Interesting

I found a link to a blog today that interested me.
It's a blog for Young Women Leaders in the LDS church. I was called to teach the 12-14 year old girls for a few months and it was hard sifting through the old lessons and rephrasing things to make them more applicable and not so out of date.

That is exactly what this blog does. They discuss young women lessons and how to make the lessons better and more positive for the girls.


There was one lesson that was given while I was in young women's in which of portion of it nearly made me gag as scripted answers were given. I so wish I would have said something, but I was new and didn't speak up.
This is the link to that lesson.
The part that is quoted on the blog is the EXACT thing I had an issue with.

"Georgia's teacher at school has often told her that she has a fine scientific mind and that to be married and have a family would be wasting her abilities. How does this advice conflict with the Lord's standard? How can Georgia use her abilities in fulfilling her divine role? Which trees should she cling to in deciding about her future?"

Of course the answer that was given by the girls and affirmed by the teacher was that Georgia's divine role was to be a mother and that family/motherhood {and staying at home} should be her priority and not be put off. She SHOULDN'T further her education and make use of the great mind that Heavenly Father had given her because her gift of a great mind will be used while being a mother {and was one of the reasons why she was given that gift}.

Why can't she do both? What would be wrong with her working and her husband staying home? Surely father's have a divine role to be parents and love and nurture their children as well.
I see her divine role as one to bring children into the world. That is an amazing thing. However, that doesn't mean that her life from there on out is defined as being solely a mother.
Women have great abilities and are just as smart or smarter than their spouse and can excel as a working woman. I think that if they want to and enjoy learning and working, there is NOTHING wrong with that. Who's to say that using one's mind and skills to provide for their family (while still being a mother) isn't fulfilling her divine role?

The thing that really rubbed me wrong is that this was given in a lesson of being the Lord's standard.
That as we do little things and make little choices Satan slowly binds us "with flaxen cords".
I very much felt like we were telling the girls through sharing that little story and giving the fixed answers we were telling them that the Lord's standard is that they should be giving motherhood priority, however great their mind and desire to work is.

I think that sharing such a message can be dangerous. What degree of guilt will these girls have when they have to decide to have a family/go to grad school/work? Will there be tearful prayers wondering if they are going against the Lord's standard and not fulfilling their divine role to be a mother? Will many feel pressured to simply submit and be unhappy with their choice and their wasted talent?

It just makes no sense to me how we can encourage education and developing one's talents and skills and yet tell the women in our church that they belong at home raising children.

A family is made up of 2 parents who equally love and have equal ability to nurture and care for children. And even if both parents work, there is still a LOT of family time to love and nurture those children.
Let's NOT teach the women in our church and especially our young women to feel like they are being led away by Satan if they do choose the path of further schooling and working.

Alex's meals yesterday

Breakfast: the usual. Daddy Cereal (aka Frosted Mini Wheats).

Lunch: when given the option of PB sandwich, chicken nuggets, or a turkey sandwich, he opted for a turkey sandwich (uhh... that never happens. Especially with the aforementioned competitors.). I went out on a limb and asked if he wanted lettuce on it and was greeted with an enthusiastic yes. While making the sandwich, he informed me that he wanted "leaves" (aka spinach) on it. Sure thing buddy!

Dinner: We went to Kneaders and offered Alex chicken noodle soup which is always a sure thing. He denied the offer and opted for a cup of fruit that he saw in the display (and informed us that he wanted vegetables. LOL!). So he had cantaloupe, some honeydew (wasn't the biggest fan of it), and a few grapes and sliced strawberries for dinner.
Lest you think we neglected him, we fed him a PB sandwich at home (by the time he wanted some of our sandwiches that we offered him at Kneaders, they were gone. YUM!).

For dessert we somehow convinced him to skip the snowflake cookie@ Kneaders that he desperately wanted in exchange for ice cream at home. Score!


So apparently, minus the goldfish snacking and ice cream, it was a pretty darn good day. It's days like these that make my little mama heart flutter with pride. I'm obviously doing something right, right?

The secret to my recent blogging everyday

My parents tell me that they always laugh when they see posts from me show up at crazy times like 1 and 2 in the morning.
Really, they shouldn't be surprised. Old habits die hard.

I've found a way to keep my crazy hours top secret. And, conveniently to post on my blog every day. Scheduled posts.
AMAZING.

Pretty much if I'm sitting here at the computer and think of something I just have to blog about, I do it. And then I schedule it for the next available day.
I'm writing this post on Monday night. You will be reading it on Thursday. This means that I have 3 days to come up with something new to blog about. Or I have 3 days to write a really long post full of pictures about how awesome my kids are lately.

Oooo... maybe I'll even do a house tour seeing as we've lived in this house for 6 months now and the only pictures you've seen are of the outside. I'm feeling more confident of my space and getting things decorated, which is a LONG process for me. Seriously- it took me almost 4 years in TX and there were still things I wanted to do.
Plus, I like the excuse to get things all pretty and organized. I have a few problem areas in my house where things got put but not really organized since their "home" had not yet been found that I'd LOVE to get cleaned out.
Now I'm all excited for a project. And that I have at least 3 days of cheat time to do alot of it where I don't feel like I have people breathing down my neck waiting for me to post pictures. :)

This blogging in advance thing is awesome.

Unless of course you ruin the secret by hitting post before scheduling the post. Go me!
Those who don't use a reader will never know the difference. Those with... just pretend you didn't see this post like 3 days ago.

You're just kidding me mama

I asked Alex to turn off the tv the other day because we were done watching movies for the day.
Of course, this resulted in protesting and some crying before I quickly squashed that with a, "if you act like that when I tell you we are done with movies today then you will not be watching any movies tomorrow".
The crying stopped quickly, but a few seconds later Alex told me, "you're just kidding me Mama".

It was all I could do to keep from laughing and I'm not so sure that he didn't hear the smile in my response when I told him, "No, I am not just kidding you. No more movies today."

Not to be let down so easily, we went through several more rounds of the kidding/not kidding until Alex relented and went to play in his room.

I'm glad that all it took was a convincing that I was indeed NOT kidding him.

What the....

Last night we had some taco casserole thing and salad (romaine/spinach) for dinner. Alex decided he didn't want any casserole (except for his required bites) and opted instead for salad.
Even weirder was that he was munching on spinach leaves plain before dinner started and stated that he liked leaves.
This is the same kid that was telling me DAYS ago that he didn't like lettuce/spinach.
I don't know what happened, but we'll definitely take it!

More videos!

I have some pretty funny (and weird) kids.

this is Alex "dancing". I'm not quite sure where he picked up this dance move, but it's quite silly. Excuse the messy living room...




Alex has been playing Burnout 3 on the xbox and "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones is a song on there. Apparently, it quite the catchy tune for 1 and 4 year olds because they both can't help dancing whenever it comes on. Here's Kaitlyn showing off her moves!




This one is pretty typical of Kaitlyn. A week or so ago she was obsessed with sitting on different things, this was just one of many.




Then on Thursday we were at Ikea picking up some random stuff and I got this pack of cork trivets for our table since we've been getting heat marks (it's a painted table). Kaitlyn thought it would be HILARIOUS to throw them over the side of the cart. What was more hilarious was how much she would laugh. Seriously, the hardest I have EVER heard her laugh. The video shows the tail end of the laughing. She was laughing harder than the hardest she was laughing in the video. It totally made my day.
I also love Alex in the video turning off all the lamps. Silly boy.

Enntering a giveaway for a Silhouette for my sister

So my sister wants to get all crafty with a Silhouette. She's even talking craft rooms.
In order to get her to fully embrace her craftiness (because I love having nearby people to craft with), I am doing my part to try to get her to win a Silhouette.
Darn. I think I just missed an entry deadline on another blog. boo.

here it is. do not enter.
http://tinyurl.com/6joxqun

Videos

Just thought I'd post some videos I uploaded recently!

In relation to the Polar Express post, here is a video of Alex when we got to the station and were ready to get out of the car. So cute!



This was months ago, but he's been watching The Polar Express for months. Here he is dancing to one of the songs on the movie




Here is Kaitlyn making some animal sounds



Here's a more recent video of Alex dancing. A little back story behind the shaking his belly: he was watching Imagination Movers and they had Santa on there that couldn't laugh which they discovered was because his belt was too tight so his belly couldn't shake like a bowl full of jelly.
So Alex now likes to dance and shake his belly like a bowl full of jelly. :)




And this is another old video of Alex dancing. The first part brought Jon and I almost to tears it's so hilarious. Yes, he's just in his undies... that just adds to the hilarity.




And since I'm showing HILARIOUS videos, I don't think I ever posted about Jon's llama attack.

Jon's Grandpa and Uncles have a sheep farm, so we took Alex up there to see the sheep. Alex LOVED feeding the sheep.
Grandpa Charlie needed Jon to go in and get some rope that was in the sheep pen.
One of Jon's cousin's had gotten a llama to protect the sheep, so he was in there. Jon got a first hand lesson on exactly how llamas do that. :)
Oh and I'm telling Jon to get Alex out because the goat that was in there was getting closer and closer to Alex and he was NOT a nice goat.



And the llama aftermath



lesson learned... never turn your back on a llama!

THIS is the POLAR EXPRESS!

We kicked off our Christmas season with a ride on the "North Pole Express" (aka The Polar Express).

Alex was SO SO SO excited! He's been watching and reading The Polar Express all year. When we pulled up to the station and saw the train, Alex was positively giddy. It was ADORABLE and so fun to watch as a parent.

When we were on the train, everything that our MC said Alex repeated in an excited voice after she said it. It was HILARIOUS! So for example, the MC was talking about the history of the train and said something that ended in 1912 and Alex goes, "NINETEEN TWELVE!!!" It had us all laughing.

We had a good time drinking hot cocoa made by some cocoa chefs, eating cookies, singing Christmas songs, and seeing Santa. I think that Alex was a little unimpressed by The North Pole. It's MUCH bigger and like a city in the movie/book. On our little ride, it was a couple of trees and some presents. LOL.
He also asked my mom where the wolves were. We got a good laugh out of that one.

Still, Alex thoroughly enjoyed every second and we enjoyed every second of watching him. It was completely magical to him. What a fun, fun way to start off the Christmas season.

Despite his face in this picture, he really was excited. He just wasn't excited to be sitting on a freezing cold metal train.





this picture would have rocked had the flash worked!



looking into the train!




Kate is excited!



REALLY excited!



Here we are in front of our car





So excited to be on the train! (this picture made me LOL!)



Looking out at the snow



All aboard!



Kaitlyn with the cocoa chefs



So many people to see!



Lovin' it!

Seriously. I suck.

Wow. It has really been forever since I've blogged.
I started a post over a month ago and didn't ever finish it.

Umm... so...brief synopsis of life to get everyone up to speed perhaps?

We'll go back to September...

My sister got married! She actually trusted me enough to take her engagement pictures (good thing since her photographer only just barely released all of her files to her 2 months after the wedding). She was a beautiful bride and had a gorgeous and fun "wedding party".

Alex actually started warming up to Kaitlyn! I think it's because she's become more interactive and loves to both laugh at her brother and make him laugh by being silly herself.

I love when I catch great looks like this

one of my new favorite pictures of Alex. It makes a FABULOUS desktop background. :)

So cute!

Alex had a birthday. He turned 4. He was SO excited to have a party! We went to Kangaroo Zoo with his cousins, then to McDonald's for his birthday dinner, and then home for the party with the fam. He requested a Lightning McQueen cake and since I had been rushing all day to get a couple of mermaid costumes mailed, we bought a last minute cake little cake at the grocery store that had oreo crumbs around the outside edge that we put his Cars cars on like they were on a racetrack and then put green sprinkles in the middle of the cake like grass.

And he loved it.

Halloween!

Alex was a frog (again. Halloween was far too crazy this year with mermaid sewing to make him something new. Plus, he loved being a frog anyway, so it was all good!) and Kaitlyn was... a mermaid. I was SO thrilled that it was actually warm the day before Halloween when we were out doing Halloween-y stuff and Kaitlyn didn't even have to wear a onsie with her costume! It felt like Texas and I was THRILLED.

Alex and his cousin who made an ADORABLE Snow White. Sooo... a princess and a frog, right?

I wasn't very successful at getting a good shot of all 4 kids, obviously.

This is all that Kaitlyn was interested in doing

Mmm.... CANDY!

SOOO CUTE!!!!

Throwing a tantrum. Such a girl.

And onto November!

Kaitlyn turned 1. And she let me take some cute pictures of her on her actual birthday before her little party.

This is my FAVORITE and also makes a fabulous desktop background. :)

The girl has been able to stand for awhile, but she just doesn't really have the desire to walk more than a couple of steps here and there. She looks so cute standing there all by herself!

And since I was taking pictures of Kaitlyn, Alex wanted some of him too. He got such a kick out of making silly faces and looking at them on the camera afterward. Such a silly boy.

He gets this one from his daddy

Here are a couple of pictures of Kaitlyn's cupcake and cake. Not the greatest pictures, but it was a cute cake and, best of all, it was SUPER easy. :)

We got to spend our first Thanksgiving in 4 years with ALL of our family! That was fun! (Honestly though, I still love Thanksgiving with Kenn and Amy in TX) I'm used to being in charge of several things and this year I was in charge of just the cheese bowl and crackers. Talk about a step down!

We definitely missed being able to wear shorts and the ward Thanksgiving football game was far too cold to attend. Ahh... TX. I miss you.

Here are some pictures of Kaitlyn on Thanksgiving. Yes, that is all you get.

go utes!

The girl loved pushing the stroller/baby around... until she tipped over with it. Then she walked behind it crying. SO funny!

Cute little walking girl!

We got to visit with Santa at the first family Christmas party we've been able to attend in 4 years. The last time we went to this was when Jon and I were newly (6 months) married.

He looks like he's excited to be there, right? He asked for trains.

and Kaitlyn

happy she got a candy cane out of the deal

I don't have any pictures from December on my computer yet, so I guess I will have to blog that later. Hopefully you enjoyed the pictures and seeing the big events. I promise to have better blogging skills from now on. Remember when I used to blog every day? Ya... maybe I'll do that again. :)