and sledding, jumping on the trampoline, riding around on huge tractors and combines, helping with the potato harvest, riding in the 4th of July parade, and enjoying time with scores of wonderful relatives.
BEAR LAKE: As usual, we spent most of July at Bear Lake with most of the Eyre family. The kids enjoyed countless hours in the sun, water and sand with beloved cousins while the adults basked in great conversation, reading, games, beautiful scenery and togetherness. My sisters and I cooked and talked up a storm (we recorded a new series of Deliberate Mothering podcasts to capture some of our best conversations) and our husbands came up on weekends when they could. Isaac and Ashton became quite good water skiers and wake boarders, Eliza overcame her fears and got up on skis a couple times, and the twins drank a fair amount of the lake in their waterski attempts without exactly finding success. They were successful, however, in somehow starting an old tractor and taking their little cousin for a joy ride that miraculously did NOT result in any damage to people or property! Jared and I did our traditional 50-mile bike ride around Bear Lake for my birthday and I tried to learn to like running up and down the hilly road by the lake as I trained for the Grand Teton Relay.
GRAND TETON RELAY: Jared and I whipped ourselves into shape so that we could spend 36 hours running and resting and laughing and covering 185 miles of beautiful terrain with 10 other Loosli family members on our relay team. It was gorgeous and grueling and amazingly fun. I was slow but steady. Jared was fast and strong. We're doing it again next year.
WORK: After relocating here a year ago for what seemed like a wonderful job for Jared, that job quickly went south. Jared had to jump off the sinking ship in March and he's been working full time on several exciting projects since then (which is great except that none of those projects are exactly lucrative quite yet). He's been able to combine his trucking and engineering knowledge to work on a very promising trucking-related product that will hopefully go to market in the near future. And it's been a huge blessing to have his help with The Power of Moms as we went through a total website redesign and added many new programs. He's helped make the website beautiful and functional and helped us reach our current audience of over 100,000 moms. We now have 100's of moms using our Mind Organization for Moms program and running Learning Circles in their own communities plus we held seven professional development Retreats for moms across the country during 2011. I've loved working with so many devoted, selfless, bright and wonderful women (especially my amazing partner, April) and I couldn't have done any of this without Jared's very active help and support. Jared and I are also still running our little preschool curriculum company, The Joy School Company, and enjoy working with the great ladies who run preschools using my parents' Joy School curriculum.
CHURCH: We love the diversity of the good people in our church congregation. Jared works with the missionaries and I'm the Bear Scout den leader. We're so grateful for the chance to gather each Sunday to think about and talk about how we can become the people we're meant to be through the example and Atonement of Jesus Christ.

We hope that 2012 will bring us all great adventures, beauty, contributions, fun, love, joy and growth (without too much pain if possible!). We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Much love,

The Loosli Family

Babysitting gift that proved to be a gift to ME

2011-12-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

So Ashton and Isaac have become babysitters this past year and Eliza has become a great mother's helper to some families. They love love love little kids and have really loved being old enough to entertain other people's kids or babysit them. They've fallen in love with some of the little kids in our neighborhood through going to church with them or babysitting them and I don't know if there's anything that warms my heart more than seeing these big kids of mine tenderly interacting with their littlest friends.

Yesterday we decided to invite a bunch of the little kids they love over for an afternoon of stories and play and treats. Ashton, Isaac and Eliza were excited to have fun with all the kids and provide some free babysitting service for the kids' parents at the same time. One mom just had a c-section on her 5th child and has had lots of complications and one mom is pregnant with her 4th and her oldest is only 4. We figured those parents could use a break!

We had a beautiful afternoon of playing and stories and songs and treats. I was so proud of how great our kids were at entertaining and taking great care of all their little friends - even when there was crying and other little difficulties involved. I stood back for the most part and watched my kids take great care of everyone.

While the kids were here, I had a perfect Christmas moment. The youngest of the group, baby Ellie, had been fussing quite a bit and while Ashton and Isaac were doing a great job distracting her and keeping her pretty happy, I figured they were ready for a break and figured I was due for a baby-fix. I took her and sat down on the couch by the Christmas tree, rocking and shushing her. Her fussing quickly disappeared and her little body molded perfectly against me as her eyes drooped and she fell asleep, looking like a perfect angel in my arms. Isaac came and sat by me and we wondered at her tiny hands and sweet sleeping face and silky soft hair. Gradually other kids drifted into the room, quietly got books from our Christmas book basket and started reading to each other all around me. The scene was about as Christmas-perfect as it gets - a beautiful sleeping baby snuggled on my lap, my sweet kids all around me reading favorite Christmas books, all in the soft light of late afternoon enhanced by the Christmas tree lights.

I sat there in the calm and beauty of it all and remembered rocking my own babies and the rare times when they'd fall asleep in my arms. I looked at my big kids and marveled that they were once the same age and size of our cute little visitors. I had this wonderful moment when the past, present and future all seemed to be laid out before my eyes - I could see what my children were, what they are now, and what I hope they will become one day - helpful, strong, happy people who will be great parents and who'll love to serve and give.

Our approach to Christmas presents

2011-12-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

We've realized over the years that we really don't need to buy much for our kids in order for them to have what feels like a very abundant Christmas. They get a present from Grandma, one from Grammie and Grandfather, one from one of their Loosli cousins (the cousins all draw names), and a small gift from each other (often a dollar store gift but this year, the older kids have more money and have decided to give nicer gifts). Plus of course, they get a gift from Santa (we explain that Santa has a LOT of kids to give gifts to and many of those kids don't have other people giving them gifts so it's nice to request a pretty modest gift worth about $50 or less from Santa to enable him to have enough time and materials to make higher quality and quantity toys for kids who need them more - and they've been great about embracing this philosophy). So that's 8 presents they get each year without us giving them anything at all.

I used to do the tradition a lot of families do and get the kids "something to wear, something they need, something they want, something to read." Plus I'd end up buying several games or group gifts for all the kids. That was adding up to way too many presents. As we like to open the presents one at a time on Christmas and play with each thing for a while before opening the next round of presents, we found that each year, we were running out of time to open everything on Christmas. It was just too much and we felt rushed to get to everything. Plus I found that the effort involved in wrapping up clothes and other basic needs was just silly. My boys didn't view clothes or underwear or socks as a special gift no matter how beautifully they were wrapped and Eliza didn't care much either. So I gave up on wrapping up things that they needed and that I was going to buy them anyway as we had too much to unwrap as it was.

So now we get the kids new winter Sunday clothes and give them to them (unwrapped) to wear on the first Sunday of December (plus we do Christmas photos that day usually - not my kids' favorite thing but it the photos are worth it...). I buy them new pj's that I do wrap and that they're excited to open as the one gift they can open on Christmas Eve night. We usually get a fun new family game and of course we help Santa with the special toy each child requests from him and stocking simple stocking stuffers. For the past few years, both our budget and our time and what feels right has limited us to these things and it's worked out great.

This year, we've added one more thing to give our kids - a Family Activity Jar. I got this idea from my friend Becky. Last night for Family Night, we brainstormed all the activities that would be fun to do together as a family during this upcoming year - sledding, bowling, ice skating, swimming, arcade games, game night, camping, hiking, bike rides, all sorts of possibilities. Then each child wrote down one activity they'd most love to do as a family on a slip of paper. We each read what was on our slips of paper and came up with a new choice in the case of a repeat. We all folded up our slips of paper and put them in a jar then decided on a few extra activities we were all excited about that hadn't made the jar. In all, we put 10 activities in the jar. Our gift to our kids for this year is that we'll draw out one activity from the jar at the beginning of each month and put that activity on the calendar for that month (of course, if we draw "camping" in January, we'll put it back for another month and draw something else). We only did 10 activities because we've already got several major family activities we do in December and we're always at Bear Lake for July.

The kids were SO excited about this gift that will keep on giving all year long and give them the chance to do a lot of activities they love but that we often don't make time for. It's nice that the expenses involved in these activities will be spread out over the course of the year and we can find coupons and save up to make everything quite affordable - plus they picked stuff that was pretty cheap or free - hiking, picnic in a park, bike ride...

So the Family Activity Jar is a hit and I think it'll be something we do every year.

"Above all else, mothers, tell the little ones stories at Christmas..."

2011-12-15T11:21:00.001-07:00

We often think that an over-scheduled holiday season that veers away from the true meaning of Christmas are a modern-day problem and think longingly of the "olden days" when Christmas was more about peace and love. But apparently over a hundred years ago, moms had the same nostalgia for a simpler time and struggled with some of of the same busyness and worry over the focus on toys and treats during the holidays that we worry about today.

A couple days ago, my sister-in-law emailed me this great quote by Emmaline B. Wells, a writer, champion of women's suffrage and early Mormon church leader. This quote is from the December 1901 edition of the Young Woman's Journal.

"The olden times were the days of comparative seclusion from the outside world, and we had to depend mainly upon our own resources for amusement...In those far-off days, however, the children were as much on tip-toe with expectancy as in the present day when Santa Claus time comes round. Then we had to tell them stories to make up for the things we lacked. Now there is so much to occupy the time that mothers have no moment to spare, evidently, to tell them stories at all. They depend on church and the kindergarten teachers to do all this for them while they, the dear blessed mothers, lose all the sweetest hours life can bring. To sit at evening round the fire and listen to the children's prattle and sing them the old-fashioned carols and tell them over and over the stories they long to hear, makes one forget care and trouble, and draws the mother and children closer together with ties inseparable that can never be wholly broken apart. The mother, who denies herself this privilege for the sake of some outside engagement, or even to do extra household work, is doing herself as well as the children an injustice....

"Children do not have too much love not even at Christmas, no, not that, but they very often have too many toys and sweetmeats. How many children there are in the world who long, more earnestly, for real love than they do for aught else. There is no comfort or luxury that will supply its place even in the heart of a little child. There is more happiness because of love than from any other gift...

"Above all else, mothers, tell the little ones stories at Christmas..."

This quote grabbed my attention big time. I know that my children need to feel my love in extra abundance at Christmas and I really think Emmaline got it right when she suggested stories and cozy snuggling as a great vehicle for expressing and teaching about love.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions has always been reading stories by the Christmas tree. I've got a great collection of Christmas books that we build by getting a new one each year. Most years, we've fit in a Christmas story before bed pretty much every night in December. But after reading Emmaline's words, I realized that this year I've been letting outside engagements rob me of some of the "sweetest hours life can bring."

So I decided to prioritize time to "sit at evening by the fire (and the Christmas tree all lit up) and listen to the children's prattle and sing them the old-fashioned carols and tell them the stories they long to hear."

The last couple nights, despite Christmas concerts and basketball practice and homework and a myriad of other things pulling us all in different directions, we have made time to snuggle on the couch and read Christmas stories by the Christmas tree. We got to bed a little late one night. And another night, we opted out of an engagement I realized really wasn't that important in order to protect story time. But really, once I made story time a priority, I realized it doesn't really take that long and it's worth the small sacrifices it may require.

Story time and the love and lessons we can emphasize and re-emphasize through story and song truly does "draw the mother and children closer together with ties inseparable that can never be wholly broken apart." My undivided attention and my stories - as well as the love wrapped up in them - will ultimately mean so much more than any other activity or material gift I can offer my dear children at Christmas.

I guess some things (like busyness and the incidence of conflicting priorities) never change - even when you look back 100 years. And some things (like letting the busyness rob us of what is most precious and allowing our priorities to get out whack) must be changed. We CAN protect time for real connections and love at Christmas. We really can.

Thanks, Emmaline. I really needed your message.

P.S. I've got all my favorite Christmas books listed in the Power of Moms Amazon Store. Check them out if you'd like. And it would be really great if you'd do all your Amazon shopping by starting at our store because a percentage of everything you buy once you've clicked through from our store (whether it's on our list or not) goes to support The Power of Moms website (a pretty great cause if I do say so myself).

Christmas Gifts to YOU

2011-12-13T14:03:00.000-07:00

To enjoy the podcast series I recorded last summer with my mom and sisters as well as a great 1-hour webinar on boundaries and margins by me and April, just click on the link below. And feel free to share the link with all the moms you know. We'd love to give these programs (regularly $20) to all moms for Christmas this year.

Your Christmas Gifts

Least Favorite Things about Motherhood

2011-12-12T11:16:00.001-07:00

While it's great to remember and dwell on all the sparkling moments and beauty and meaning that motherhood brings to our lives (like I did with my last post), I think there's also a place for remembering the day-to-day stuff that's not so fun but is still a part of the big picture of motherhood, the stuff that teaches me patience and helps me grow (if it doesn't annoy the heck out of me first), the stuff I want other moms and my posterity to know I DID experience and DO understand.

So here's my list of current LEAST favorite things about motherhood (I was going to do 10 but when only 7 readily came to my mind, I thought I'd leave it at that...):

1. Mutually exclusive simultaneous emergency needs. At least once a day there is a time when everyone quite suddenly and very urgently seems to need something different from me at the same time. Those crisis moments aren't fun. If everyone could just take turns needing things, I'd be able to be a much better mom.

2. Interruptions. My kids interrupt me and each other constantly lately and it's driving me crazy. Plus everything I try to do gets interrupted again and again so I feel like I"m 1/2 doing 100's of things every day and never really finishing much. My sister shared a great quote with me about how interruptions show that we're needed and I love that way of thinking about them. But sometimes interruptions really get old.

3. Paper everywhere. Homework papers scattered across every flat surface in the house after school, newsletters and other papers from school being handed to me while I'm trying to drive, paper airplanes and paper snowflakes of 100 different lovely designs under chairs, on top of dressers, scattered about the floor. I do have a good system for managing all the papers that come at me but wow, with 5 elementary school students who aren't quite capable of managing their own papers, it's a LOT. And I applaud the creativity involved in all the snowflakes and airplanes but having my house look like garbage is constantly strewn about gets old.

4. Being late and rushed and stressed. I always try to cram in too much and I'm not very realistic about how long things take. My kids have picked these unfortunate tendencies up from me. So we're always rushing at the last minute and it's not a happy time for any of us. I have been working hard on this one lately and it's getting a bit better. But it's so easy to slip back into old tendencies...

5. Repetition without results. Motherhood involves repeating a lot of pretty dull and mundane things again and again and again. I got used to that pretty quick when I became a mom and the rhythm of it all got comfortable after a while. But what really gets me is having to repeat what I say SO many times and finding that often, despite my best attempts to say the same thing in new and hopefully more effective ways while attempting to stay patient and loving, the result is often not commeasurate with my efforts. Over time, some of what I say and suggest and demonstrate DOES sink in and that's so gratifying. But it's so un-fun feeling like a broken record and seemingly being ignored.

6. Fear and worry. Mothering my young children involved a lot of moments of nearly heart-stopping fear as they would speed-crawl towards the stairs when they don't know how to get down the stairs safely, make a dash for a busy street, jump off a swing in mid-air, or disappear from your side at the grocery store. But I'm finding that mothering older kids involves even more challenging fears and worries. When I see an email from a teacher of a class where my child's been having issues, I'm gripped with fear of what's happened now. When a child casually mentions he's been eating lunch alone and can't think of anyone to invite to a party, worry sets in. When a subject is so challenging for a child that it creates puddles of tears and the grades look bad, my heart aches and I fear for my child's academic future and worry about what how to turn things around. When children get into a bad rut and are mean to each other, I worry about their characters.

7. Trying to get kids to do things they don't want to do (like pose for photos). I totally get why it takes 100 or more shots to end up with one decent one of little kids. But my kids aren't so little anymore and I think it's reasonable to get a decent photo without too much difficulty. Yesterday I tried to take Christmas photos of the kids. I was so excited that I found cute matching clothes for them all at 1/2 price and thought our beautiful staircase would make the perfect backdrop. I gave them all a pep talk about how great it would be to have them cooperate and smile nicely and even offered a treat for when we were done. But standing still where you're asked to stand and smiling proved to be an overwhelming challenge for the kids. Eliza started crying because her ponytail was too tight and I wouldn't let her mess with it (and when she cries her face gets all splotchy - not great for pictures...). Oliver said the garland on the stairs was poking him even when he was inches away from it. Silas couldn't stand still to save his soul. Ashton thought it would be a good idea to sit down between takes because it's SO taxing to stand up for a few minutes. Isaac kept bugging Ashton. And when we finally got people situated and bribed and cajoled into being still and smiling nicely, the battery on my camera gave out so everyone had to wait while I charged the thing a bit. Then when I was pretty sure I had some decent takes, I found that the lighting was bad, I'd inadvertently had the flash on creating red-eye in some of the better takes, and Ashton looked weird in every single picture. Here's what I got (check out Ashton - I told him I'd share these on my blog - serves him right!):

Here's the best option. And you know what? If you didn't know the story behind the photo, I bet you'd think it was a pretty darn good photo of some pretty darn cute kids (and one somewhat surly pre-teen...).

I just have to end by saying that while every mom could readily make a sizeable list of the stuff that's downright hard about motherhood, the hard stuff generally makes the good stuff sweeter. Hard and good come hand in hand. I'll keep this hard stuff (and keep working on the stuff I know I can change with more effort) because it comes part and parcel with the good stuff that I wouldn't trade for the world.

Favorite Things About Motherhood

2011-12-08T12:59:00.001-07:00

This morning I woke up to hugs and "I love you's."

In the dim morning light of a cold morning, the two sweetest little boys in the world quietly climbed into my bed as I was waking up, snuggling up on either side of me, patting my cheeks and pulling my arms around them as Oliver said "Mommy, I love you SO much" and Silas sang me the song he sings me several times a day "Mom, I love you so, so much. I will never stop loving you."

This is the stuff joyful motherhood is made of.

I held those little boys close and told them how grateful I am that I get to be their mom. I felt their course hair against my cheeks and their strong little hands grasping my hands. We were silent a minute together and my heart was full and ready to burst.

Motherhood is a lot of hard stuff. And some days (like day before yesterday) involve one crazy and frustrating thing after another as mutually exclusive needs of all the kids and the mom and the dad pile upon each other.

But motherhood is also a lot of good stuff. And some golden moments count way more than all the hard stuff.

At our last Learning Circle meeting where we talked about what we love about motherhood, we left with the assignment to make a list of the top ten things we love about motherhood. It's been interesting and wonderful to see everyone's lists (we're emailing our lists to the whole group). I put off making my own list - there always seemed to be something more pressing to do. But I finally got it done and it was a great exercise that helped me see things in a different light.

Here's my top 10 list of what I love about motherhood right now.

Knowing I really matter to 5 wonderful little people who each show their love for me in different ways. Getting hugs and "I love you's" every day. Having Silas sing me the "I love you" song he made up about 12 times a day (even though his siblings get bugged with him for singing it so much). Having Eliza tell me I'm the best mom ever when I tuck her in. Having Oliver tell me how much he missed me when I see him after school. Having Isaac lean his head on my shoulder and snuggle up to me in church or while we watch a movie. Having Ashton tell me stuff he's excited about and show me how to do things on the computer.
Telling stories and watching my kids' great facial expressions of awe or excitement or empathy as the story unfolds.
Learning things together - reading books, visiting new places, looking up answers to questions we have on Wikipedia or YouTube and getting sucked into learning about everything from how baby carrots are made to what a "concentration camp" was to what make lightbulbs work.
Tucking them in before I go to bed each night - seeing them sleeping all skeewampus but still looking like angels, straightening them out a bit and tucking them under the covers, kissing their soft cheeks.
Watching them be kind to others (especially great when they're being kind to each other).
Snuggling with the kids on family movie night every week.
Holding my babies in my arms for the first time was always a huge highlight - and snuggling them now, remembering how small they used to be, makes me smile and feel the wonder of bearing children and seeing them grow.
Making food we all love and enjoying great food together - seeing them so excited about the food I make.
Helping my kids do something new and hard and seeing them figure it out and get excited about it - or seeing them master a new skill on their own and sharing in their joy about it.
Enjoying the wonder and excitement of the world with kids who are experts in wonder and excitement. Exploring new places together with my kids - hiking, biking, visiting new cities. I love sharing adventures with my kids and getting excited about things together.

Children for Children Concert

2011-12-07T08:42:00.001-07:00

What a night we had on Monday night!

Over 150 people showed up at the beautiful old church that our friends down the street are converting into a community center. It was the ideal location - big enough that we could tell all our friends and relatives to invite all their friends and relatives and just a lovely setting that my kids were so excited about. I was really touched to see how many people showed up and how many cute kids got up in front of everyone to share their talents and how much money we were able to raise to help the orphans in Bulgaria.

Ashton did a wonderful job as the Master of Ceremonies and Nativity Play Narrator. Isaac was great at greeting people and was an excellent Joseph in the play. Eliza kept all the little angels in line and did a great job delivering her "head angel" lines. The twins were great innkeepers and shepherds. And they were all over the moon about the whole thing. Even though there's more work and stress involved in "leading from behind" and having the kids run the concert this year, there was nothing like seeing the sense of ownership, accomplishment, pride and joy that they all felt on Monday night. The kids worked hard to come up with the list of everything that needed to be done before and during the concert and divided up responsibilities, giving me a list of things they needed me to do. Ashton set up a Facebook Event page, made invitations to pass out, responded to all texts and emails and phone calls about the event, etc. They were all excited to have important roles.

Here are some great shots of the concert thanks to my great photographer-friend Rebecca Malouf:

We started off with a video about the orphans who would be benefiting from the concert.

Then we had lots of wonderful kids' performances.

This quartet sang beautifully!

These little tiny boys melted hearts with their rendition of "I am a Child of God"

This little girl sang like an angel

The grand finale was a little Nativity Play that about 40 kids participated in:

Everyone put a donation in the amount of their choice into this box.

Some kids gave the pennies and nickels an dollar bills they'd been saving all year
(We did a LOT of counting of change after school yesterday! The kids had fun with it.)

The setting couldn't have been more perfect -
thanks Chris and Paige and Sprout Utah for providing this perfect place!

And after the concert, wow, I wish everyone could see the excitement here at our house as the kids counted out the money that was donated. $1600! A new record! Plus that money will be matched by the Eyrealm Foundation so we'll actually be able to give $3200 to support TWO orphanages in Bulgaria this year.

Here's the 3-minute video we showed at the beginning of the concert (photos I took when I was in the orphanages in Bulgaria a few years ago - I went on a mission there and have been involved in One Heart Bulgaria for years, trying to continue the work I started in orphanages 20 years ago). It's a nice thing to watch with your kids if you want. I can't watch it without tearing up. I wish I could do more for those sweet children!

(If you want to join in, you can show your kids the photos and video above and donate money online by clicking HERE and including "children for children" in the notes section as you make your payment in PayPal. This way, your donation can be part of our overall donation and can be matched by the Eyrealm Foundation.)

Moments happen when I get out of the way

2011-12-01T14:27:00.001-07:00

This is tomorrow's post for our Desert News Motherhood Matters blog - thought I might as well share it here as well so I can easily read over it and I hopefully won't have to keep learning this lesson again and again!

You can't force a moment. I know this but sometimes I still try.

Yesterday there were lots of not-so-good moments. The kids were cranky and needy and I worked hard all day but didn't feel like I got much done. We were late to everything because of domino effects of dumb little things that kept happening - misplaced shoes and homework, spending way too long trying to find poster board at Target, the cashier at the shoe store giving me a hard time about exchanging shoes I bought for my son last week that had already fallen apart, one thing after another. I ended up snapping at the kids quite a bit and not feeling like the mom I want to be at all.

But this day could be saved! I helped the kids hurry along with homework and dishes with the promise of Christmas decorating accompanied by Christmas music, a treat, and a nice story time by the fire using the favorite Christmas books we'd pull out of the Christmas boxes. I'd pull out each decoration and tell the story of where it came from and what it meant to our family. They'd all be enthralled and excited to follow directions about where each thing should go. I was sure we were in for some beautiful moments to end the day on a lovely note.

As I helped one child get ready for basketball, another one started pulling out all the tree ornaments when we don't have a tree yet and while I was trying to explain to him why that stuff needed to be left alone for now, another child was ready for a special moment with me - he wanted to show me each favorite books as he pulled them out of a box like they were long-lost friends. Then there was another child saying "be quiet" and making snappish and callous comments as he tried to do the last of his homework while one of his little brothers wanted to show him some exciting stuff (darn, I heard myself in a few of those snappish comments!). As soon as I started paying attention to one child, someone else was needing me. Meanwhile decorations were ending up pulled out and put in random places all over and the control-freak in me was feeling pretty threatened! The moments I had in mind weren't happening - at all.

I dropped the whole decorating idea and just plopped down on the couch, feeling defeated. Quickly, I was joined by my 6-year-old twins, books in hand, geam in their eyes. They snuggled up on either side of me and placed a book on my lap. The older kids came and sat down too. I'd told them we'd just read one book as it was getting a bit late but we read four books. We just couldn't stop. The kids were creating the beautiful moments I'd craved with their snuggling and cute comments, memories and ideas as we read.

So last night, I learned (yet again) that the best moments are not planned by the mom. The best moments happen when the mom relaxes and let's the kids bring the moments to her. So much of the joy of moments is stamped out when we get too attached to our own visions of particular joyful moments we're trying to create.

Just be there. Just listen. Just sit there. Just smile.

Report on Arizona Retreat

2011-11-30T14:43:00.001-07:00

I mentioned a few things about the Arizona Retreat during one of my Thanksgiving posts but I wanted to share a little more about the wonderful couple of days I got to share with some of my favorite people in the world - my sister Shawni and her great family, my Power of Moms partner April and about 60 other deliberate, pro-active moms with excellent ideas and powerful energy. I only wish I'd had a chance to individually talk with and learn from each mom who was there. Retreats are always too short and I wish there were time for a lot more small-group interaction and one-on-one learning with these amazing moms who are going through different things but whose hearts are knit together in love from the moment they get together in the same room.

On Friday, we crammed about 30 moms into Shawni's family room for a wonderful session led by April on Mind Organization for Moms. Every time I listen to April do this presentation, I pick up something new and important to help keep my brain more organized and less stressed. April truly is the guru of organization and figuring out how to get things done keeping an eye on what is most important.

It was so fun to be reunited with these great ladies who attended our very first Power of Moms Retreat years ago

Nichole and Denny Barney were kind enough to open their beautiful home to us for our full-day Retreat on Saturday. They not only let us use their home, they and their cute boys moved out all their great room furniture and moved in tons of chairs to set everything up for us. Shawni and I went over there Friday afternoon to check out the lay of the land and figure out where to hold different sessions, setting up a time later that night when we'd come back to move furniture and set up chairs. When we came back, voila! They'd already done it all for us. What amazingly helpful and kind people. Plus Nichole went on to serve on several panels as part of the program on Saturday and she offered great perspective and ideas. I love how old connections can come back to be new blessings. I first met Nichole and Denny over 15 years ago when Nichole was Shawni's roommate at BYU and Denny was a pretty constant fixture in that apartment.

Doing our "Speed Friendshipping" activity as everyone arrived (sort of like speed dating)

Presentation with panel discussion featuring Shawni, Myrna Sheppard (AZ Mother of the Year)
and Nichole Barney (our hostess)

One of our small-group discussions

Enjoying an afternoon break with fruit, chocolate, and great conversation

As much of the group as we could squeeze into a photo - what great women!

Another great highlight of this Retreat was the involvement of American Mothers, Inc. (AMI). As the American Mothers National Young Mother of the Year, my sister Shawni has been pretty busy with the American Mothers organization this year. She had the great idea of involving American Mothers in this Retreat. Our beautiful keynote speech was given by the AMI Arizona President, Janeen Wright (April incorporated part of her speech into a great article HERE) and we had Myrna Johnson, the Arizona Mother of the Year on several of our panels. Plus AMI put together a wonderful service project that we all helped with at lunch. We assembled and wrapped supplies for homeless expectant mothers and write encouraging notes to go with each. It was such a meaningful project for a very worthy cause. Assembling the gifts really made us think about our own blessings and writing the notes helped us reflect on what we might tell our former selves as we embarked on motherhood. (Shawni has a great photo of all the speakers including Janeen and Myrna but getting it from her is taking a while...)

Last but not least, we were so very grateful for the huge generosity of Wildflower Bread Company. We'd heard they had wonderful food and asked them if they might want to offer us a discount on lunch catering. They decided to provide us with a beautiful lunch including amazing sandwiches and salads plus drinks and desserts for free. It made my heart so glad to see such an outpouring of support and their contribution made it possible for us to offer reduced-price registrations to mothers who applied for financial help. Plus the food was the best we've ever had at a Retreat (and it's always pretty darn good so that's saying a lot!).

I go into every Retreat so anxious about everything turning out and everyone getting all they need and hope for at each Retreat. But everything always works out beautifully. How could it not when such wonderful women are involved and when the Lord is in charge?

Our next Retreat will be in Southern California in January and then we're off to Australia in March. We're still trying to firm up our SoCal location (have some good options but want to explore just a bit more before firming things up next week and opening up registration - if you've got good ideas about locations in Southern CA, click HERE to read April's post about details on what we're looking for). For all Retreat info, click HERE.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T19:19:00.001-07:00

I made it - I blogged pretty much every day from November 1st until now about what I'm grateful for and I'm feeling pretty darn blessed. I'm going to keep my gratitude journal up since it's really made a difference in my happiness (seriously gratitude = happiness in my book) but I'll ease off on blogging about it daily.

To finish things with a bang, here's a list of things I'm super grateful for that didn't specifically get blogged about earlier in the month. This list is just in the order they came to mind, not in some carefully-thought-out order. And this is NOT meant to be an exhaustive list - I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of really important stuff. But this is what came to mind today as we brainstormed thankful things in the car on the way to Logan for Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and my dad's side of the family.

Heavenly Father. I don't know what I'd do without the knowledge that Someone is up there watching and caring all the time.
Jesus. Jesus' example and teachings are at the core of what I believe and who I want to be.
Jared's level head and lack of moodiness - the fact that he's everything I'm not.
My home. I love how after a year, this house really feels like a home. There are memories here - not just ours but somehow also 100 years of memories from all those who've been here before seem to combine to create a good feeling in this house. I love this house's loveable imperfections and quirks.
The way Oliver walks around with his head in a Magic Treehouse book most of the time these days, SO excited as he finishes each one.
Eliza's big violet-blue eyes and sprinkling of freckles plus her lovely smile.
Isaac's deep dark brown eyes ringed with the most enviable eyelashes - they're especially beautiful when they're full of sympathy or concern (as they often are)
Ashton's amazing computer abilities and how he can help me a lot with POM and help with all my computer issues.
The way Silas sings me this cute song about how he loves me at least 10 times a day.
My amazing parents, 8 uniquely wonderful siblings, their spouses and the fun and great kids that my kids get to call cousins and that I get to call nieces and nephews.
The wonderful family I married into. I learn so much from the examples of all my in-laws and just really enjoy being with all of them. I love that they're mostly further along with their families than we are with ours so we can watch and learn. (I have 8 siblings-in-law plus their spouses and children so I'm very richly blessed with both quantity and quality of family on both sides.)
April. What would I do without April, my Power of Moms partner and dear friend? I email or talk with her daily and she is the most perfect business partner imaginable - she is hard-working, quick-thinking, super bright, full of inspired ideas, and amazingly efficient - not to mention one of the kindest and most wonderful friends I've ever had.
Fall leaves. I love their colors of gold and burnt red and love crunching through them on the ground. We didn't get much of this in St George.
Happy, good music that reminds me of what matters. My favorite songs right now are Everybody by Ingrid Michaelson, Good Life by One Republic, and Rhythm of Love by Plain White T's. I always get a burst of energy and happiness when I'm running and one of these songs comes on.
Babies - I got to hold the cutest little baby at the Retreat in Arizona for a while. I love the fuzzy little heads of almost-bald babies (like all of mine) and I love love love when they gift you with a smile.
Grocery stores. How awesome is it that we can drive for a few minutes and walk into a store full of 1000's of choices of food ready for us to pick up and take home?
Cars. I'm so grateful that we have cars (one 7-year-old super reliable one and one 15-year-old that has been perfect until the last two years but is still holding its own). So relatively few people in the world have cars. Cars are a huge blessing.
Mountains. From the red mountains of St George to the craggy granite peaks around here, mountains fill my heart with joy and awe.
Skies. From the azure blues to the threatening grays to the vibrant colors of sunsets, I love the sky. Looking up always makes me smile.
Beds. I love to sleep. I love it so much. I love my warm bed.
Books. There's nothing like reading a book that is beautifully written and that takes you down virtual roads of understanding and adventure and learning. Favorites this year: Half Broke Horses, Whistling in the Dark,
Animals. I love the simplicity of our pet snake and the joy he brings to the kids. I love that we have neighbors with a very nice dog and a lot of nice cats and that they kids get their animal fixes quite conveniently w/o us having to own our own furry friend. I love the look on my twins' faces whenever they see an animal.
Beauty. A thing of beauty really is a joy forever. I love the golds, reds and greens of leaves on the path. I love beautifully crafted sculpture, paintings and music. I love the old carved doors and staircase and stained glass windows and inlaid wood floor in our house. I love the way beauty makes me smile inside and out.
Neighbors. About 20 people showed up this morning for our last-minute Turkey Trot (some to participate and some to just cheer on everyone else). We had such a wonderful little run together - bikes, scooters, runners, all different speeds and ability levels. It was a gorgeous morning - golden leaves still above and underfoot, perfect running temperatures. We made it all the way down to the cemetery and back and kind neighbors set up a juice box/water station 1/2 way which was such a thoughtful touch. (see photo below)
Good food. I love love love fresh tasty well-prepared, nicely seasoned food. Especially vegetables. I'm so into vegetables. And bread. Great fresh bread is a beautiful thing. And cookies. Have to admit I have a major soft spot for cookies - homemade ones from certain recipes, that is.
Hymns. We always sing the first verse of "For the Beauty of the Earth" as a family when we're on top of a mountain or in some other beautiful place. Today we learned the second and third verses in the car on the way to Grandma Great's house (photos below) and I came to love the song even more. I'll end with the lyrics since it captures a lot of other stuff I'm so grateful for:

For the beauty of the earth,

for the beauty of the skies,

for the love which from our birth,

over and around us lies

For the beauty of each hour

of the day and of the night

hill and vale and tree and flower

sun and moon and stars of light

For the joy of human love

brother, sister, parent child

Friends on earth and friends above (I felt some of them as we sang today...)

For every gentle thought and mild

Lord of all to thee we raise

this our hymn of thankful praise.

Our First Annual Neighborhood Turkey Trot (some people didn't stick around for the photo). Love these neighbors!

Singing for Grandma Great and relatives at Grandma's house on Thanksgiving

Sharing their thankful lists with Grandfather and Grandma Great

With Grandma and wonderful relatives after eating way too much at Thanksgiving dinner

Lots of stuff

2011-11-23T18:54:00.001-07:00

Gratitude Day 23
Today I'm grateful for a whole bunch of stuff. And since tomorrow's Thanksgiving, I'm not going to narrow it down to one main thing like I have been doing so far.

I'm thankful for the bright, warm weather today. It was such a pleasure to walk with the kids down to the Treehouse museum and back. It was a golden day - golden leaves, golden sunshine, golden moments of laughing and talking with my cute kids as we walked. Walking is such a great conduit for good talking. After the museum, we all worked together on scraping and sanding our front and back porches that are in serious need of new paint. The sun felt so good on our backs and the work was satisfying. Some neighbor kids joined in and we just had a great time working together and enjoying a perfect fall day. Then we made pumpkin cookies and ate chicken noodle soup and it was just such a nice day.

I'm thankful that I was able to finish the video editing that's been hanging over my head for WAY too long last night. I was up until almost 1am but it was SO nice to get my part of that project pretty much done. Once our wonderful video guy uses my edits and works his magic to make the raw video into a beautiful final product, we'll have a "virtual video Retreat" that moms can attend online.

I'm thankful for thankful lists. My kids are sitting at the table next to me working on their thankful lists, asking for a little help here and there, "How do you spell vaccine?" "What do you call that stuff we had for dinner last night?" "Oh! I just thought of a great one - roofs! We would have serious problems without roofs." "You wrote 'everything'? You shouldn't write 'everything' because that would mean you're grateful for cigarettes, bombs, killing, all that and I don't think you mean that." Isaac's up to 400 things and Eliza's almost there. Oliver's up to 120. Silas is just getting going. Ashton's at scouts. They're really excited to show their lists to Grandfather (my dad) tomorrow when we meet up with him for Thanksgiving dinner. He's the one who started this whole thankful list idea more than 30 years ago and he challenged everyone to make masterful lists this year.

I'm thankful for people who are up for anything and who help make things happen. My good neighbor Emily was over here picking up her daughter an hour ago and I mentioned that I'd had grand plans of doing a little neighborhood fun run/Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning but that I hadn't gotten around to organizing it. She said "Let's just do it." And within 10 minutes we'd done a little brainstorming and she had sent a text to all our neighbors and friends inviting them to the first annual neighborhood Turkey Trot tomorrow morning at 10am. We'll meet in front of my house and jog down to the cemetery and back (about 2 miles). Feel free to join in if you're local!

Creativity and cuteness

2011-11-22T08:48:00.001-07:00

Gratitude Day 22

The twins and I were looking up the weather on the computer and they started singing a little made up song. I told them I'd like to video them. They were all for that. Here are the two songs they came up with. I know I'm biased but I think they're pretty darn creative, somewhat musically talented and cute.

I'm so grateful for these beautiful little boys of mine. I was so scared and shocked when I found out there were two where one was feeling overwhelming. But they've added so much love, enthusiasm and fun to our family and when they come flying out of school and into my arms each day, I sometimes think my heart is going to burst. Yet another example of how we get what we need - not what we necessarily want or ask for.

What are you grateful for today?

P.S. My sister Saydi just wrote a great post about gratitude - check it out here if you want: http://bostonshumways.blogspot.com/2011/11/thankful.html

My Family

2011-11-21T08:16:00.001-07:00

Gratitude Day 20

Today I'm so thankful for my husband and kids. Absence sure does make the heart grow fonder.

I got home from Arizona at 7:30 last night. Jared and the kids picked me up at the airport. Seeing those smiling faces as the car pulled up and then hearing the chorus of "Mommy!" as I opened the door was the best moment I've had in a long long time. After kissing my good husband, I sat in the back of the van with the kids on the way home and they told me every little detail about what they did while I was gone. I heard about Eliza and the twins' basketball games. I heard about all the pizza they ate (and found all the veggies and fruit I left for them still in the fridge - but hey, they needed a break from all that healthy food I give them). I heard about the snow. I heard about how Oliver read two chapter books and Silas read one. I heard about the movie they watched for family movie night. I heard about the extremely exciting new printer Daddy researched and bought (the touch screen, the scanner, how it's wireless, the great price, how it prints in color - they were all SO excited - and so was I - we've been doing without a printer for a while...). I loved hearing all the important details of their 31/2 days without me. And interjected between all the information tumbling out were hugs and "I love you's" and "we missed you SO much." It's good to be missed. It's good to be reunited.

When we got home, I gave them the little treats I got for them from Trader Joes (we miss that store) and showed them the flowers I found and pressed for them (It's my little tradition to get them something from nature whenever I go on a trip. I got them fall leaves when I went to Boston and lovely pink flowers from Arizona where it's mostly still summer.)

Here they are showing their love for me by posing for a photo w/o a whole lot of fuss. How cute are these kids of mine? Oh, it was so great to hug them all again.

So I guess Silas wasn't so thrilled about the photo...

Then Ashton gave me this sweet note he'd made (using the new super-exciting printer):

And Eliza gave me this lovely picture (she and I are really into sunsets and art):

I tucked all the kids in bed and we had a nice group prayer where we held hands and each person had a chance to add on to the prayer and say what they were grateful for - "airplanes to bring mom home," "my bed and blankets," "that I have such a nice mommy and daddy," "that we have good food to eat," "that we have a good home," "that I have the best kids and husband in the world." The kids suggested we do a prayer like that every night this week to get ready for Thanksgiving. We will.

Then Jared and I had a chance to catch up. We're not big phone-talkers so we saved most things up to talk about in person and I loved hearing everything about his job interview and more about the whole few days from his perspective. I have such a good husband.

After being away and hearing and sharing ideas about finding more joy in motherhood and thinking about how to be more deliberate and present as a mom at the Retreat and in talks with April and Shawni for the last few days, I'm feeling such an increased love and excitement and joy as a mom. I'm determined to slow down and enjoy these beautiful moments more, to focus more on relationships and less on accomplishments, to be plan better and pray more so my time can be used more wisely and the first things will get done first, to be less busy and more joyful.

airplanes, bikes, great food - and moms

2011-11-19T23:03:00.001-07:00

Gratitude Day 17: Airplanes

Thursday I flew to Arizona for a Power of Moms Retreat. I hopped on a plane in freezing Salt Lake City and got off just an hour and a half later in sunny Phoenix. How awesome is it that we can get on a plane in one place and show up somewhere far far away just a little bit later? Yes, security is a big pain (juggling your shoes while extracting your lap top and digging out all the liquids in your toiletries is not exactly fun) and sure, packed planes can be rather uncomfortable. And yep, it's a bit annoying that airlines now charge for everything - checking luggage, food, etc. But you know what? Airplanes are quite miraculous and are a huge blessing.

Gratitude Day 18: Bikes and Warm Weather

It is warm here. It is gorgeously perfectly warm here. I miss warmness. And I miss my bike. So when Shawni's daughter Grace left her bike at school and we needed to go pick it up, I volunteered to ride it home. Sure, it was a little small for me and it's pink and has a cute basket on the front. But I felt like a bike ride and wanted that outside time.

I was totally laughing at myself as I wrote that little pink bike. And I had a lot of little kids and serious bikers give me some very curious and surprised looks. I took the long way to Shawni's house and enjoyed every minute of my ride. Plus I got a great thigh work out because that seat was so low.

Sometimes doing something pretty darn odd-looking is just fun. It totally reminded me of the time I had to ride a super-slow "Jazzy" scooter into Costco and got some similar quizzical looks. Check out this post about that thrill ride here if you want.

Gratitude Day 19: Awesome moms and wonderful free food

Our Retreat today was wonderful. Totally wonderful. There are such great moms in this world - and I love seeing how they help and lift and learn from each other. I learn a lot at every single Retreat from fellow presenters and attendees and always wish I had longer to bask in the presence and ideas of the great women who attend. It was wonderful presenting with Shawni and with April and I loved having great speakers from American Mothers as well plus Shawni's friend Nichole who was not only a great speaker but also a fabulous and amazingly helpful hostess.

I'm also so grateful to Wildflower Bread Company for sponsoring our lunch at the Retreat. They were SO kind. We just asked for a discounted lunch as a partial sponsorship to help defray our costs but they decided to GIVE us a whole beautiful lunch of seriously delicious sandwiches, salads, drinks and desserts. It was just the nicest thing. And it was the most lovely and tasty lunch we've ever had at a Retreat. I just wish I'd had more time to eat - I was too busy talking.

I'll post photos and more info later but I had to just say this for now before I collapse. It's been a long, full and wonderful couple of days!

What are you grateful for today?

A Great Giving Tradition

2011-11-16T22:25:00.002-07:00

Gratitude Day 16: A Great Giving Tradition

I'm grateful that many, many years ago, my parents started a great tradition that taught us to focus on caring and giving as part of our Christmas festivities. Every year, they'd help us learn about children around the world who were suffering and we'd choose a group of children we wanted to help. Then they helped us invite all our friends and neighbors to a "Children for Children" concert at our house. All of us kids would perform a little piano piece or do a dance or hold up a picture we'd painted or whatever. The audience (our parents and other friends and neighbors) would "pay" to come to the performance by putting a donation into a box. Then we kids would give all the money we'd "earned" to help the needy children we'd learned about.

I loved those Children for Children concert memories. I have great memories of helping to rearrange all the furniture and round up chairs from neighbors to accommodate a ridiculously large crowd in our not-so-big house. I loved the delicious refreshments. I loved having all my friends and their families there and seeing everyone share their talents. And I loved, loved, loved counting up that money in the donation box at the end and feeling so good that we could help those in need.

In the past few years, my sister Shawni and I have loved doing our own Children for Children concerts with our kids (and I'm sure more siblings will do the same when their kids get old enough). This year will be my family's 5th Annual Children for Children concert. And we're going to make it the biggest and best yet. We've been offered space at a beautiful old church just a block from our house so we can accommodate a great crowd and we're working to spread the word to everyone who might want to come. I'd love to have YOU and your family participate if your local - and if not, please forward the info along to those who are in the SLC/Bountiful/Odgen/Logan area, OK?

Here's the invitation I've been sending out - consider yourself invited and feel free to copy and paste this into an email to send to friends:

Dear friends:

Many of you have participated in the past or have heard about the Children for Children concerts my family does each year to help us all enjoy some meaningful giving alongside some fun and holiday cheer. We've got a date set for our 5th Annual Children for Children concert to benefit One Heart Bulgaria (I served a mission there and have personally worked with the destitute orphans there - one of my friends started this non-profit and all the money goes right towards meeting the kids' needs - it's a great organization that makes donations go a long way). The concert will be held on Monday, December 5th from 6:00-8:00pm. We've secured the use of a beautiful old church/community center a block away from our house here in downtown Ogden for the concert so we can make it an extra big concert this year. We'd love to have you join us!

Here's how the concert works: Children share their talents (I use the word "talent" liberally - we've had everything from poetry recitations to dances to piano pieces to songs sung to chime-playing to holding up a painting they've done) and grown-ups come to watch, "paying" the kids for the concert by putting a donation in the amount of their choice into the donation box (we've received everything from quarters to a check for $1000). The kids then donate the money they've "earned" to help needy orphans in Bulgaria get the food and access to health care and extracurricular activities that they desperately need. We show a brief video of the orphans who'll be benefiting as part of the concert and end with refreshments.

To read about past concerts, you can click on the links below:

http://looslifamily.blogspot.com/2007/12/children-for-children-and-joy-school.html
http://looslifamily.blogspot.com/2008/12/children-for-children-and-joy-school.html
http://looslifamily.blogspot.com/2009/12/concert-success.html
http://looslifamily.blogspot.com/2010/12/overview-of-christmas.html

Please email me (saren at powerofmoms dot com) by Thanksgiving (or right now if you can!) to let me know:
1. Whether you can most likely attend the Children for Children concert on December 5th. (You don't need to have children participating to attend - in fact we hope a lot of extra people will come an enjoy the kids' performances and support the cause.)
2. Whether your children would like to be on the program (each family can do one-two things totaling no more than 3 minutes per family)
3. Whether your children would like to be part of the simple no-rehearsals-required Nativity play at the close of the program (I have the costumes. Kids can do this in addition to an individual or family talent or they can just participate in the Nativity if they'd prefer to just do the Nativity)

Ashton, my 11-year-old, will be putting all responses into a spreadsheet and confirming details as we move forward. I'm trying to have my kids take this concert from here so it can truly be a "children for children" concert!

Thanks for considering this as part of your holiday festivities for this year! And feel free to forward this email along to those who you think would be interested and whose emails I don't have.

Saren

My Learning Circle

2011-11-15T23:55:00.001-07:00

Gratitude Day 15: An amazing group of women I get to meet with every month

Yeah, I know Learning Circles were my idea so I don't mean to toot my own horn but I'm just so grateful for my own Learning Circle group. We had our monthly meeting tonight and I just sat there and basked in the beauty of 12 women sitting in a circle, sharing all that motherhood is teaching them and talking about the specific ways their mothering contribution is benefiting society. This month's topic was "valuing motherhood" and we all left with an assignment to write down our top 10 things we love about being moms (you'll see a post about that soon) and/or to have our kids and husband each write down (or dictate in the case of little kids) a list of 5 things they appreciate about us.

We ate amazing food (brie apple potato soup is decadently delicious as is pear cake with caramel sauce - thank you Heidi!). We laughed hard. And as usual, there were a few tears. This is the stuff a really good girls' night out is made of.

Bedtime

2011-11-14T23:21:00.001-07:00

Gratitude Day 14

Today I'm grateful for bedtime. Sometimes I'm grateful for bedtime because it means I can "clock out" for the day as the mom and spend some time with Jared and maybe accomplish a few things w/o being interrupted. But today I'm thinking about how grateful I am for the beautiful moments that happen with my kids at bedtime.

I love hearing the kids's sweet prayers. I love it when we have time to read or tell bedtime stories - and I love seeing their eyes go wide or fill with compassion or concern as I tell about something from my childhood or a share a story from a book I'm reading. I love that the twins and Liza still ask me for lullabies. I love that Ashton opens up and tells me stuff if I take the time to sit on his bed for a bit - and that he still readily accepts and seems to like a hug from me - even if he doesn't totally reciprocate. I love Isaac's sleepy smile as I tell him what I appreciated about him that day. I love how both Ollie and Si always beg for "one more hug" (even though sometimes it gets old). I love how Eliza always says "You're the best mom in the world" as I blow her a kiss and close her door and I always say "You're the best girl in the world." I love all these little "I love you rituals" - especially when I get things rolling for bedtime early enough that things aren't rushed and frustrated.

And I love my own bedtime (which I should be more strict about so I'm going to bed in like 2 minutes). I remember one time my uncle was babysitting me when I was a little kid and I was complaining about going to bed. He said "Some day, you'll be SO excited to go to bed. You'll wish you could go to bed even sooner and you'll think bedtime is just great." I remember thinking he was crazy and vowing that would NEVER be me. Well, he was right. I love bedtime for me. I love praying with Jared, arms linked. I love getting in bed and reading a few verses of scripture. I love snuggling up to my warm husband on a cold night like tonight. And with that, I'm off to bed.

I fell off the gratitude wagon - and it wasn't pretty...

2011-11-13T21:35:00.001-07:00

On Friday I had one of those days when nothing seemed to be going right. I was working hard all day - but didn't feel like I was accomplishing much. I never went for my run because I wimped out at the cold and felt really blah. So then I felt stir crazy after being in the house working for so many hours every day all week. Everything on my to-do list led to some other little thing that had to be done and nothing satisfying got accomplished. I made a nice dinner and there were too many complaints. The movie we watched for family movie night was pretty lame. And I never got around to doing my gratitude post.

Then Saturday I was just in a bad mood - one of those days when nothing seems like it can go right. I wanted get a few projects done around the house and have a fun family day since I'll be gone for the AZ retreat next Saturday. Family cleaning was a big pain with lots of whining in the morning. And it started snowing - a lot. I was really sad when I saw that snow. I'm not ready! Seriously! I need to see the pretty fall leaves a bit longer and I haven't even had a chance to crunch through all the leaves that have fallen rapidly since last Saturday's snowfall. I felt a bit robbed of the tail end of my favorite season.

I tried to snap us all into "fun" mode with a brisk jog in the snow with Eliza and Ashton to to the nearby school where the twins had a basketball game. We caught big flakes on our tongues and it really was fun. Then after the basketball game, we all went to what proved to be a pretty awesome "Science Saturday" series of kids workshops, experiments and planetarium shows at Weber State - those couple of hours were great. Things were looking up. But then on the way home, the kids were being whiny and I allowed myself to get thinking about all the things I didn't accomplish over the past couple days and a few stray comments from various family members didn't help my mood one bit. I realize now that some of it was my darn hormones but seriously, by Saturday night I was a stressed out mess with a woe-is-me attitude about everything and just about drove myself and my dear husband to the brink.

Maybe these gratitude posts are more important than I realized. Friday and Saturday sure could have used a good shot in the arm of gratitude.

So looking back and focusing on the good, here's my quick gratitude for the past three days:

Gratitude Day 11 - Friday
I'm grateful for good teachers who go the extra mile and really care. We had a good meeting with the teachers of one of our children and they were so loving and helpful. We came away with more understanding on all sides, good solutions, and renewed hope - plus strengthened relationships with these good people who really do care about our child. Things are going better with our other kids who were struggling as well. Our kids' academic futures are definitely looking up (see a few posts ago to know what I'm talking about).

Gratitude Day 12 - Saturday: Great Free Programs
I'm grateful we live by a university that offers a lot of great free stuff to families in our community. Last Saturday, we went to this great arts-and-crafts day the art department at Weber State put on. The kids made fun Thanksgiving decorations and loved exploring the art studios they had open and the interesting sculptures they had on display plus we went through this fascinating exhibit of photography by Burtinski on the "Industrial Sublime" and had a great time talking about "juxtapositioning" and about how oddly, beauty and ugliness can be joined at the hip. Then yesterday, the "Science Saturday" was really impressive and fun. The kids got to learn all about different types of rocks, about what smoking does to your lungs (they had pigs' lungs - some nice pink ones and some black ones that had been exposed to second hand smoke), about hovercrafts, about how cavities form on their teeth, about chemical reactions, about theories on what the Star of Bethlehem might have been (a comet? a super nova? two bright planets almost on top of each other as they were recorded to have been back in the year 1 BC?). They each got a bag to take home with more experiments we could do. And it was all FREE. Love this stuff! I'm so grateful for the good people who put in so much effort to provide this great stuff.

Gratitude Day 13 - Sunday: The Atonement
When I stop counting blessings and let down my guard, I can become pretty depressingly pessimistic pretty darn quickly. Sometimes (like last night) I really mess things up and say the wrong things and stress myself and everyone else around me out way too much.

I'm so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the chance I have to repent and start fresh. I'm so grateful that when I actually think to do it, I really can "cast my burdens" on the Lord and he'll "make crooked things straight" for me.

I'm also so grateful for the way the Lord lets me know that He's very aware of me and tells me what I need to do. The lessons at church seemed to be written just for me today. And the Sunday email that went out to all Bloom Game players today seemed to be designed for me as well. The subject line was "Mastering the Art of Starting Over."

I'm so grateful I get to start over when I fall down. I'm so grateful there's Someone up there who makes His love for me so obvious when I need it so desperately. I'm so grateful for unconditional love when I don't feel like I deserve it much at all.

Good Food and Great Recipes

2011-11-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

Gratitude Day 10
I'm so grateful for good, healthy, easy recipes that make my mouth water and make my family happy.

Here are some fall favorites for you - delicious, kid-friendly, high in good stuff and low in not-so-good stuff. too! You'll see the Pumpkin Pancakes and Black Bean Soup recipes I promised on my Halloween post (our family tradition is to have these things for breakfast and dinner on Halloween but we have them a lot of other times too!) as well as my favorite soup - Curried Chicken and Apple Soup (a total fall favorite around here - all my kids LOVE this and we just had it for dinner tonight - maybe it sounds like a weird combination of things - apples, chicken, curry - but I've never had someone NOT love it).

Enjoy! (and if you missed yesterday's post on sisters, scroll on down - you won't want to miss it)
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Pumpkin Pancakes
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups milk (add little more at the end if the batter is too thick)
1 1/4 cup pumpkin puree (cooked mashed pumpkin or canned pumpkin)
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 cups all-purpose flour (or one cup white flour, one cup whole wheat flour)
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
(optional – add chopped walnuts or pecans)

Directions
1. In a bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vinegar. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, ginger and salt in a separate bowl. Stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot with maple syrup or apple butter.

Makes about 24 pancakes.
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Black Bean Soup

(LoosliTraditional Halloween Dinner)

4 16 oz cans of black beans (or 8 cupscooked-from-dry black beans)

2 cups chicken broth

2 small onions or one large one,chopped

2 tsps crushed or minced garlic

2 16 oz jars of chunky salsa (mild,medium or hot – will determine how spicy the soup is – can use 215-oz can of petite diced tomatoes and 1-2 cans of diced green chilisinstead of salsa if desired, may want to ues more onion if not usingsalsa)

8 tsp lime juice (optional)

4 tsp ground cumin

½ crushed red pepper (optional –adds heat)

Directions:

Place 1 can of beans with liquid from can (or 2 cups of cooked beans and ½ c of liquid they cooked in) as well as the chicken broth in a blender. Blend until smooth.
Coat large sauce pan or soup pot with cooking spray or a bit of olive oil. Heat over high heat and saute onion until tender.
Add blended bean mixure, remaining un-blended beans (with liquid), lime juice, cumin and crushed red pepper (if desired). Mix together.
Reduce heat to simmer and cook for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Serve garnished with plain yogurt or sour cream, chopped cilantro, shredded cheese, crumbled totilla chips.

Makes 8-10 servings

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Curried Chicken and Apple Soup

1 tsp. vegetable oil or olive oil

1 pound boneless skinless chickenbreasts (about 3 big breasts)

1 large onion, chopped

5 crushed/chopped garlic cloves (or 1-2tsp bottled crushed garlic)

1 medium green pepper and one yellowbell pepper, chopped (optional)

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tbsp grated fresh ginger (or bottledcrushed ginger)

½ tsp red or black pepper

1 tsp salt

5 cups chicken broth/stock (can usebouillon cubes to make this)

2 15 oz. cans or one 28 oz can of dicedtomatoes (the whole can with the juice) or one large can crushedtomatoes (if you don’t like tomato chunks)

2 apples, chopped in small chunks(Granny Smith or Fuji work well – the crisper the better!)

1 cup rice

Saute everything down to thebroth/stock together in large soup pot until chicken isn’t pinkanymore and onion is tender. Then add the chicken stock, rice anddiced tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmerfor about 20 minutes (until rice is tender), then add the apples andcook about 8 minutes or until apples are somewhat soft and rice isdone.

If desired, serve with a garnish ofchopped cilantro and a dollop of plain yogurt or sour cream. Greatwith warm crusty bread

Makes 10 one-cup servings. I oftendouble this and freeze half.

Sisters

2011-11-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

Gratitude Day 9:
Today I'm thankful for my sisters. I've had them on my mind and in my heart an extra-lot lately since I did a Retreat with Saydi a couple weeks ago in Boston, have a Retreat coming up with Shawni next week in Phoenix, and have been so happy for Charity that she just got a great job after a long, hard job search.

I started this post ages ago and kept thinking I'd find more old photos to fill in some spots but it's not going to happen. It's time to just get this posted!

THE STORY OF THE EYRE SISTERS

Starting out, it was always me and Shawni. We were the only ones. We were best friends. We did everything together.

We made messes together.

We posed on top of the car together (there are quite a few photos with this pose from this era - I guess our parents figured it was a good place to put us so we'd be scared of falling off and sit still for a photo...)

We wore ourselves out together.

Apparently, we really did EVERYTHING together. In fact, Shawni's Kindergarten teacher had to go get me from class to take her to the bathroom because she was scared to go without me.

Our dear mom sewed us coordinating outfits - I think her most ambitious and beloved creations were these Holly Hobby pioneer dresses and bonnets that we wore until they were in shreds.

We made up dances and plays together - and often dragged Josh along although he was mostly content to do his own thing. (I think I wore that purple unitard and green cheerleading skirt every day for a year - the unitard and skirt are in an amazing number of photos and I remember thinking that was such a great outfit!)

We moved to England and went to a British school together (love how the uniforms included matching pants to wear under your jumpers on cold days...).

Then along came Saydi. (Yep, there's that top-of-the-car pose again.)

Saydi was cute and all but she was always messing up our games and trying to tag along when she was too little for what we were doing. She had to go make her own best friend - Amy - a cute girl who lived down the street and who we all consider part of our family. Saydi was always singing "Annie" songs at the top of her lungs (and forgetting 1/2 the words).

But you know what, Saydi grew on us. She got a lot more fun as time went on. I really started to like that Saydi.

Saydi got Shawni and I into singing. The three of us sang in a children's performing group together for years plus we had a little trio that performed at every family gathering and some neighborhood and church functions as well (it's sort of telling that the photo below only shows me and Saydi singing - Shawni was never super excited about singing but she was happy to go along).

Couldn't I figure out a better way to do my hair? Seriously?

Then when I was 16, Shawni was 15 and Saydi was 11, Charity came along. We were over the moon to get another sister after FOUR brothers in a row. She was our baby, our doll, our favorite companion to run errands or even bring with us on dates. We cherished our little sister with all our hearts.

During my first year at Wellesley College near Boston, my dad sent Saydi out on a plane to visit for a few days. My mom carefully packed all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies in ziplock bags in Saydi's suitcase and we had quite a time whipping up our favorite family cookie recipe in the dorm kitchen. (sorry I don't have a photo!). Every vacation home from college was packed with sister time.

When Shawni decided to join me in Boston for college (Boston University), she took the bus out to the idyllic Wellesley campus for sleepovers about twice a week. We went to church together every Sunday. We knew each others roomates and friends well. We'd cook together to escape dorm food and laugh together and I helped her write all her papers. All was right with the world when we were together. My dad came to visit one time and we put on friends' black lipstick, black leather jackets and got our hair all teased up to go meet him at the airport as full-on Bostonians. He walked right past us at the airport. (wish I had pictures - digital cameras weren't around yet - someday maybe I'll get around to scanning in all those albums of photos!).

During that year that Shawni and I were both in Boston for school, my parents decided to homeschool the younger kids and live in New England for a month or so. We loved having Saydi and even little 4-year-old Charity come sleep over in our dorm rooms, meet all our friends, and wander through Boston with us.

Shawni, Saydi and I worked hard together on my dad's campaign (he ran for governor of Utah in 1992) right after I graduated from college. We had so many bonding experiences blowing up balloons for the state convention until 4am, putting on campaign events, fielding phone calls, you name it - while Charity stuffed envelopes and did what a little 6-year-old could.

When the campaign was over, Shawni and I decided that we wanted to serve missions for our church. We got our mission calls on the same day - to the neighboring countries of Romania and Bulgaria where we'd be working in orphanages as well as helping set up programs for women and children in the brand new congregations there. We went into the Mission Training Center on the same day and wrote each other letters every week. The letters we received from each other were full of amazingly similar experiences and we found we could support each other like no one else could through this crazy and amazing experience.

As Shawni and I finished up our missions in Romania and Bulgaria, it was amazing to share some of our experiences first-hand with Saydi and Charity who was only 7 at the time. (We're in a Bulgarian orphanage together here).

After our missions, Shawni, Saydi and I lived together in Provo for a while in a little house with some of our best friends. What fun we had! And we got to know Shawni's boyfriend Dave pretty well. And we arranged for Saydi to get her first kiss.

Then we were there together for Shawni's wedding - seemed crazy that Dave was taking her away from us! (Charity is in the photo but you can only see her cute white dress - getting a little sparse on the photos I can find for this era!)

There's Charity on the left with some cousins at Shawni's wedding.

Then I moved to DC and and worked there for a couple years. Shawni and Saydi came to visit several times and Saydi was my intern one summer. Plus I went up to Wellesley (my alma mater that she'd chosen for her college) to visit her quite a bit.

When I moved back to Boston for grad school, Saydi was on a mission to Spain and she asked me to work up a list of eligible bachelors to line her up with when she returned to Boston to finish up her degree at Wellesley. The best guy I could find for her was this wonderful MIT potato farmer named Jared. I did try to set them up on a date - but turned out Jared was already interested in someone else. ME! So we found other options for Saydi and she was our sidekick on lots of roadtrips and adventures on the East Coast.

My sisters were such an important part of my wedding.

My sisters and I along with some friends at my baby-friendly bachelorette party (Shawni had a newborn)

After Jared and I had been married almost a year, my family including Jared (and sadly excluding Shawni who had a little babies) went to Kenya. Saydi, Charity, and I loved working with the cute kids there while Jared loved the construction projects and teaching math to the high school kids.

For a long time, like Saydi had been, Charity was too little to be part of most of the stuff Shawni, Saydi and I did. She was cute and fun and we loved doing everything with her. But there were limitations sometimes based on her age.

But then Charity grew up and completed our sisters group so perfectly. She's added passion and shine and fresh perspectives to our lives. She's served as favorite aunt and occasional nanny to all our kids (who practically worship her). She's helped us keep in touch with our pre-motherhood, pre-wife selves. She's listened with patience - and often offered great insights - as we've talked at length about breast-feeding, child-rearing, marriage, and life in general.

Here's Charity helping me take care of the twins and their big siblings for the first two full weeks of the twins' lives while on her winter break from Wellesley (yep, she chose Wellesley as well). I have no idea what I would have done without her!

Me, Saydi and Charity in Great Hall at Wellesley College near Boston - the alma mater we share

Here are the four of us in NYC together - we all still feel a strong draw to the East Coast and NYC and Boston are magical places for us - we all bring our own experiences with those places but even when we're there separately from each other, the things we notice and blog about are strikingly similar.

Here's me and Char in the city we both love dearly - San Fran was my home for 6 years and now Charity calls it home. Visiting Charity there for spring break last year was magical - so many of the places she suggested we visit together were the very places I'd always loved the most.

And here's Charity with us at a Power of Moms Retreat last April. She served as a fabulous Retreat Manager at two of our Retreats and is the go-to girl for so many things while she juggles a bunch of part-time jobs and is the favorite temporary nanny for everyone in the family who has to go somewhere without their kids (since writing this, Charity announced that she's landed a great full-time job. Yeah Charity! It's been a long, frustrating job search but I'm so proud of my little sis for handling it with grace and patience).

Shawni, Saydi, Charity and I used to scheme and plan and execute trips together all the time and were able to work out an uncanny bunch of times when we could live in the same city or the same apartment for chunks of time. We used to dream up and push for scenarios where we could all be neighbors somehow, someday. But we've all realized that the neighbor thing is just not going to work out. So we carefully protect our month together at Bear Lake and jump at every chance to get together to present at conferences or make podcasts (check out our Deliberate Mothering Podcasts if you haven't already).

I better make sure to mention that it's NOT all sweetness and light with my dear sisters. We're all strong-willed and throughout our lives, we've had a plethora of disagreements and some pretty serious fights (Shawni likes to tell people about the time I slammed her with a mixing bowl over the head when we had a difference of opinion - it was a plastic mixing bowl - just a small goose-egg resulted...). But thankfully our parents taught us from a young age how to resolve disagreements and to forgive and forget.

Sure, there have been times we've felt some envy for what each other was doing or had access to. Shawni was green with envy when Saydi and I went to Kenya while she was home with little babies. I was pretty jealous when Saydi got to do my dream of spending 6 months with her husband building up a non-profit in the Philippines while I was home with little babies. Shawni, Saydi and I are all a bit jealous of Charity's wonderful adventures gallivanting around the world and going on road trips every weekend while we're running car pools and cleaning up our kids' messes. I know we've all gone through hard times where we've felt sad we couldn't do or be what one of our sisters seemed so good at doing or being. But mostly, I think we're really good at being glad for each other, supporting each other, and appreciating our differences and strengths. That's another thing our parents did a great job teaching us - we were brought up believing that we were each special and unique and that someone else's greatness need never subtract from our own individual worth and ability to be great in our own way.

Just when I thought I already had way more than my fair share of amazing sisters, I got MORE stellar sisters thanks to the great women my good brothers found to marry and the excellent sisters and sisters-in-law Jared brought into my life. I love, love, love, love these ladies! And I so appreciate my mom for getting us together every year for our beloved "Mothers and Future Mothers of Eyrealm" gatherings.

So other than a capturing great memories and pictures with my sisters in one place, what is the point of this blog post?

Sisters are important. And while I'm so very glad I got my one little princess Eliza, there will always be a part of me that aches for her that she'll never experience what I had with my sisters. I guess she'll never know the difference and we do cherish and try to nurture the great friendships and cousin relationships she's been blessed with. Plus she'll get wonderful sisters-in-law thanks to her brothers one day. But still. She just won't have some things I've been blessed with. And it'll be OK. She looks pretty darn happy in these pictures with Shawni and Saydi's daughters who she adores:

If you've got a sister, make the most of your relationship with her. If you've got daughters, cherish and grow the special bonds they can have. Help them appreciate their own unique gifts and to celebrate the accomplishments and talents of each other. Teach them to nip conflicts in the bud and fix problems between them before they fester.

And really, the main point of this post is that I love my sisters and sisters-in-law so much and I'm so grateful for all we've shared and all we've learned from each other and all we have ahead of us.

P.S. If you want to join me and my sister Shawni for the Power of Moms Phoenix Retreat next week, Shawni's doing a giveaway on her blog today - check it out HERE.

YOU - My Blog Readers

2011-11-08T15:26:00.001-07:00

Gratitude Day 8:
I'm so grateful for the nice people who read this blog. I was really frustrated and worried yesterday when I wrote that post (and not even 1/2 of what I was worried and sad about it made it into the post - some things are better kept to myself). I'm so grateful for everyone who took the time to share their ideas and their support in a comment and who wrote me emails. Thanks for caring. Thanks for helping me feel better. Thanks for offering fresh perspective.

Since my first blog post over 5 years ago, I've shared a lot here. This little spot in cyberspace has been great therapy for me and has helped many others. As I share my good stuff and bad stuff, I process what's going on, realize my blessings, and come up with solutions. Sometimes my blog is the way I pat myself on the back when my best efforts seem to go unnoticed or when my work feels invisible. And always, when I hit a hard spot and blog about it, there's at least one helpful comment that really strikes a chord and helps me see what I need to see.

And I guess I'll add one more related thing that I'm really grateful for today - technology. You and I wouldn't be here on this blog without it. And last night, the whole extended Eyre family did a technology-assisted Family Home Evening using Google+ Hangout (Ashton set it up - I'm still not totally sure how it works but once it was up and running it worked beautifully!). We had 8 screens showing each family in their homes all over the country plus we had my sister Charity on a speaker phone with my Dad (she was at work so that's what worked best for her). My dad gave a 2-minute lesson on Gratitude and challenged us to each come up with at least 300 things on our Thankful List this year so that when we put it all together, we'd have at least 2700 things we were collectively grateful for (to read about this tradition, click HERE). We got a tour of Tal and Anita's new apartment in NYC and Jo and Aja's new place in Hawaii. Everyone had a chance to make any announcement they liked - we heard about different kids' sports victories, trips planned, new pursuits. Kids got to share a talent. Baby Poem showed how she can stand up by herself. Claire showed one of her cheerleading cheers. Ashton played a guitar song. The twins showed the latest models they've built out of magnets. Kristi and Anita showed off their matching pregnant tummies (they're due in a month - due dates just a day apart) and everyone oohed and ahhed about their new cousins. Everyone was talking over each other and it was all pretty wild - but great. We ended up having a great virtual dance party at the end. It was almost like we were all back at Bear Lake together! How awesome is it that we can do stuff like this thanks to technology???

What are you grateful for today?

It could be worse

2011-11-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

Gratitude Day Seven:
Today I'm grateful that things aren't as bad as they could be.

I've put myself in the bad mom doghouse.

It started a couple weeks ago with emails from one child's math teacher and lots of extra work to get that child on track in math. Just when we thought we had the math issues under control, that child's report card came and it was BAD (math was OK with a B- but seriously, how do you get an F in music and in art? Or a D in Spanish when you speak it quite fluently?). We knew this child was a little lazy sometimes with turning in work and found most things to be so easy that challenges often led to quick frustration. But we didn't know it was this bad. In the last little while, this child has also had some issues with lack of judgement in a couple situations that have got us worried.

Then we got an email last week from the teacher of our child who's report card actually looked much better than usual and who seemed to be finally in a good routine of accomplishing homework more quickly and well after years of hard work. This email said that this teacher and other teachers at the school would like to meet with me and Jared because they've noticed a pattern of disruptive classroom behavior and sloppy work. So we're working on getting that meeting set up and debating about whether to accompany this child to all his classes to see first hand what is going on.

Then later in the week, the twins came home with a note from their teacher saying they were being disruptive and not following directions in class. They've always been model students and their teachers have raved about how "perfect" they are in school. So getting this note was pretty disheartening - especially after all the other issues. We had some good talks with the twins and I'm talking to the teacher today about whether they can read when they get done with their work quickly so they won't be disruptive (seems they get disruptive when they finish early and get bored).

Argggggg! What am I doing wrong? I have had to be gone once in a while for work and I'm probably distracted too much but I'm generally here every afternoon sitting right with the kids doing their homework and we do reading time and scripture time and have good structure and clear rules plus we try to make sure there's lots of unstructured time for fun and creativity. But wow, this parenting stuff can sure be humbling sometimes and I can definitely see places we need to improve. We've got one child who seems to be doing totally fine in school but I'm looking over my shoulder for a note from that child's teacher any day now! Please no!

So today I'm glad things aren't worse with our kids. We are so blessed. We've never had to deal with more than minimal behavior and academic problems with our children. Our kids are healthy and don't have any special needs (although I'm learning that there's a whole set of "special needs" that come along with a kid heading into puberty - their ability to focus and get things done seems to diminish drastically while their emotions ramp up considerably).

But I guess this disheartening and humbling string of events is what we need to get more serious about some things around here.

What are you grateful isn't worse than it is?

Sundays

2011-11-06T16:16:00.000-07:00

Gratitude Day Six
Today I'm extra grateful for Sundays. I have no idea how I'd live without them.

We go to church on Sunday mornings and there's always something in a lesson or a talk that speaks to something that's on my mind (if I pray and search for a message, I always find one). Occasionally, it's a big message. But usually, it's just a little reminder of something or a thought that pops up later in the week based on something I heard on Sunday. I love hearing the good discussion in Relief Society from such a diverse group of good-hearted women. I love our Sunday School teachers well-thought-out lessons on the New Testament - her crisp British accent makes the lessons all the more enjoyable. I love sitting in Sacrament meeting with my kids snuggled up around me and my husband's arm around me. I love that I can actually listen in church now that my kids are old enough to behave pretty decently most of the time and that I don't need to bring coloring books and quiet toys to church for them anymore. I love that the kids know (after years of reminders) to pull out the hymn books and find the right page and sing along. We still have days when the kids regress and church is frustrating. But mostly, it seems like we've "paid our dues" and church is pleasant and good.

On Sunday afternoons, we relax together. Jared interviews each kid individually. I read stories from the Friend magazine with them. We write letters to relatives. We sometimes take naps. If it's a pretty day, we go for a walk around the neighborhood (no scooters or bikes allowed, just walking and talking and enjoying nature). I usually do a blog post or two. The kids play games together. We often make cookies (or Isaac or Eliza make cookies - they've become our primary cookie-makers around here). We always have a nice dinner together - I go for something quite easy but also really yummy. Sometimes we have friends or relatives over for dinner. At the dinner table, we all share what we learned in church. On Fast Sundays (like today), we have a family testimony meeting before eating - each person gets a chance to stand up and express their thoughts about the gospel and about each other and really say whatever comes to mind. When the kids are tucked in bed, Jared and I each take some individual time to make our lists and goals for the week then we get together and look at our calendars and talk about what we each need to do that week and how we can help each other. It just takes a few minutes and we're pretty good about doing it regularly - we've found that when we DON'T do this, the week just doesn't go so well.

I used to have quite a few meetings on Sundays and Jared has early morning Sunday meetings these days. I'm so grateful that we're all able to be home on Sunday afternoons now.

We try to make Sunday a day full of special things that are mostly reserved for Sundays - not a day full of "don't's." And for the most part, it works. Sure there are crazy Sundays when the peace and planning and togetherness we hope for just doesn't pan out. But in general, Sunday gives us such a great chance to recharge our batteries and have some solid family time.

Eliza just wandered in and I asked her what she likes about Sunday. Her response (no editing from me), "I like how on Sundays we don't have school or basketball games and we can just relax and stay home. I think it's fun to have interviews with Daddy. I like how it's usually so calm on Sundays and we don't have to be rushed. And I like to go to church on Sunday because it's fun to learn about Jesus and stuff and see my friends."

I just called Oliver to see what he likes about Sunday (again, unedited). "I do not like interviews because they are boring and it wastes some of my time when I want to play but I do like to go to church and I like to hang out at home." (good to know interviews aren't the favorite...)

Now I'm curious. Let's see what Silas says. "I like how after church we get to have a nice time doing stuff like reading the Friend - aren't you going to read to us now?' Guess I better get on that.

What are you grateful for about Sundays?

A Warm Kitchen

2011-11-05T23:21:00.000-06:00

Gratitude Day Five

It snowed last night. The trees weren't ready. They're still sporting lots of gorgeous leaves and quite a few branches broke off under the weight of the snow. I'm not ready either. I need at least a couple more weeks of fall!

But today I'm really grateful that Jared put more insulation in every possible crack in our kitchen last week.

Last winter you had to brace yourself every time you went into the kitchen. We'd turn on the toaster oven and keep its little door open so that we could warm that room up a bit (there was no decent place in that small room for a space heater).

This morning, I went down to the kitchen and it felt just fine - no cool breezes, no bundling up to make breakfast, no freezing toes.

I'm so grateful for a warm house on a cold day.

What are you grateful for today?

Couples Retreat Winner

2011-11-04T14:05:00.001-06:00

We just picked the winner of the registration to the November 11th Date Night Couples Retreat in Bountiful Utah. Congratulations, Kristen! Here's her comment:

Kristen said...

We would absolutely love to attend this retreat. Thank you for the wonderful opportunity and thank you for all that you do for families!

Kristen

There are still a few places left at this "Date Night" Retreat and the price is great - just $35/couple - you'd likely spend that on an "ordinary" movie and dinner date night. But at this Retreat, you'll get a date night that will make a REAL difference in your family. If you have financial struggles but really want to attend, email Tiffany directly at tiffany@powerofmoms.com and she'll work with you.

Good Neighbors and a Great Halloween

2011-11-04T13:00:00.000-06:00

Gratitude Day Four: I know I've said this before but today I'm super thankful for our neighborhood.

I just went through the photos I took on Halloween and started the process of setting up this year's Children for Children concert (It'll be the 5th Annual Concert!). We had a really fun neighborhood parade and dinner on Halloween before trick-or-treating and we've got this great couple down the street who are converting a beautiful old church into a community center that they said we could use for our Children for Children concert this year. Doing these two things made me so extra thankful for the wonderful people in this neighborhood - people from all over the country, people with different beliefs and lifestyles, people with kids and without, people with all sorts of interests and talents. But what brings everyone together is a belief in community and neighborliness and a love of diversity.

Eliza and I went down to the city council meeting a couple nights ago to support our neighbors in their efforts to convert the old unused church into a community center. I loved seeing so many neighbors get up and speak in support of this project and loved seeing the excitement and loyalty expressed. Permission was granted for the new use of the church and now we'll have a great community center where the strength of our neighborhood can be built-upon. Here's the little video that was put together about the church - easy to picture our Children for Children concert happening there and making it the biggest and best concert yet!

Here are a few shots of our neighborhood Halloween parade and dinner.

Playing Duck Duck Goose

Playing Red Rover

Enjoying black bean soup (a.k.a. "witch's brew")

And here are our kids, ready to trick-or-treat around the block:

It was the perfect Halloween - super nice weather, lots of fun activities, and just enough candy to make it fun but not leave us with sugar highs for weeks.

Bulgaria

2011-11-03T23:40:00.002-06:00

Today I'm extra thankful for my mission to Bulgaria (this is day 3 of my Thanksgiving gratitude journal).

Almost 20 years ago, I spent a year and a half working as a missionary in Bulgaria (Don't feel bad if you're thinking "where's Bulgaria?" When I got the letter from my church saying where I'd been assigned to go as a missionary, that was my question as well. It's in Eastern Europe - between Greece and Romania on the Black Sea.

Typical Bulgarian cars, housing and haze of pollution in the air

Me with missionaries at the Alexander Nevski Cathedral in the center of Sofia, Bulgaria

Me and some other missionaries at one of the major communist monuments in Sofia, Bulgaria

Me at an orphanage - cutest kids!

Me with other missionaries and my dear friend Milena at her baptism

With missionaries and Bulgarian friends celebrating Georgiov Day

With dear Bulgarian friends in Plovdiv

My experiences in Bulgaria stretched me and grew me in so many ways. I have deep and beautiful memories of my time working with children so desperate for love in orphanages and talking with people so desperate to discuss God after 40 years of communist-imposed bans on religion. I heard sad, sad stories and realized the magnitude of my blessings. I saw lives change drastically for the better but also felt the heartache of seeing people slide back into old ruts. I made dear friends with both the other missionaries and the wonderful Bulgarians I came to love as I helped them set up programs for women and for children in their communities. I learned Bulgarian (which isn't exactly the most useful language...). I saw my strengths and weaknesses very clearly and was humbled again and again while also experiencing some exciting accomplishments.

The reason all this is on my mind today is that I spent most of the afternoon with dear friends from Bulgaria. The occasion was a lecture at BYU by fine art photographer and my pseudo-adopted Bulgarian sister, Eva Koleva Timothy who flew out from Boston to do a series of lectures.

I met Eva as a 16-year-old girl in Bulgaria and was immediately drawn to her. She had this love of life and thirst for learning that was contagious - and she was always eager to help us missionaries with anything and everything. I convinced my family to sponsor Eva so that she could come to the States for college - her absolute dream. For several years, Eva lived off-and-on with my family and became like a sibling to all my siblings. She's now a wonderful wife and mother of three and has produced an amazing photography collection called "Lost in Learning" that celebrates the work of Columbus, Galileo, Newton, Da Vinci and other creative thinkers who weren't afraid to plow their own paths and pursue the dreams of their hearts. Eva did SUCH a great job and I came away all fired up about putting more joy and passion into what I do.

Check out this little snippet of Eva's work in a great YouTube video.

Here's Eva and me heading into the lecture hall (the pictures of the rest of the group ended up on my mom's camera...):

Here's Eva and me when we first met almost 20 years ago

Anyway, in honor of Eva being here for her lectures, a bunch of people from my mission days in Bulgaria got together for lunch and for this afternoon's lecture. It was so wonderful to see all these great people (and their kids - how is it that we can all have these big kids?) and it brought back all these rich memories and made me so grateful for the associations and learning that my 18 intense months in Bulgaria brought to my life.

So I guess what I'm really thankful for today is not so much my mission to Bulgaria itself but for the learning that it represents and the learning Eva taught me to seek out and embrace more fully through her presentation today.

P.S. I'm going to draw the winner of the Retreat giveaway in my last post tomorrow at noon or so - if you haven't entered yet, there's still a bit of time! Go to yesterday's post for details.

Great Friends Doing Great Things (and a giveaway)

2011-11-02T09:17:00.000-06:00

Day Two of my Thanksgiving Gratitude Journal: I'm grateful for good women who work hard and sacrifice to lift others

I've got two dear friends who've requested my help spreading the word about wonderful events they have coming up. These requests made me so grateful for these two good friends, all that they've brought to my life and all that they are bringing to so many others through their hard work and sacrifices. And that got me thinking about how grateful I am for all the women - those I know, those I admire, those who've gone before - whose efforts and influence have made such a difference in my life.

I love this quote by Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, that is the only thing that ever has." I love how so many great women have coupled their beliefs and commitment with action and have created ripple effects that go on and on and on, influencing the lives of so many.

My dear friend, Neylan McBaine (I blogged about the interesting way we met here) is the founder and director of an amazing website called the Mormon Women Project. If you haven't checked it out, you really should. The website celebrates the rich diversity of Mormon women through interviews and portraits. If you can possibly make it, I highly recommend that you join me for the Mormon Women Project Salon being held in downtown Salt Lake this Saturday evening, November 5th. I'm so excited to hear from the excellent speakers Neylan has lined up and I'm honored to be leading a discussion as part of the evening. Click HERE to learn the details and register.

That's Tiffany on the left and another wonderful POM
Board member and friend, Rebecca, on the right running
a booth for us at the recent "Just for Her" event in Ogden

When I first met Tiffany Sowby, I was a teenager in England. We went to church together while my family lived there for 6 months. Little did I know that we'd reconnect over 20 years later when she stumbled upon The Power of Moms and volunteered to help. Tiffany is now my right-arm woman when it comes to running Power of Moms Retreats and managing our ever-expanding training program - plus she's written many great articles on our website, runs her own Learning Circle, and has been an excellent presenter and trainer at several of our Retreats (plus, of course, she's an amazing mom on top of all that). Tiffany is hosting a "Date Night" Couples Retreat on November 11th where she'll be presenting all our great Power of Moms stuff on setting up family systems that can help you build the family you really want. If you can possibly make it, be there on November 11th! And Tiffany has graciously offered the chance for someone to attend for free. Simply make a comment with your email address below and you'll be entered into a giveaway for a free registration for you and your husband to attend this event. I'll announce the couple that wins the free registration at the end of the day around noon on Friday, November 4th. Forward this post to friends that may also want to enter the giveaway!

And thinking about Tiffany makes me SO grateful for the 30 or so wonderful volunteer Power of Moms board members who run different parts of our website. Power of Moms would be this tiny little thing without all their work behind the scenes. It's amazing what talented, wonderful moms have jumped on board to help other moms without pay, without much recognition, with just the belief in the cause of deliberate mothering to fuel them. Thanks wonderful ladies!

OK - I'm getting carried away - there are probably 100 great women I could list and talk about here but we'll keep it to the ones above for today.

P.S. We've still got room at our Phoenix, Arizona Retreat on November 19th. To adjust the Margaret Mead quote above slightly, "Never doubt that a relatively small group of committed moms can change the world. In fact, great moms shape the future."

Thanksgiving Season

2011-11-01T21:32:00.000-06:00

As we get into the Thanksgiving Season (in my book it is NOT Christmas season until Thanksgiving Season has been thoroughly celebrated!), I've decided to blog every day about one thing I'm especially grateful for that day. I used to keep a gratitude journal and I was a happier, more optimistic person in those days. So I'm starting again (inspired by Thanksgiving and by the Power of Optimism that we just launched at The Power of Moms for this month).

At dinner, we're starting up our tradition of writing down some things we're grateful for on the paper leaves we put on our "Gratitude Tree" (just yellow, orange and red construction paper leaves that we tape onto a stick that we found and stuck into styrofoam in a flower pot - pretty darn easy). The kids love doing this and it keeps us all going with an "attitude of gratitude."

Here's my personal gratitude for today:
As I went for a run this morning with the smell of rain and wet leaves in the air, the view of snow-capped mountains in the distance, the brilliance of fall leaves heightened by overcast skies and the recent rain, the total "alive" feeling of the crisp air filling my lungs and making my legs and hands tingle, I felt so grateful for my five senses and my healthy body. Seeing loved ones go through health challenges makes me more aware than ever of what a blessing it is to be healthy. My body may not look just the way I'd like it to - stretch marks, hair that won't cooperate and needs to be cut, more padding here and there than is really necessary, wrinkles popping up. And it may not work quite as well as it once did (that c-section wasn't wonderful for my digestive system, my eyes aren't what they were, I've got a knee that doesn't love running that much...). But wow, I'm blessed to be able to do all that I need to do and more!

A Balanced Halloween Season

2011-10-31T12:03:00.002-06:00

I think this year we've got the balance of Halloween/sugar/dress-up activities quite nicely balanced with fall/harvest/family fun activities. Finally!

We had a great time on Friday celebrating my dear dad's birthday with him. I don't think I've actually been with him for his birthday for about 20 years so this was extra fun. We did his birthday tradition of jumping in the leaves in the park right by our house (this has been a tradition all of us kids have honored wherever we've been throughout the world every October 28th - I've jumped in the leaves with orphans in Bulgaria, with roommates at Wellesley, with students when I used to teach, you name it).

We set off in search of great leaves

We raked them up

We buried Grandfather

We jumped over Grandfather

We threw leaves over and at Grandfather

We sure love that Grandfather

After leaf-jumping, we did cake and ice cream.

The kids all gave him the special cards and poems they made for him

Then we carved pumpkins with my parents and it brought back great memories of when all nine of us kids would carefully pick out and carve our pumpkins together growing up - only as a mom do I now realize how much work that was for my parents to oversee the choosing and carving of NINE pumpkins! It was awesome this year -all the kid are big enough to clean out, design and carve their own pumpkins with minimal adult help (love those little pumpkin saws that make the carving safe and easy). Hallelujah! My dad gave each pumpkin an award like he always did for us growing up - the most spikey (Oliver's), the happiest (Silas's), the most original (Isaac's), the most mythologically-based (Ashton's cyclops pumpkin), the cutest (Eliza's).

Then Jared, my parents and I finished celebrating the big day with gorgeous sushi (Tona's on 25th in Ogden is our new favorite) and a wonderful concert - the King's Singers at Symphony Hall in SLC.

since we had our cake before dinner, we had this amazing avacado, tuna, crab creation for "dessert" for dinner

Saturday we went for a gorgeous hike up to a waterfall near here and collected amazing leaves. I'm LOVING fall. I've sort of skipped it for a lot of years living in places where seasons don't change so much. As much as I LOVE New England in the fall, I've got to say the mountains of Utah can definitely hold their own as far as fall foliage goes.

We found our first spot of snow and had our first snowball fight of the season at the base of the waterfall!

Heading back down with the light turning golden

Then yesterday (Sunday) we went with friends to explore the Spiral Jetty - did a separate post on this one HERE.

Today, Halloween, we had delicious pumpkin pancakes for breakfast (I'll post the recipe later) and this afternoon we're having a neighborhood Halloween costume parade, our traditional black bean soup (again, recipe next post - very "Halloweeny" when you get that yummy black soup combined with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of orange cheese for all the Halloween colors - plus it's nice to get something healthy in the kids' tummies before they head out for candy), our church trunk-or-treat, a little neighborhood trick-or-treating and then we'll come back home to sort and trade all our candy and watch a somewhat scary movie.

In past years, it's seemed like we've had to get the kids dressed up like 10 times for different Halloween activities that started to feel pretty redundant. This year is much more mellow and much more focused on enjoying the beauty of fall - but we're still doing up Halloween right today. This is feeling good.

Our Spiral Jetty Adventure

2011-10-31T10:37:00.001-06:00

Yesterday (Sunday) we went with friends to explore the Spiral Jetty. I studied it at Wellesley College in art history way back when and it was fun to actually see it. Plus I loved learning about the artist and his work with the kids before heading out there (thanks, Wikipedia). I love how art makes you think. I love creativity. I love that the artist, Smithson, got this crazy idea of building a spiral jetty and actually made his idea into reality.

Here's how the Spiral Jetty looks when it's fully exposed (with salt crust all around)

The Jetty was partially submerged thanks to all the snow runoff from our crazy wet winter but it was still quite remarkable and there's something other-worldly about the silvery stillness of the Great Salt Lake. After having people ask me all my life about the Great Salt Lake when I said I was from Salt Lake City (it seems most people around the world learn about this lake in geography at some point...) and having no personal experience to share, I've got a couple now (yesterday's Spiral Jetty and a great trip to Antelope Island last May that I really should blog about someday...).

Here's how it looked yesterday

It was a beautiful day. There's nothing like the sun in the fall when there's enough coolness in the air that the sun us always so welcome.

We all headed out to explore.

Some people (my boys) got WAY out there!

Sometimes it looked like we were walking on water.

Oliver tripped as he waded and ended up with a bunch of nasty super-salt water mixed with dead brine shrimp in his mouth and nose. He declared that he felt like he was going to die. But after a lot of spitting and nose-blowing and some nice hot chocolate one we reached the shore, he did survive.

I didn't pack well for the outing. The water would be freezing and I thought the kids would just wade so I had them wear shorts and sandals and didn't bring extra clothes. Silly me. Of course they were going to insist on getting all the way out to the end of the jetty and end up getting totally wet. But they stripped down to their undies and put on the sweatshirts I brought with towels around their waists (or an attractive mini-skirt look in the case of the twins) and all was well. All was especially good when our friends pulled out a little camp stove and whipped up some hot chocolate for everyone.

See that nice salt crust on their faces and their lovely mini skirts?

We all ended up crusted with salt - at first, it made our skin glisten like we were covered with glitter - then it turned into piles of salt in ears and solidified on legs. So interesting.

this was after I wiped off the hot chocolate all over his chin - there was way more salt!

for once, we remembered to have someone take a photo of the photographers!
(plus our fearless hot chocolate maker and Kaleigh who was wandering by
- when you have kids take photos for you, you never know what'll end up in the photo!)

I'm so grateful for friends who plan great outings like this and who are up for some wild adventures!

We left as the sun was starting to dip and everything was going golden.

More on Boston

2011-10-28T13:54:00.000-06:00

While the Retreat was the centerpiece of my time in the Boston area, I also had SO much fun with my sister Saydi and her wonderful family plus with my dear friend from my mission to Bulgaria, Eva. Some of my favorite things:

Spending time with Saydi. I get Saydi and she gets me in unique ways. The choices we've made, the things we focus on, the stuff we worry about, the words we use with our kids - it's all strikingly the same. Saydi's done so many of the same things I've done in my life - but she's done them all a bit better than me. I like to think that's because I offered her some tips that I learned the hard way about things I did. But quite honestly, it's because she's got the edge on me in quite a few areas - and I'm so glad - I'm always learning from her, even if she is my little sister.
Spending time with Jeff (Saydi's husband). Jeff knows tons of stuff and has thoughtful ideas about so many things. I loved hearing about his work and getting his advice on things I'm working on.
Spending time with Hazel, Charlie, Emmaline and Peter (Saydi's kids). There's something quite wonderful about being with your nieces and nephews when you don't have your own kids in tow so you can really focus on them. I feel like I got to know each of them in a deeper way. And I'm going through Peter withdrawals - that baby is so darn cute and happy and makes the sweetest baby noises all the time!
Spending some time with Eva. I loved speaking a little Bulgarian with her (I'm sure rusty) and seeing her beautiful children and wonderful husband in a place that brought joy to us all (Crane Castle - see photos below). Eva loves life and adores nature in such a contagious way. I'll never forget meeting her as a teenager in Bulgaria - she practically glowed with enthusiasm for everything and everyone and was like a sponge, learning every English phrase she could from the missionaries and jumping in to help with anything and everything. We talked about the "joy-suckers" in our lives at the Retreat. Well, Eva is a "joy-pourer" - you can't NOT feel joy when you're with Eva.
Wandering through Harvard Square and showing Saydi's kids some of my favorite spots where I liked to study and hang out while doing grad school there. I love the weathered brick everywhere - sidewalks, buildings, walls, you name it. I love the great mix of people all around. I love the warm crusty rolls at Bertucci's. I love the street musicians. I loved seeing the church building right off the Square that was such an important part of my life for so many years and that burned down a couple years ago all rebuilt and restored. I remember first visiting there with my dad while on a college tour over 20 years ago and thinking it seemed such a grungy random place - plus it was much more of a triangle than a square. I was used to the manicured lawns and quiet orderly feel of the campuses I'd seen in Utah. Now Harvard Square feels like home to me in so many ways.
Visiting Longfellow's House and learning about it's amazing history both as Washington's headquarters at the beginning of the Revolutionary War and as the home of one of the foremost American poets. Loved seeing the gorgeous original antiques and learning about the remarkable people who lived there plus seeing it all through Saydi's kids eyes.
Going for a beautiful run through the ancient cemetery and beautiful hills near Saydi's house - the leaves were SO beautiful and it was so fun to have someone wonderful to chat with while running.
Visiting Crane Castle. So fun to go somewhere I've never been before (after 10 years off and on in New England, I've seen a lot). LOVED the setting atop a hill with views of the sea all around. The pictures will say more than I can properly say here.

Here's a quick overview in photos.

The restored Longfellow Park Chapel where I spent every Sunday and
went to tons of social activities for so many years.

A cool clock on one of the Harvard dorms that I've always liked.

Harvard Yard

view from Harvard Yard to Harvard Square (w/Sayid and kids)

So Charlie wasn't thrilled. But Hazel had to rub John Harvard's foot for good luck academically.
See that shiny toe? Lots of people are hoping good old John will help pull them through.

Good old Widener Library in Harvard Yard

Memorial Chapel - my graduation was in the Yard right here

Eva and I at the Crane Estate ("Crane Castle")

Saydi and I at the back of the castle

Saydi's daughters and Eva's daughter on the gorgeous lawn that connects the house to the sea

View of the sea and sunset from the back of the castle

View of the changing colors and valley from the front of the castle

One of the castle's many sculptures

Ah, New England. Ah, good friends and family. It was a great trip.

But it sure is nice to be home and to be gearing up for all the fun of Halloween with my cute kids. I spent the last two bedtimes telling my kids the story of the book I read on my long flights (it was Whistling in the Dark - a good read). I love telling them the story of whatever book I'm reading - editing it and embellishing it to fit their interests and needs. It was sort of a scary story and I loved seeing their eyes get big and the concern show on their faces as I told them the story. And it was perfect when Jared happened to yell out while watching the World Series at just the right scary part in the story! We all jumped!

Heading Home (and photos from the New England Retreat)

2011-10-25T20:30:00.000-06:00

I'm sitting here in the Dallas airport. I'm not quite sure why I had to fly through Dallas when I was trying to get from Chicago to Salt Lake City – but somehow I couldn't find a direct flight. I'm also not sure why I have a nearly 3-hour layover when there was an earlier SLC flight that lined up perfectly with my flight from Chicago. I saw that earlier flight on the monitor and got excited about the possibility of getting home in time to see my cute kids before bedtime. I asked about that flight and they said there were seats available. But they wanted me to pay a bunch of money to make the switch. Oh, well, I tried. So here I am, listening to elevator music and trying to get caught up on a few things so I can be a little less behind when I get home after being gone for a week. I found a seat here in the airport with a built-in footstool thing. Feels really really good to put my feet up.

It's been a wonderful week of sharing and learning and growing with other wonderful moms at the New Hampshire and Chicago Retreats. But it's also been a long week involving lots of work and travel with precious little sleep. I sure miss my family. I'm so excited to melt into my husband's arms when he comes to get me at the airport in a few hours. I can't wait to give my sleeping kids a hug and kiss when I finally get home tonight. Spending the past week at two different Retreats sharing ideas with other moms makes me think about how blessed I am to be a mom. And sharing stories about my kids and family in all my presentations sure makes me miss my kids and family.

At the close of these Retreats, I encouraged everyone to pick ONE THING they're going to do differently or add to their lives when they get home. They've got whole notebooks-full of notes to implements bit by bit as they move forward – but starting with ONE thing is manageable. My one thing that I'm going to start with is this: I'm going to get the word "hurry" out of my vocabulary. We talked about what the "joy-suckers" are in our lives and I realized one of the biggest ones for me is hurrying.

I usually think I can do more than anyone could really do during most hours and minutes of the day. And I need to be way more realistic and less rushed. I'm always leaving too little time for transitions like getting in the car in the morning and getting ready for bed at night. And the resulting hurrying just doesn't make anyone happy. I need to spend more time helping kids get things together in the mornings and I really need to spend more time on bedtimes. I'm always rushing the kids to bed because I'm usually feeling spent and I got dinner on the table a bit late and we're right up against bedtimes when I start the bedtime routines. Then when the kids want to talk and are betting for a song and a story, I'm always saying it's too late. I need to start the bedtime routines earlier to make more time for talking (somehow bedtime is always when they want to open up), for reading, for snuggling, for singing lullabies (used to do lullabies all the time and they still ask for them – but “too late” gets in the way too much when really, a song takes what, a minute or so?).

Every time we have a Retreat, I think, wow, this is SUCH an amazing group of moms and I wish I could sit individually with each of them and just talk talk talk so much more. These Retreats were no exception. And I loved that they were a little smaller and more intimate than the 80-100 person Retreats we've been doing lately. I felt like I learned so much from the diverse group of deliberate moms I got to spend time with - most of whom didn't know each other at all before they arrived at the Retreat. Wow, there are some wonderful moms in this world!

And wow, I'm seeing more and more that EVERY mom has her hard hard stuff to deal with. Some people's lives look all lovely and nice and we get that “grass is greener” thing going on – but dig a little deepers and it seems you'll always find there's plenty of hard stuff going on – kids with disabilities, divorce, depression, cancer, you name it. I find new heroes at each Retreat.

Moms are such amazingly resilient and compassionate people. And they're always so darn helpful. At every Retreat, they're always pitching in to help prep and clean up food – even when we tell them this is their time to relax.

I like moms. A lot. And I'm so proud to be one of them.

Another really cool thing about moms is that they are really good at posing for pictures. You can take one or two pictures and get a pretty darn good one (as opposed to taking like 500 and maybe getting a couple half-decent ones when you're dealing with kids!). Here's our wonderful New Hampshire group:

Here's a discussion group in New Hampshire:

And here's a tiny taste of the gorgeous scenery that surrounded us at the Retreat - we went on some lovely walks and that crisp air and crunch of leaves underfoot with the lake glistening and the leaves showing off their best stuff - ahhhhhh, it was perfect. I just wish I'd been able to spend a whole extra day wandering in that New England fall splendor!

We've got another wonderful Retreat coming up in Phoenix in just three weeks - it's filling right up so if you want to be there (or want to share the word with others), you might want to sign up soon. I get to do this Retreat with my sister Shawni and my partner April plus the organization, American Mothers, is co-sponsoring. Click here for all the info: Phoenix Retreat November 19th.
I'll blog about Chicago and the adventures I had with Saydi's family while in Boston a bit later. It's almost time for my plane – finally!

Looking for Pamela...

2011-10-19T22:28:00.000-06:00

I made it to Boston! I'm sitting here in my sister Saydi's house after a great dinner and some fun with her cute kids. I was smacked with waves of nostalgia as I got off the plane - I've arrived at the Boston Airport scores of times in the years I was a student and working here and was coming back from visits to family. In so many ways, Boston will always be a home to me.

I read a book for like 3 hours on the plane - heaven! (The book was Whistling in the Dark - very good so far - wow, childhood is a crazy, tough thing for so many people...) But sitting in a middle seat between two very large people on a fully packed plane wasn't my favorite thing - especially when our already-long flight was made longer by a one hour sitting-in-the-stuffy-plane-at-the-gate delay. At least I wasn't trying to keep a baby happy on my lap all that time. There are many things I'll always miss about my babies - but taking them on planes isn't something I miss.

Anyway, I announced the Retreat Giveaway winners in my last post - and sure wished I could get everyone who commented to these Retreats! There's one comment that especially stood out to me and even though this particular commenter didn't win the giveaway, I wanted to reach out to her and invite her to come to the Chicago Retreat for free. But she didn't leave her email address. Here's the comment I'm talking about:
Pamela said...

Only a few short weeks ago we lost our baby boy, Bowen (stillbirth). He would have been #5. While looking for a little encouragement today, I stumbled across your the Power of Moms website. I read about the Chicago retreat and called a friend who I thought would love to attend with me and she said yes. I just love when God unfolds certain things right before our eyes.

1:54 PM

Pamela - I hope you'll read my blog and see this - I can't think of any other way to reach you. Please email me at saren(at)powerofmoms(dot)come and let's get you to the Chicago Retreat!

Retreat Giveaway Winners

2011-10-18T23:17:00.001-06:00

And the winners of the Chicago Retreat registration (a $65 value) and 1/2 price New England Retreat registration (a $110 value since full price is $220) are.....

For New Hampshire:
Erin L said...
I'd love to attend the NH one! It's only a few hours away. These retreats sound so awesome! Put my name in.

For Chicago:
Nancy said...
Chicago! nancykules@hotmail.com :)

(I promise I selected them totally randomly - just FYI)

If you didn't win but still want to come, we've got room for just a few more people at each Retreat. We can take registrations through Wednesday the 19th for the New England Retreat and through Saturday the 22nd for the Chicago Retreat. Then we've got to cut it off so we have time to shop for yummy food and put the right number of copies together and all that. As always, if you have financial issues, I can work with you (email me directly at saren(at)powerofmoms(dot)com). Our goal with these Retreats is always to do what we can do to make sure those who really need to be there can be there - while covering our costs so we don't go broke ourselves!

Retreat Giveaway

2011-10-17T11:13:00.000-06:00

I head out on Wednesday morning to do our Power of Moms Retreat in New Hampshire and then I get to do a Retreat in Chicago on the way home. There's a ton to do between now and when I leave - Retreat agendas and logistics to finalize, projects to finish, laundry to be done, groceries to be stocked for Jared and the kids, issues with our St George renters to be taken care of, etc. Luckily Jared's back from the farm for a few days to be with the kids and then he'll take them up to the farm while I'm gone (they've got fall break - how did I manage to schedule these Retreats over fall break when I'd like to be with the kids???). So there's a fair amount of stress running through my head right now and I really haven't left the kids for a whole week before so that makes me a little sad. But once I get on that plane (by myself - wow) on Wednesday morning, things will seem much better.

I'm excited to have a few days with one of my favorite people in the whole world - my fabulous sister Saydi (she's doing the New Hampshire Retreat with me). I'm excited to enjoy New England in the fall and visit some favorite people and places (after living in Boston for about 10 years, a part of my heart will always be there). I'm so looking forward to great discussions with fabulous women at both of these Retreats (we've been doing large Retreats lately and I'm so glad these two Retreats will be smaller and more intimate - my favorite kind). I'm excited to meet two great new ladies who are helping me with the Chicago Retreat and who have a lot to bring to the table at Power of Moms. (Beth Aldrich, the Retreat host, is a fabulous speaker, author and healthy lifestyle coach and Lori Radun, one of our speakers, runs a great website called Momnificent and is also a wonderful author and speaker).

Anyway, since we still have a few spaces at these two Retreats and since I love my blog readers, I thought I'd go ahead and do a little giveaway. Comment on this post to enter a drawing for a FREE registration to our October 25th Half Day Retreat in Chicago or a 1/2 price registration to our October 21-22 New England Retreat (if you win but can't make it, you can give the registration or 1/2 price registration to someone else in the area - sorry, this giveaway is just for these two particular Retreats). Indicate which Retreat you're most interested in when you make your comment - and if you want to make sure I can reach you, leave your email address in your comment. I'll pick one winner for each Retreat Tuesday night before I head out on my trip and the winners will be announced here on Wednesday morning (Wednesday, October 19th). Feel free to forward this post to those you know in the Chicago or New England areas so they can enter!