Updates and Pics

I know that I haven't been posting any great news or thoughts lately. I've just been busy all day and then too tired at night to write anything. So, I'll try to give a brief update.

It has been three weeks since Girl's Camp (2 in my house) and we have managed to keep the house clean. It feels like the fighting and arguing has been better, but yesterday there was a resurgence that we need to get back under control. The house feels better though. Clean, a tiny bit quieter and not quite as much contention. The girls even seem to enjoy being in the same room although one or the other is always saying, "I'm switching back!" I think they feel that is a safe threat because they have been told that will not happen under any circumstance.

Cole is in big boy undies all the time now. Even at night. He goes before crawling in bed and then I take him again before I go to bed. If I ever wake early in the morning I take him again, just to make sure. I have to wash his bed clothes half of the mornings, but it is a start. He is telling me more often now and has even run to sit on the potty himself when I wasn't around. Yay! That is about $30 of savings a month (I buy cheap diapers).

Here are the few pictures that turned out on the night of the 4th. The first one makes me think of Harry Potter. Kiah's wand has chosen her! Next is a bearded Cole. The smoke looks like a beard to me and it is so funny. This was the first year that he got to hold the sparklers himself. Which may not have been good since you can see him chasing Ashlee in the next picture.


I made bread several times last week in an effort to not buy any. Here is a picture of how lovely they turned out.
Nathan and I also had a little bake off last night. You can read the full story about it HERE. I posted it all on my food blog as an entry in the GourmetGirlMagazine's Cupcake Crawl. They are chocolate peanut butter cupcakes made from scratch.

July Fun

Every year our neighborhood has a bike parade. I think it gets bigger every year. Kiah wasn't feeling well today, but the other three enjoyed it. This was Cole's first year riding in it.

Yesterday the kids pulled out the slip and slide. It was fun to watch them spin and slide. It took awhile for them to get all of the gum balls out from under the slide though.

And this...was a slice of chocolate heaven. It is a recipe created for Stephanie Nielsen from the NieNie Dialogues. If you want to learn more about it, you need to go check out my food blog.

Random Pictures from June

Here are some of the pictures that I didn't have time to blog about until now. Some are from our zoo trip and some are the boys just playing around. Enjoy!

Progress Update

My last post really got some good comments. I really enjoyed reading every one's thoughts and input. I thought I would post a little update on how things are going in our home this week.

Things have been wonderful! Every morning we get up and all the chores have to be done before we can watch TV or go to the pool. The nice thing is that they cleaned on Monday and have kept things mostly clean. So, Tuesday and today it only took about 10 minutes and everything was done. Not fighting or micromanaging their cleaning has given me extra energy to keep the kitchen clean. (Well it is actually a mess right now because I had a late night chocolate craving and baked something yummy and messy!)

Between the pool and playing with the neighborhood kids, my kids have not had time to fight with each other. At least not very much. :) I haven't even put any "plan" into action. I have noticed that when I tell them something my voice sounds different. Maybe they can just tell that I am serious this time. It has been really nice. Now, the test is to see if I can make it last.

Oh, and Lindsey, I regularly record Ashlee throwing her tantrums and make her watch them. I'm always threatening to post them on this blog. I hope you never get to see one, but now that I am following through with all my "threats" you just might get the chance. I really hope not!

Camp Epiphany

Ok, so I'm having one of those days. It doesn't help that my allergies have been knocking me down for almost a week now. I have had a very busy two weeks in which I have come to realize many things about myself. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with this new information and I'm so worn out tired that I don't even know where to start. But if I don't start today I will lose the motivation to do anything about it, so I'm going to ramble on this blog for a bit. :)

I enjoyed two wonderful kid free weekends with my hubby. The house was clean, quiet, peaceful. Nathan and I could actually have a conversation without kids screaming, fighting, spilling, breaking, slamming, crying, or any other nerve shattering noise. It was blissfully wonderful. A tiny and I do mean tiny part of me felt guilty for not missing my children, but in my defense I was very busy at camp and had 20 something girls to mother so there wasn't time to miss them.

At camp I realized a very important truth about my relationship with my children. My epiphany came on a night when several girls were angry with me for a simple mistake. I had the first level girls and many of them were very homesick. At our camp the girls slept in cabins with their levels not wards, and so many sisters were split up. Some had a VERY hard time with this. One girl would sit in our cabin as late as possible crying every night and begging me to let her stay with her sister. I wanted to let her, but we did not have any extra beds and the rules were they needed to stay in their own cabins to sleep. There are lots of good reasons for this, but I didn't even think about them until Friday, and this is why.

During the week a leader told me that on Friday nights, the last night of camp, the girls could switch cabins and sleep with their friends. So each night that I had to separate the two sisters I would say, "it is just a few more nights until Friday, hang in there" or something similar. Friday night came and these sisters and a few friends took their things and went to another cabin. I knew where they were so I didn't think much about it until it was time for lights out. I had 2 cabins of girls (don't worry their were lots of other leaders helping) and I had gone to the other cabin to say goodnight. One of the leaders mentioned that the one girl was missing and would I please walk her over. I told her where she was and learned that I had been misinformed as to the Friday "tradition" of switching cabins.

Well, I felt horrible and slightly terrified because now I had to fix it and I am not good at being firm when it comes to things like this. I was smart enough to ask this other leader to come with me because I knew my weakness. These girls were really defiant and rude when we found them and told them what needed to happen. I felt horrible and tried to explain that I had the wrong information and apologized but that is not what they wanted to hear. They were very angry with me and it hurt my feelings because I really wanted them to be happy and have a good time at camp. I had also gone out of my way to try and be friends with the first level girl and give her hope that it would all be worth it. I also just hate it when people are mad at me, always have been and always will be.

The same thing happens in my home with my children. I love them so much and want them to be happy and have the things they want. They know this, and they know how to take advantage of it. They love and respect me, but they do not respect my authority as the parent. They do not believe me when I say "no" because they know if they throw a tantrum I will eventually give in. They can go for hours and it wears me down! Plus, I can clean it faster and better anyway, right?

The problem is that they get away with it, don't learn anything, and I wear myself out trying to keep everyone happy. But, I'm not happy. So I need to be a better parent when it comes to "This is the family rule, end of discussion" Do you know what I mean? Maybe it is because I read that Parenting with Love and Logic book so long ago. I'm always trying to explain why I said what I said and what the consequences are so they can make a good choice. Unfortunately, it seems to be a waste of time. They are kids and all they need to know is that it is the way it is Because I Said So. My kids talk to me in ways that I never would have dreamed of talking to my parents. I would have been smacked into next week.

So what am I going to do about it? Any ideas? I'm making a detailed daily schedule in the hopes that getting organized with our time will help. I'm also going to print out our family rules so that no one can say they "forgot" or just "didn't know". But what are my consequences? We don't do sleep overs so I can't take that away. We have put a lock on the TV so they can't watch it anyway. They have very few toys and they seem to like being "sent to their room". The only thing left is to take away the Wii, which I do every time they fight over it anyway. I'm at a loss as to how to make the change be affective. There has to be consequences, but what? No pool? I'll die! Please post any suggestions you might have.

I thought that I could start a positive reinforcement that I am borrowing from camp--Her majesty of the day--what the girls fondly called the commode award. I'll have to call it something else since I have boys too. But you can earn this by getting all your chores done without complaining and by being obedient. You then get to ask each member of the family to do something for you--such as clear your plate for you after dinner, bring something to you, pick the show of the night, etc. I can see my kids really getting into that so we will have to have a whole set of rules just for that. Any thoughts?

Happy Father's Day! and other stuff...

What a nice day today was, although it was a little sad too. My kids are still in TN with their Granny and so they were not here for Father's Day. That is the sad part. When the primary children sang at church I was sad because they were not here for Nathan, but there were still bright moments for him today. He got to sleep in late and since I didn't have to worry about getting four other people ready for church I made him a nice breakfast. (Egg and cheese croissants with fruit and dip.) After church we had a nice quiet dinner without anyone complaining about the food. So, I guess what I'm getting at is that we haven't missed them too much yet. :) The house has been clean for the whole week, spotless in fact, and very quiet. I think we both needed that. In fact, Nathan has been working hard all week on a project for the girls.

Adam and Ashlee have been sharing a room, but we feel they are too old to continue doing that. In order to help the girls get along better in their room, we have tried to make it nice for them. There are no before pictures because the room was completely trashed. Embarrassingly icky! I don't think there was a surface that had not been written on by someone (and not Cole). Nathan patched holes and painted the room. Then he took down the bunk beds so that each girl has her own "side". Eventually, we will accessorize and make them some duvet covers that won't clash with the walls, but here is where we are now.Isn't Nathan awesome! He did all of that while I was at girl's camp. I helped moved personal items back and forth tonight so that it will almost be done when the kids come home.

So, today I really got to enjoy being with my hubby and thinking about all the things that I love about him. I've known him for so long that it is very easy to take some things for granted. He has always been this amazing person. I remember when we were youth thinking that he was the kind of boy I wanted to grow up and marry. He kept high standards and values, was fun to hang out with (he could always make me laugh and still can), and he had this talent for making you feel like you were the most important person in the room. As a teen he was very busy. He was in lots of clubs, swim team, student government, plus all of the church activities. Because of that I never realized that he was shy until after we were married. As time went by, I found myself hoping that not only would I marry someone like Nathan, but that I would marry Nathan himself. He had been my standard, or ruler for so long that it finally hit me to stop comparing and keep the ruler. :)
As the years have gone by and our lives continue to change with the addition of children, moves across country, school, jobs, church callings, etc, I have come to love and respect him even more. He works so hard to provide for our family and still manages to come home and play games with our children. They love him so much! He has never avoided church responsibilities which has greatly blessed our whole family. We have been able to grow our testimonies together over the years thanks to his willingness to serve. You may wonder what his favorite calling is? Primary pianist. Yep, he loves being in with the kids and listening to their sweet voices.

My favorite thing about my hubby? He is an awesome dancer and kisser. Oh, and he helps me clean regularly! You don't get any more Prince Charming than that!

Sutherlands Exteriors--AKA our new roof

ATTENTION: This is going to be an advertisement. *wink* Just so you know and can choose whether or not to read it. With all the talk of trying to live more providently, I thought I would take the chance and use the resources that I have and take advantage of a money making opportunity.

And now...the WEBFOMERCIAL--
It looks like we had our little party just in time! This morning the guy showed up to drop off our shingles. I thought it would be a few more days before they actually started on the roof, but 15 minutes later a crew showed up. I am excited to get all of the work done. We had some hail damage (and our roof is 16 years through a 20 year life span anyway) so our insurance company is covering the majority of the job.

Sutherlands Exteriors was coming through our neighborhood and giving free quotes. The guy was very nice, easy to talk to, and coming from some one who works off of "how things feel", felt very honest and up front about everything. He walked us through the process so that it was easy and painless. We have a $1000 deductible, but the company "bought" $250 worth of advertising from us--meaning we put a sign in our yard for the last month. Easiest $250 I think we have ever made. If you live in the Charlotte, Huntersville area and you need a new roof, now is the time to have it looked at. There are lots of assessors in town and they are aware of the hail damage. They've seen so much of it that they know it is in town. Anyway, if you call Sutherlands at 704-784-0043 and tell them that we referred you, and then you actually use them to replace your roof, I get $100. They will offer you the same referral plan and you can refer people and earn money as well. I've already referred two people; Christmas money!

Sutherlands uses CertainTeed 25 or 30 year shingles. We are getting the black XT 25 year shingles. It is all black with a little sparkle to it. You know how we love the bling!

Let me know if you called them and how it goes. That way I can keep on them to print my checks *wink*