It has Been A While

I wanted to enter a blog contest with a great site. However, it took me SO SO long to get in my blog to post that I don't have the blog button.  This is the part of modern technology I really hate.  Oh well!

Tough Choices

History has a way of repeating itself whether we try to avoid it or not.  This is something I have found to be a life truth.  My current example is with Kimberly.  We are soon going to be going to Disney World as a family.  My parents are going and it is a combination of a lifelong dream and a celebration of my mom's life after last year's brain aneurysm victory.  Kimberly (okay all of us) are of course truly excited, BUT...... She is worried about missing school, and mostly missing basketball.  Two weeks ago she made the A Team with all her friends and so of course this is the center of her life.  During our trip she will have to miss a key game against their archenemies!  She will also miss her little sister's 2nd birthday.  These are both big bummers.  It reminds me of when I was just a year younger then she is now and I go the AMAZING opportunity to go to 13 different countries for 6 weeks in Europe with my grandparents.  It was SO worth it and to this day it is something that I refer to often.  The educational value alone is unsurpassable.  But I was on a National History Day team with so great school friends and we won State and were going to Washington DC.  This too was an awesome opportunity but a choice had to be made.  I missed going to our nation's capital something I still have yet to do (except a quick and horrible drive on the outskirts in the rain with my Dad going crazy, but that is another story!)  Only few years later my Nana died and lots of my great memories of her are from that trip.  I think life gives us tough choices to determine our paths for the future and help us understand that life isn't easy!  So here we go!

To Do List

Today

-Count my blessings

-Practice kindness

-Let go of what I can't control

-Listen to my heart

-Be productive YET CALM

-Just breathe

Mom Moments

How Do We Spend Money and Time?

Sunday's sermon was on "Who we serve."  Some of the questions made me thinking.  What books do I read?  What movies do I own?  What are most of my debits made for?  Answers are funny!  Kids books, plenty of Disney, and chai should be stock holder makes me interesting.  The Lord is my guide but it is funny to investigate my "priorities."

Mom Moment/Memo

My Husband

I am blessed!  Most Mom's work and do it all at home.  I have been there and it is HARD.  I have been so lucky Doug and I are more a team.  Since he is home more now, he has been doing housework, homework with kids, lunches and dinners.  I truly couldn't function with out him.  I know he is a gift from God that keeps me sane.  Behind this crazy mom is a CRAZY dad!!!

Teaching Tips and Tidbits

Time

This year already I am feeling the crunch.  We have been in school 18 days and my team and I are already discussing report card testing,  I have been racking my brain trying to create engaging lessons that will help my little sweeties learn to identify their letters, numbers, colors, shapes and even their names.  It is so scary to think how far they need to be in such a short amount of time.  That is when my light bulb moment hit!  These darling minds are truly only with me 2 and a half hours a day (real time this is subtracting specials and recess).  Really (and very sadly) these kids probably have more TV time then time with me each day.  My solution.......PBS, Leapfrog Videos, Playhouse Disney,  ANY OF THESE!  They totally don't replace books and projects with parents but they beat Cartoon Network.  I am and will be again amazed how much these students learn this year in Kindergarten, but imagine what a difference just a different TV program to replace the "silly" show they are watching now would do for them.   I think I have a new SOAPBOX.  If I can't get kids to turn the TV off maybe I can get them to change the channel.  It would be exciting to see what happens with just a click of the remote!

Monday Mommy Moments

FISH!

This weekend I read a great book "FISH!" It was VERY inspiring!  It is geared for the work place but I want to share it as a Mom Moment.  There are four main ideas to create a successful work environment: choose your attitude, PLAY, make their day, and be present.

As a parent I feel it is very important for parents to share in their children's interests.  I really enjoy playing games, watching movies and tv shows we love, reading books, fixing hair, camping, and traveling.

I will admit that sometimes the Play part is not my weakness, but Being Present might be.  Well, we are watching Psych so I will discuss the be present idea some other time!

Monday Mom Moments

Thank You Notes

Why is this a dying activity?  I guess I am old because I love NOTES!  My kids really hate writing thank yous and drive me crazy about getting them done.  I think written personal communication is very important. I will agree that a quick e-mail etc. are a lot easier to get done but when someone sends a hand written note I take notice.  If I am alone, I hope it is something my kids remember me by.   Okay, I realize this is a cheesy thought but it's todays thought.

Monday Mom Moments

A Proverbs 31 Wife and Mom

I have always tried to be a Wife and Mom of Noble Character.  I look at verse 31:15 and do my best to get up before the rest of the house to exercise or work and try to wait until after the kids are asleep to work on projects.  No, I am not the best cook (thank heavens for Doug) but I do try to bring Doug good and not harm all the days of his life.  I just think that my kids need to know that anything we do we do to the best of our ability.  However, I am a little worried that they will only remember me as a "workaholic" and not the "fun mom."  I want them to remember me watching movies, playing games like sequence, getting my hair braided, listening and reading books, and laughing at pintrest jokes with them.  I guess I need to remember what my mom always said, "Don't burn the candle at both ends."  Maybe I will let this entry end so I can watch Gidget with my Kimberly?  Duh..........

Tuesday Teaching Tips/Tidbits

Music is a MUST

My new assignment this year is Kindergarten at one school in the morning and another elementary in the afternoon.  This means that things are different!  I am not just talking about a different group of kids but the room, the materials and schedules are just, well DIFFERENT!  However, the curriculum is the SAME.  Today, in our curriculum the main objective was teaching "Listening Skills."  In the morning I have a SmartBoard which allows me to set up some cool "sound bites."  So in the afternoon I truly wanted my students to enjoy this lesson too, so....music to the rescue.  I used "Listen and Move" the kids LOVE remembering which sound stands for walking, running, skipping and more.  If you have limited resources make sure MUSIC is the priority.  Anything with a beat is better!

Monday Mom Memo/Moments

TV Shows From Childhood

One thing that makes me smile is sharing shows that I loved as a kid with my kids like: Little House on the Prairie, Giget, Growing Pains, Jem and the Holograms, My Two Dads, and Kate and Alley.  Tonight we added a new one to the list thanks to Netflix.  The kids get to watch "heros" in action.....The A Team.  Too fun!  There is just something about "Classic Television."  GOT TO LOVE IT!!!  Hee, hee!

Cherished Moments

Today I started back to school, officially.  This has been a great summer.  I have to say that one part of this summer that I will never forget is reading with Kimberly.  I have read with my kids since they were inside of me.  But as they have gotten older they have not wanted me to read to them as much and enjoy reading alone in their rooms.  Of course Jayden still loves to have a bedtime story but Kimberly is a lone bookworm.  However, this summer began with us camping at Hells Canyon for Memorial weekend.  Kimberly and I had to drive up later then the rest of the family.  Along the way Kimberly read the first book of the "Hunger Game" series.  I listened for two days and in that time we finished the first book.  When we got home we ended up buying the complete series at Costco.  Kimberly had already read these books in school and LOVED them.  In July when Kimberly returned from her dad's she read the second book to me and today with a biter sweet feeling she read the last pages of Mocking Jay.  The experience is over but our bond that developed is unbreakable. Even at a family picnic we had an archery activity and Kimberly impressed us all by hitting the inner circle of the bullseye.  Doug's comment was to call Kimberly, Kimness after her beloved Katness.  We have even seen the movie (twice, three times for Kimberly) but it is the reading time the intimate moments.  I can't explain the magic.  It is the signature of this summer.  It is one of my "cherished moments," with my sweet Angelfish or should I say Kimness!

Pay Attention to Your Children's Heroes

Do you recognize this show?  Let me tell you this is a favorite Net Flick series at our house.  It is a chance for  Doug and I to re-live our youth while the kids check out a man who has a cool gadget for just about everything and made out of just about anything as well.

However, today we experienced "Mini-Macgyver."  Jayden had gotten in big trouble earlier today for lying so.....(let me mention Doug was mowing the lawn and I was on the phone) Jayden came up to me and said "Mom, don't get mad I am telling the truth (words to mentally red flag)"..."I had a spark in my room and I don't want to go in there I am scared."  Okay, I am thinking what could this possibly mean?  He takes me first to the trash where he threw away a power cord.  OKAY, now I am freaked.  I go to his room where there is a black mark on his carpet and an extremely hot battery sitting next to the mark.  He then tells me that he cut the cord off an alarm clock and touched it to the battery (wait a minute something is missing, I decide to get Doug for back up on this).  As I head outside Jayden in toe, I inform him he could have burned the house down, etc.  Then Doug comes in and gets the important part of the story that the other end of the cord was actually plugged in!!!  He could have been electrocuted!  SCARY!!!! He cries and promise never again, later as we are relaying the story to Grandma and family it comes out, of course he was being MacGyver.  REMINDER: KIDS MACGYVER did all those things to HELP OTHERS!  No sparks!!! 

Moral of the story: Motives Matter!!!

Happy New Years 2012

Finally 2012

With photo blogging caught up to this year I am making a shift in my blogging style.  I am blessed to have Memory Manager (software that keeps your photos organized and allows for journalling).  So for this year I am going to begin to use my blog as more of a reflections tool.  I like to have pictures and will continue but I am not going to focus on the chronology of my family events as much.  This has been an eventful year already especially with my Mom medically.  I have been really reflecting on what my legacy with my children will be. In every choice that I make big or small I can hear my mom's wisdom.  I am SO blessed that she is still only a phone call away!  However, the fear of loosing her has made me wonder if my voice would still ring in my children's ear if somehow Jesus called me home early.  I feel like since I live in this amazing age of technology I need to use it!  So with those thoughts in mind welcome to my "mommy mind."

December 2011

 Christmas Eve at GG Darlene's

Everyone home for Christmas!

Christmas Day at Doug's parents

 Doug turns 35

Our first teenager!

November 2011

 We went to Winter Fest!  It was Jayden's 1st Christian Concert!  He got really tired but enjoyed bumping into Bob and Larry!

 Jayden lost his first tooth!

First Grade had a Thanksgiving POW WOW program.

I got to meet Jan Brett my FAVORITE children's book author!  Unfortunately I waited in line for hours and when I finally got to her I dropped and broke my camera.  No picture of us together or of Thanksgiving for that matter.  You can probably guess what one of my early Christmas presents was.

May-October 2011

BLOG FRUSTRATION!!!!

So I finally got into my BLOG!  Through this incredible process I have decided that I need to QUICKLY summarize last year and get current.  So if the next few post appear short that is why!

April 2011