My Favorite Career

I'm on week 2 of my new life system of planning and cleaning and being on top of it, and it is good.  I totally loved Stephanie Nielsen's post today - Motherhood really is a great job.  It's my favorite and I love that I'm learning how to do it better.  (Here's a link to the things I've started so far with my new system, it's going great!)

I also totally laughed inside as I saw all the faces of her kids when they were younger, so cute, all those little chubby faces.  Made me smile, so I thought I'd copy cat her and share my crew from their chubby face days of yester-year:

Starting off - the two cutest babies in the world (Irish twins too!) Joseph and Melodie

Joseph - inquisitive, humble, always learning.
Melodie - you're cuter than your baby guinea pigs.  A nurturing little mother in the making.
Ethan - a little curious monkey, ready to tease and play at any moment.  That face spells trouble right there I tell ya.

Hyrum (dressed as pirate Smee for Halloween) - humble, quiet, watchful, and as stubborn as his dad.

Wesley joined the crew - what a happy baby!

He is pure boyhood - dirt and sweets and imagination.

Then Abi - there's a little girl that was ready to keep up with Ethan's mischief - always busy wanting to go and do and see

that hair is just so cute on Abi - what a little face

 Lily - she is meek and mild, and likes to draw on everything.

And lastly our current perfect angel, Sophia.  Oh she's such a pretty baby, I could just kiss her!

I love being a mom. 

Fondant-ing

Ethan's Birthday was on Friday.  My mom had some fondant frosting left over from a cake she made a week before, so she decided to make Ethan's cake.  Since Mel is our aspiring baker, she and I went over to learn a little bit about making a fondant cake from my mom. 

It was fun and good to spend some time over there.  My parents both work and their office is at home, so not a lot of places for kids to play, so my mom usually always comes over to our house to visit.  As we pulled up Melodie said "I haven't been here for so long!" ~ I think since before we went to Costa Rica in 2010.  (That is long.)

Melodie was cute kneading the fondant. 

and she's such a shorty we gave her a step stool. 

We finished decorating a small cake and she took it to school to give to Ethan during his lunch time as a surprise.  She's a great sister and a wonderful daughter.  They don't get better than Mel.

Bookworm

I always love to see Sophia looking through books, it warms my heart. 

If she wants my attention, I'm usually able to distract her for a few minutes by giving her a book.  It looked especially cute and precious this time cause Hyrum had dressed her up in his scout uniform the other day, it was a little scout dress on her.  She went out into the backyard to earn her "wilderness explorer" patch, making sure to bring along her silver purse carefully held in the fold of her arm.

She's just a bundle of joy.  I had to pay a 9 months of pregnancy price to have her and enjoy her everyday, which has almost been 18 months of joy so far, seems like I got a good deal.  It's totally worth it.

A Baker

This week is spring break and I love having the kids home.  We've kinda taken it easy today ~ the kids have been playing "Store" and "Go For It" while I spent the day updating my budget binder (that one is my own system and I really like it, I'll share that soon).

Mel and I are taking advantage of this week to practice some baking skills.  I sat here at the computer budgeting today and told her to make banana bread muffins and just do her best.  I checked on her a few times and helped get the muffin tins ready and pour the batter into cups, and as I did I thought it looked kinda runny, but I didn't say anything and figured we'll see how it turns out.  And... they looked like craters. 

As I asked about what she did for each step and each of the ingredients, then it was revealed that she only put in 1/3 cup flour instead of the 1 2/3 cups flour the recipe called for.  I guess it might be hard to read from how it's typed on the recipe page? 

Anyway, I said "Well, that would explain it." and I'll let her try again tomorrow (but with honey wheat muffins next time.)  I love having this free time for them to practice, experience, and learn for themselves. 

And my home management system is going great!!  I even got my desk in order on Saturday, things are coming together, this is my year to do!

Boating in the Backyard

Hyrum is an awesome big brother.  He pushed Sophia around the backyard for like 10 minutes today, which is a lot cause in my opinion, cause he didn't have snow boots on.  His ankles and socks got cold and wet in the snow.  

 And he did it all cause he loves this little face as much as I do - look at that smile.

He was pleased with now much easier it is to push the boat on the snow vs. the grass (which he does in the summer time). 

It was fun, there were little boat tracks all over the back yard from her boat, like a life sized train track or something. And all cause of those big and beautiful brown eyes.

 Love that little face.

Safety Kids

Mel and her friend Aria took their little siblings on a spring walk around the neighborhood over the weekend.  It's so nice for the kids to get out side in the sunshine and non-freezing air.  And although there is snow on the ground this morning, I'm still very grateful winter was officially over as of yesterday! 

Corey was working at the table and saw the kids out the window on their way out and said "Tiff, you gotta get a picture of this..."  The one year olds all safetied-up in bike helmets was an especially cute touch. 

 Gotta love these nurturing big sisters.

Easter Egg Hunt

We went to a neighborhood Easter Egg hunt today after school.  The older kids each helped a younger kid, but I got to hang with Sophi, and I just loved it cause I knew exactly what she'd do ~ she'd find one egg and be done.  She'd sit down with her one egg, no caring that there is more out there, she's just enjoy her simple treat, no need to hunt for more more.  Toddlers live in the now, and since she had one now, she was content.

Luckily it had lots of little sixlet chocolate malt balls in it, so she was able to enjoy them for a while.  Abi came back with her 10 eggs, I'd send her off to find more for Sophi so we were ready with more treats when she did eventually finish her first orange egg.

Abi presented her with a sparkly pink egg.  It was cute. Love little kids. 

Mel is so nice too, she helped Lily and a neighbor girl and then played with them coloring with chalk and helping them open their eggs.  It was a pretty day, so glad spring is in the air!

Confident Kids

I've been working all weekend on my Home Management Book, and I still have a lot to do, but oh boy am I'm full of energy from what I've done so far!  I stayed up later last night than I should have, but I still hit the ground running this morning.  I'm going to be documenting all the amazing steps of how to make a Home Management Binder on my Homemaker blog and will probably link over to there quite a bit over the next few weeks.  Just posted about the Job Wheel I made last night.  But anyway, if you are a mother who feels over your head with it all, keep checking over there cause I think Amy's system is gonna be working miracles for me, maybe it can help you too.  

Today I did my scheduling and goals with each kid individually, it was so fun!  Mel went first, so hers was the longest session as I was still figuring it out and trying to find my lists and papers and stuff.  I'll be posting on the homemaker blog all the lists of things to go through for that, but it was just fun and great to have all the things that are jumbled up in my brain typed up and cleared out - it's like I'm cleaning out my brain and getting it all in a book, so my frazzled head is going to be so clear and free of all the things that have made it a mess!  Exciting!  And tonight after prayer the kids all said they liked and appreciated having time to talk with me and have us both set up our plans for the week - they know my expectations and were cool with it all, and I was able to find out from them (and write down!) the things they need help with.  As Amy said "Informed kids are confident kids."  This system is going to empower them and me.

On a normal silly note, these two smurfs got into the red peppers yesterday as I stepped away from making a dinner salad to do planning.  Lily and Sophi think Red peppers are apples. 

We were all laughing at them.  Such healthy kids!

Ethan dressed up Sophi for St. Patricks day.  She had green pants under that 10/12 size shirt of Mel's that he stole from her drawer, just to make sure Soph was extra safe from any leprechaun pinching.  :)

St. Patrick's Day Treat

Made our little St. Patrick's Day treat a day early.  I am so glad spring is in the air, we had a beautiful morning, I made the kids go with me into the backyard and we raked and raked and raked pine needles.  Looks SO much better.  They were good helpers, so I thought they deserved a good treat.  After they were done helping, I made them stay out and play while I made the "surprise" - it was fun.

I let Joseph help me assemble while Melodie kept the kid's and their eager anticipation at bay -

9 individual plates of Fruit Rainbow goodness with marshmallow and whipped cream clouds and a little bit of gold...

Could not find those gold foil wrapped Rolos anywhere to do it like in this pot of gold, oh well, the Hershey's nuggets worked out pretty good, the kids were all smiles ~

 Happy big kids and little kids and Dad-kid too.

 

And we have enough fruit and treats left to do it again tomorrow.  Have a Lucky Day!

Home Management Book

Thursday morning I was a volcano about to errupt.  My house is once again out of control as was evidenced by every room I walked into.  Corey's wallet had been found by a 3 year old and we spent the morning searching for his credit cards from whatever nook and cranny they had been dispersed to, nothing is safe, knowing how to manage our life and kids and house is a battle I just can't seem to figure out.

I sent an email to my backdoor neighbor Amy, cause a month ago as I was sharing my frustrations with her, she told me how she's got a system in place that is working great and has been for 3+ years!  That got my attention.  So I emailed her Thursday to say I'm at my wits end once again and would like to come see her book and system when she had a chance.  Today was my lucky day, and I got to go pick her brain and see her hard work and I took pictures and got motivated and inspired and am super excited to put her system in place for us.  She's got lists and plans and follows through with them, I was so inspired, lots of ideas I've had that I just haven't gotten put together, they are all jumbled up in my brain.  Look at this page - doing great stuff like working her way through a cook book and trying new recipes everyweek - something I dream about but don't do.  Well, lucky timing for me, cause this is my year to DO!!

She's got six kids ages ranging from 1 year to 12, so we're in pretty similar circumstances, only I'm pregnant and lazy right now and she's just busy busy, wow, impressive weekly calendar, compared to mine, but she's able to keep on top of it.

Anyway, totally excited me, I'd stay up all night working on it if I could, but that wouldn't be wise.  I had a busy day, but again, I'm excited and motivated to take another step that's hopefully in the right direction to get a handle on this raising a family thing.  One page in her book was called "End Game" which is her long term plan for what she wants to accomplish before her oldest leaves for college or a mission when he's 18, just 6 years away for her.  Joseph is 13, so we just have 5 years before our family dynamics change for the rest of our mortal life.  Not a lot of time to enjoy these kids, time keeps marching on and slipping by.  They are growing up fast, time to figure it out.  I'll be sharing her ideas as soon as I can, first gotta clean off my desk here that is drowning in paper.  Look at how out of control I let things get...

I'm glad this picture doesn't do the mess justice.  It's really bad....definitely not inspiring my children by my messy example, I'm sure.  sigh.  I guess tackling this desk is first priority, then watch out life, cause I'm making a home management book that is gonna rock your world.

Dancing Princess

Some pictures from Saturday - Sophi was being a princess, dressed up by her sisters (they like dressing her up and having parties) and it was just cute.  She was dancing in her dress, with a stuffed dog they gifted her, wearing her crown and sucking on a bottle of milk.  That's the sweetness of childhood right there.

And the wonderfulness of a Father as he puts on the crown as he works, smiling and clapping for the dancing princesses as he codes the morning away.  He does it all for them and for me. 

Shorts

Joseph is taking a Home Ec class at school.  Well, "Home Ec" when I was a in jr. high, now called CTE or something?  It includes a term of sewing.  He had to make shorts.  I didn't want to go buy material, so he used an old bedsheet from Chile that we don't use cause it's elastic is stretched out, we'd been hanging on to it to make forts.  It's a lovely chartreuse color, a color in high demand for young teenager's clothing, haha. Joe's such a good sport to not ever be picky for me.  So, he made his shorts, got an A, but he didn't account for the hem when he measured so they are too short for him.  Not that he wanted to wear these ones anyway, but he knows for next time.  As for these beauties, he gave them to Sophi.  Now she's all ready for St. Patty's day, our little leprechaun.  She makes me smile

That's Life

Yup, there's the truth.