Tag Archives: children

2016 New Years Resolutions

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Photo by Krista Stufflebeam

Photo by Krista Stufflebeam

I made a few resolutions this year. I’ve still got my second 101 Goals in 1001 Days going on, but after studying the scriptures for the Young Women’s Personal Progress Virtue #1, I decided that I’d work on a few things from Proverbs 31.

“She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.” – Proverbs 31:17
“Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.” – Proverbs 31:25

I want to be stronger. I already have a few goals in progress that fit this bill, like swimming 10 miles by the end of my 101 goals. But, I want to focus on my arms. I have carpal tunnel in both of my arms. Currently it’s my left arm that is killing me, but it switches back and forth all the time. I have a bunch of stretches and exercises that my chiropractor and a physical therapist friend have given me that I want to do consistently. I would, also, like to lift weights. I have no idea how to do this properly, so I might take a class. I don’t want to get buff, but I do want to have the strength to carry my children around when I need to.

“She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.” – Proverbs 31:15

I want to get on a better sleep schedule. I used to be superb at this, but I’ve been a major slacker in adulthood. Last night, I went to bed before midnight, which I haven’t done in a long time. I woke up this morning, still wishing for more sleep, but able to take on the day. I have a salt lamp that I turn on in the evening, and I try to turn my electronics off before I climb into bed, so it’s easier to fall asleep. The hardest part will be giving up personal alone time, but I think it will make other aspects of my life more enjoyable, like parenting and housekeeping.

This isn't me, but this would be fun with the kids.

This isn’t me, but this would be fun with the kids.

“She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.” – Proverbs 31:26
“Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.” – Proverbs 31:28

And, finally, I want to focus more on my children. I want to play with them more and set up a good schedule for reading and homework. I want to consistently have family home evening and try to include them in my everyday life. I’d like to offer them the chance to cook with me when I’m cooking and clean with me when I’m cleaning. Not in a forceful way, but more in a let’s do something together kind of a way. There are a lot of things I want to teach my children, but it’s kind of impossible to do without having a good relationship with them.

I don’t typically make New Year’s resolutions, because I think resolutions and goals should be made constantly throughout the year, but this is as good a time as any to start these up, and I am very optimistic right now. My favorite thing about this is that they are spiritual, physical, and family all in one. The first goal I had before making these was to be more of a Proverbs 31 woman. These are just the smaller goals I set to accomplish that.

Lunchtime

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For the longest time, feeding kids lunch has eluded me. Once they got past the baby food and formula, and into the real stuff, I had no idea what to do for lunch. Breakfast and dinner were just fine, but lunch was impossible. Sandwiches simply aren’t an option for the toddler/preschool age, because they don’t understand why you would stack everything just so and then they can’t balance everything between the bread anyway. Even a simple tuna sandwich would be taken apart, the tuna eaten, and then the bread. For the longest time, I made soup, because it’s delicious and easy, but that was still too messy to continue for long. Then the raw foods craze came out, and I figured it out.

Chicken TendersOur lunches now consist of either chicken tenders or left overs and tons of raw fruit and vegetables. Protein and carbs, it’s a perfect meal for the middle of the day. I cook the chicken tenders in olive oil, so there is a bit of fat, but we get the majority of our fat from breakfast and dinner. (If you don’t know yet, I believe that saturated fat is good for you, and that olive oil is good in small amounts as well.…And actually I think everybody’s body is different so there is no one diet that will work for all.)

So, this is how lunchtime goes for us now. Starting around noon, I heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Then I add 3-4 frozen chicken tenders (Costco has the best.) After about five minutes, I flip them over and season the partially cooked side with Emeril’s Original Essence. It’s a fantastic spice blend that has become a staple in our household. Five minutes later, I flip them over again and season the newly cooked side. Then I flip them 1-2 more times until they are completely cooked. When the chicken is done, or very close, I get out a plate and pack it with fruits and vegies that are cut up or prepared in such a way that they make easy finger food for my kids. For example, baby carrots just go straight on the plate, grapes are washed and left on the vine, oranges are peeled and pulled apart, bananas and cucumbers are peeled and sliced into discs, and apples are cut into slices.

Fruit and Vegie PlateThen I stick the fruit and vegie plate between my girls, give them each a chicken tender, and we say a prayer on the food. Yes, I make them exercise self-control to not touch the food while we pray. It’s only 30 seconds max, and they handle it just fine. As soon as we’re done praying, they eagerly load their own plates up with whatever looks good to them. There are a few rules that they are required to follow. First, they must have one bite that they swallow of everything on the fruit and vegie plate. Second, they must have at least one more bite, beyond what they have already had, of chicken before they go for seconds from the fruit and vegie plate. They were resistant to these rules at first, but I stood my ground and stick to my word. If they have had one bite of a food and decided they don’t like it this time around, then I don’t make them eat any more of it. When they are finished, I have them clear their plates off the table, but leave the fruit and vegie plate out with whatever is left over for them to snack on whenever they want. Around dinner time, I give whatever is left over after snacking to our chickens, who devour the rest of it.

Sometimes I pick one color as the theme of the plate, and other times I try to make a rainbow of colors. When I first started, almost everything I put out were fruits and vegetables that they were already used to, but over time, I have been trying to expand their palates by trying a new fruit or vegie every so often. In the past I have done strawberries, raspberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, apples, pears, grapes, bananas, oranges, clementines, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and black olives. This week, I was able to buy more fruits and vegies than normal, so we have cucumbers, yellow cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and pineapple to try. When I put the sweet peppers out, the girls we very excited to try them, because they’re actually the ones who picked them out. As it turns out, that’s the one food they only took one bite of. Unfortunately for them, I have a whole bag of them, so they’re going to have to take one bite of them every day this week. Maybe I’ll give them some salad dressing to help with the taste. The cucumbers were devoured so fast that I almost didn’t get any for myself.

Remembering 9/11

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AdorableIt’s been twelve years since that terrible day. Life continues as normal, although we have since experience a recession that we never fully recovered from. I have children now, who have no idea such a thing has occurred on the land they live on. One day I will teach them of that event, and how I was there, and Daddy was there, and Grammy and Papa and aunts and uncles, but we were on the other side of the country, so we were just watching the news in horror that day. I had teachers that disobeyed rules so we could watch the news all throughout their class. I remember the second plane hitting, and the plane in Pennsylvania going down. I remember my mom talking to me about myths that had started spreading that weren’t true, and helping me understand what was going on.

The next day, the moment of silence took place while I was in my health class. I wrote a poem in my English class. It wasn’t very good, because I was still too young to fully grasp what had happened. In my poem, though, I wrote about how we Americans came together and supported each other and loved one another. In my short life, I had never seen America so united, and it was wonderful and inspiring, and sadly short lived. For now, I teach my children about patriotism. They love the flag, and keep begging for fireworks. They got to see my cousin receive his Eagle Scout award, where they experienced a flag ceremony with a color guard and a room full of at least 50, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. And, one day, I will teach them about that day when something terrible happened, and America united.

You Know You’re a Mom When… #1

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IMG_20130707_182640Yup, that is the back of my smart phone. I take many of the pictures on this blog with it. Today, I was making dinner, and heard Lizzy saying something about my phone. So, I went into the living room, and found Leah coloring on the back of my phone. I haven’t tried to clean it off yet, and I’m almost inclined to just leave it. It’s kind of a cute case, specially designed by my Leah baby.

How to Teach Colors

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Teaching the names of colors is much easier than I thought it would be, and now that we’re in the thick of it, I don’t know why I thought it would be so difficult. As much as colors are lumped in with art, the names themselves are actually a language thing. Good writers describe things using colors when it is warranted, and as a parent, that’s exactly what you should do.

Purple Shoes Green Tree Pink Flower

There’s no need to break out flash cards that will soon be torn to pieces or chewed on. Rather, talk to your child about all the different colors of things. “Where are your purple shoes? Do you see the green tree? Thank you for the pretty, pink flower.” This is a natural method that allows a child to learn at her own pace. Soon enough, she will be describing things to you using the colors you have taught her.

If you are the kind of parent that likes to evaluate if your efforts are paying off, feel free to ask, “What color is this tomato?” But, don’t worry or worse, over drill, if she can’t immediately answer, “Red.” She might need time to think about what you just asked, or to even figure out that you were asking her a question. She might not know what the word, “color,” means yet. Don’t fret. She’ll figure it out eventually. Just keep talking to her.

Memorial Day Tribute

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FamilyAs I write, someone is setting off fireworks, which is cool, considering that it’s Memorial Day weekend. We just finished a wonderful evening with family, remembering those we love, who are no longer with us. Earlier in the day, we visited the burial site of my granddad. I have his ham radio call sign, and I think of him often. I do believe he is my guardian angel. At the site, we commented on how well and healthy he feels to all of us, and we marveled that my grandparents were born in the roaring 20s and grew up during WWII.

Lizzy with FlowersMy girls have never met my granddad, because he died when I was still in elementary school. But our oldest understood that we were going to see great grandpapa, and was thrilled to bring him some flowers that she helped me pick. Upon setting up the flowers at our relatives sites, she proceeded to upright the flowers that had blown over at other sites. She is entering a new phase of understanding and caring that gives me extreme pleasure to see. Our youngest is still too young to grasp the general idea, but she knew that she was with family, and was completely at ease.

AdorableAfter we chatted and pulled a few weeds, we had a picnic dinner at my house. Since my grandmother will be ninety this year, we stayed in, rather than finding a park. We had our standard hamburgers, potato salad, and chips, with cookies and my grandmother’s ginger bread, one of my favorites, for dessert. Lettuce, radishes, and broccoli were provided from my garden. Then we enjoyed the BBC version of Sense and Sensibility, which although long, was just what we needed to relax for the evening.

I am so grateful for my family. They are absolutely fantastic, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. My grandmother has always been an avid reader, and passed that down through my mother to me. My mother has guided me on my path through life always. Because of her guidance, I have the most wonderful husband anyone could ask for, and I am learning how to be the kind of wife and mother that I want to be.

Plant Protection Barriers

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We live very close to a mountain. So close, in fact, that deer wander our neighborhood. It’s a bit of an adrenaline rush to watch deer racing up your street and through the vacant lot at the top. So, on top of bugs and birds, we also have to protect our garden from the deer. They love to eat my tulips. Combine that with having two kids, and I am thoroughly deprived of their beauty. They, also, love to eat strawberry plants! Thankfully the few plants that were nibbled on recovered, but I wasn’t about to chance loosing twelve strawberry plants. So, we built protective barriers to put around our garden boxes. The instructions that we followed came from The New Square Foot Gardening book, and proved to be very simple and very light. We can move the barriers whenever we need to access the plants, and we can water right through them so that we aren’t constantly moving them.

Making Covers more zip ties

 

To make them, we used 1″x2″x8′ boards, cut down to the sizes we needed, 1 1/2″ screws, 2′ wide chicken wire and 4′ wide chicken wire, a staple gun, and zip ties. For the strawberries, we needed a 2’x4′ cover, so we cut the boards accordingly and screwed them together. Then we stapled a 4’x4′ piece of chicken wire on one of the 4′ sides, and stapled a 2’x 8′ piece around the other three sides. We folded the 4’x4′ piece in half to form the top of the enclosure, and then zip tied all the edges together. Leah enjoyed handing us the zip ties, sometimes one at a time, and sometimes all at once.

zip ties Baby Trap

We cut off the extra part of the zip ties, so they wouldn’t get in the way when gardening, and for aesthetics. And, we discovered that these make great baby traps. Even the trapped enjoyed playing in it.

Adorable Cutie

My Dream Come True

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GirlsThese two girls are my dream come true. Ever since I was twelve, I have wanted to be a mom, and then when I became a mom, I was blown away by how difficult and exhausting it is. But, precious moments, that sometimes only last mere seconds, like this picture, are what make being a mom completely worth it.

This picture was taken, by me, at the tree house at Disneyland. Getting them to sit still, together was nearly impossible. I didn’t even think I had succeeded in capturing this kind of cuteness until after the trip when I was going through all the pictures.

I love getting pictures of them together, because you can see how similar they really are. Being the mom, I see all the little details that make them different, and who they are, but it’s fun to see that my girls look like sisters. The thing that stands out the most to me is their amazing, blue eyes. Neither my husband nor I have blue eyes, so it’s fun to see the blue from our family’s be passed on. Especially such a beautiful, intense blue.

Baby Communication

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Our youngest loves to take her time doing just about anything. She didn’t walk until after her first birthday. She didn’t start waving until recently. But, whens he decides to do something, so is a master at it. There has been a stark contrast between her and her sister. So, when I was filling out the Ages and Stages questionnaire for a well check, I was disappointed to see that she was actually falling behind in the communication area. Up until now she had stayed average or above average in every category, regardless of whether or not her sister accomplished it much faster.

While talking to our pediatrician, I was so relieved to hear that signs (as in sign language) and animal sounds count as words. So, while she only has two super clear words, dada and doggie, her jumbled, thank you, pinkie pie, twilight sparkle, and other attempts count as well. She signs, more, water, doggie, all done, and diaper change as well. And, finally, she knows what sound a doggie makes. She seems to be rather obsessed with doggies.