First Day of School for Mommy

Knowing I would want to seek out the fun of this transition of both kids going off to school, I planned a party. What better way to start the day than to drop off the kids, and invite a bunch of awesome women over for donuts and milk to celebrate!  I opened the playroom to their youngest children and we all chatted and enjoyed a good sugar rush!

Relax and Grin, School is IN! Don't mind the weeds.

Anjuli Hancock, Annie Kenworthy, Melonie Florcik, myself, Tracie Goodworth, Kate McCrea, Tresa Frost, Cherri Hardcastle, Maria Schulz, Crystal Hill, Crystal Mattson, not pictured: Kari Garvin, Carrie Sue Isom, Laurie Gregg, Ashli Brown, Kimberly Wilson

One mommy said, "Don't you feel sad at all?" Yep. Holding my husband's hand on the way home from a date, I got teary last Friday night. "I'm going to miss our babies."  What else can you do or say.  I just told my fellow mommy that I was allowing myself to feel the whole span of emotions.

The rejoicing party went really well.  There was a good showing. I got to circle around and talk with everyone. And the little ones did a great job playing nice.  After sweeping up the doughnut glaze flakes, I was off for some "me" time. 

Pretty piggies! I even splurged and got the design. An excellent way to launch into the school year!  Now the laundry...

First Day of School for the Kids

They did a great job waking up and they were even ready before leaving time!  Time to snap a few shots of my sweet babies before going off.

Real life.

Posing Pretty

Real life

Getting closer (my favorite one)

"Normal"

They both had a great day.  Both were smiling ear to ear when I picked them up.  Sophie was impressed with a story her teacher read, "Hooway for Wodney Wat".  Rhys liked that they did freeze dance during PE and that he got to play with a friend he knew at recess. Not bad.

Back to School Parade and Meet the Teacher Night

It's the week before school starts here. We have been practicing getting up early and following a set routine with visual and verbal reminders. In making the visual schedule, I searched images to match and was surprised to find naked women pop up on one or two.  How those pictures are in anyway related to what I was searching is beyond me but there they were and, sadly, with my 7-year-old daughter right beside me.  In my astonishment, I said, "Whoa! Hang on a minute." while I tried to get the image away from us.  My daughter was spacing out and never saw the pictures but as my "Whoa!" she was asking what happened.  This was actually great because she didn't see the garbage and we were able to discuss what types of images are inappropriate and what to do when they pop up.  I know it's a when and not an if these days.  I hope she'll follow my example the day it happens to her.

We also had our special Family Home Evening this past Monday.  It is our tradition to 1.) discuss the importance of learning both spiritual and temporal, 2.) read The Kissing Hand, so they know their family loves them no matter what as they go off, and 3.) have Neal give them a priesthood blessing so they know their Heavenly Father's love for them and his will for them.  We end the evening with hand shaped sugar cookies with a chocolate Hershey's kiss in the palm.  I freeze two so I can also slip one into their lunchbox the first day of school so they know we are thinking of them.

This year marks the inaugural Back to School Parade for our local elementary.  The teachers piled into cars and with a police escort meandered through the school boundaries to be cheered by students, neighbors, and families.

Sophie received her postcard in the mail this week to find Mrs. Steele is her second grade teacher!  I like her.  She is super friendly.  We'll see how Sophie and Mrs. Steele's chemistry works this year but until I see otherwise, we are expecting the best.  Mrs. Steele is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we have found through conversation and attending church activities.

Rhys will have to wait to find out who his official kindergarten teacher will be.  At Story, they sort of take note of the kids and expose them to all the kinder teachers the first week.  Then they find if they remain with their homeroom teacher or a new kindergarten teacher.  It hopefully (fingers crossed) makes for more balanced classes.  For my kids, I see this as great.  For more timid or delicate kids, this may be more difficult.  We will see.

Back to the parade.  So we prepared for the parade.  We made our posters, collected noise makers, loaded the wagon with lawn chairs, and picked out our tied-dyed shirts.  Since we live on a circle, the parade route was one street over, so we knocked on our neighbor's door and asked if we could make a ruckus that morning in front of her house.  She was very obliging.

Packed the wagon the night before and on schedule we were ready as the parade arrived!  The teachers and staff at our elementary school did great decorating cars, making signs, and cheering their heads off.  We rose to the occasion as well.  It was great, tons of fun, and short in duration.

 

 

After spending the morning swimming with friends, we made our way over to the school that late afternoon for Meet the Teacher Night.  We filled out yet more forms for our kinder kid, PTA, and volunteer opportunities, happily unloaded our children's school supplies, and checked out their new rooms.  Sophie and Rhys are in the same hall this year.

We all were glad to have a good start so we celebrated with In-N-Out because I forgot to defrost an ingredient and purchase another for dinner. Oh well! 

Neal Teaches Women About Security on Digital Devices

Nineteen women showed up to hear Neal present on the topic of safeguarding their computers and digital devices.  He took several evening to prepare a PowerPoint presentation and handouts for the Releif Society activity this month.  His presentation lasted about 45 minutes and covered password protection, filters, parental controls, apps for one's family to avoid, and apps to consider to help your family.  He did a great job and answered several questions.  The women express appreciation and the handout was made available to all of the women of the organization through email.

The information he provided was valuable to both the mothers and single women there, both the young and the mature. However, it was also noted that having a good knowledge of the threats and the controls was not enough. Sister Linda S. Reeves, Second Councilor of the General Relief Society Presidency, was quoted saying, " Filters are useful tools, but the greatest filter in the world, the only one that will ultimately work, is the personal internal filter that comes from a deep and abiding testimony of our Heavenly Father’s love and our Savior’s atoning sacrifice for each one of us."

"How do we lead our children to deep conversion and to access our Savior’s Atonement? I love the prophet Nephi’s declaration of what his people did to fortify the youth of his day: “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, [and] we prophesy of Christ … that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.” - 2 Nephi 25:26 from The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ

"Brothers and sisters, because I know from my own experiences, and those of my husband, I must testify of the blessings of daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening. These are the very practices that help take away stress, give direction to our lives, and add protection to our homes. Then, if pornography or other challenges do strike our families, we can petition the Lord for help and expect great guidance from the Spirit, knowing that we have done what our Father has asked us to do."

You may read the entirety of her talk here, Protection from Pornography--a Christ-Centered Home.

Thank you to my husband who is beyond wonderful to share his knowledge and take his personal time to prepare to help our women and their families.

Transitioning

I have loved my time with my children as a stay at home mom of infant and preschool age children. It has been grueling at times; pure joy at others. Everyone tells you to enjoy the ride because you will miss those years (this goes for each stage of parenting). I have decided to embrace my children moving on to public school.  Yes, both are going to full day school this year and I will find myself in some new circumstances.  I will miss buddying around with my kids, most recently Rhys, as I run errands, and the ever present noise in the house.  But I have decided to celebrate their next step, as well, as a new era for me. I really feel I put everything I had into those first few years for my kids.  Did I do it perfectly? No way!  I accept I am mortal.  I have learned a lot about myself as I develop as a parent/adult.  The kids have come along nicely too.  Looking forward to enjoying what this new chapter brings.

Farwell to Summer

This summer has been wonderful for a lot of reasons but the cooler temperatures this year have been a real blessing.  It has also increased our desire to get and stay outdoors without feeling like wilted, squashed cabbage leaves.

What has happened this summer? Concerts in the park, swimming, splash parks, sand parks, weekly $1 movies, bowling, play dates with cousins, our public library's reading program, children's events at the library, cooking, building indoor forts, drawing, and chances to serve in our community and church.

We also set off a rocket the kids got for Christmas and found it traveled a lot further than we thought and that it was illegal to set it off where we did. Oops!  No citations, just better planning next time--as we have two rockets and lots of chances to send them up.

We also got out the the Dallas Arboretum during their $1 days to explore their new Children's Adventure area.

A real big deal this summer is that Sophie took the leap and started riding her bike all on her own.  She had been using training wheels up until summer started and we took the pedals off so she could practice balancing and gliding.  She also improved balance by using the scooter.

Then upon one of our practice sessions with the pedals back on we were headed around a small park,  Rhys, with his training wheels, was squeaking his horn with reckless abandon. I was providing some verbal guidance and encouragement, but not too much, I thought, when Sophie respectfully said, "I just need Rhys to STOP honking his horn and I want you to just leave me alone."  So as an unintentional helicopter parent, I moved off into the distance and continued my walk, when I hear not 5 minutes later, "Mom! I'm riding my bike!"She has been riding great ever since and wanting to go quite far at our local parks.  Way to go, Sophie!

Remembering Mom

Since Neal's mother's passing a year and a half ago, we have started a tradition to honor her around her birthday.  We do a family service project because of her giving heart and concern for the well being of others.  Last year we stuffed bags at a food pantry in Princeton. This year we decided to keep it a little closer to home because we step into the community quite a bit and we needed to refocus our respect and kindness on our family members.

For one week, we all had to do at least 2 acts of kindness/service for each family member per day. We made a wall chart with stickers, as parents we a talked about it each day and well, it failed miserably!  So we rediscussed it and gave it another week and there was ever-so-slight improvement. Neal really blew us all away that first week and Keri was able to catch up that second week but the kids were just--uhg!

So it failed Grandma Sue, but hey, we did try and try some more.

It was not long after this happening that Keri had arranged for the kids to go to McDonald's for them to use their much anticipated dental coupon for a free cone.  We hit McDonald's twice a year for this reason alone--good 6 month dental check ups.

They wanted to go to another McDonald's not near our house and Keri considered it but found out through other more regular attending mothers that the one closest to our house had a much better play area, it was cleaner, and, this one is important in the summer, had better air conditioning.  So they were told that I had thought about the two options and had decided on the one closest to us.

At this news you would have thought I had killed a kitten in front of them (okay, slight exaggeration). Their was wailing and gnashing of teeth and don't even get me started on the whining and "boss mom around" talk I was getting. Suddenly, there was no McDonald's option at all.  What?! What just happened? Yep, yanked that out from under their stomping feet.

This was followed up with a quick reminder that the only things they were entitled to were food, clothes, a roof, and to be raised up in the gospel by a father and a mother.  Everything, including their preferences on the absolutes were privileges. I reminded them when I am treated with respect, I am more likely to respond in a positive way.

The next two weeks were awesome and then they got another quick reminder when we had to cancel an all day play date with their much loved cousins which included a trip to the movie theater and a well liked splash park, for disrespectful talk.

The remainder of the summer has been, um, well. AWESOME! My little angel babies, although still able to have their own opinions, are much quicker to say "thank you " and "please", help out around the house, and choose their words more wisely.  They fight less.  I yell less.  It's become much better in our home.

So Susan, our family didn't need sticker charts after all to celebrate your generous nature.  We just needed reminders of what was an absolute and a privilege.  Thanks for the divine inspiration as we raise your grandbabies and grow as parents.

Upgrade

I am super excited to announce a new addition to our family--our new treadmill!  Thank you Craigslist for making it all possible.  I knew I wanted a treadmill that was several levels up from the one I was replacing, as I use it fairly regularly.  Yes, I like bells and whistles as much as the next guy and our new one has them, but it also a near commercial grade treadmill with the right motor and cushioning deck my ego and aging joints need.

When we went to pick it up (thanks to Opa, his truck and muscles) we already knew it was 2 years old but were very happy when we found it only had 100 miles on it!  And it was $50 over our budget but a steal so we went for it.  They go for 2 grand and we got it for what I would have paid for a low end model.

I still like to get outside to run and I have my down times but I am loving it!  I feel it is essential for Texas summers and winters. 

Neal taking the old treadmill around the back for pick up (Rudy at the wheel).