Worms in the conservative core...

Being a true conservative at heart, I am stymied as to how our country could have let our economic situation get so out of hand. Read this article about the cost of the Iraq war from the Washington Post.
Since Paul and I got married I have tried and tried to convert to his more liberal view of money. He gets aggravated by my constant budget consciousness and money concerns. Yes, I'm slow, but it took me a long time to finally realize that my concern about money made him feel like I felt he wouldn't be a good provider. Well, that's just not true. I'm sure he'll be an exceptional doctor and he's incredibly skilled and capable. I'm just a conservative and he's just not as much, or maybe I'm just still super corset tied, right wing, conservative and he's more normal. Well, despite my efforts to relax, chill, live more, not worry and trust and be optimistic, it doesn't change the fact that deep down I am who I am, and I think I will worry about med school debt until we are paying it back, and I will worry about our country's immense debt until we are on our way up instead of down.
I'd love it if anyone out there could talk some liberal sense into my thick head. It sure would make things easier if I could just stop worrying about it all.

(Picture by: Susie Ghahremani)

Family

In no particular order:

Katie: The ultimate idealist, ever inquisitive, wise, teachable, adventurous, a mammoth sized heart, merciful, peacemaker, original, uncompromising, gorgeous, always thoughtful and deliberate, healthy and healthful, ubber clean, a bit shy but silly and strong, an example to all of us, a great role model... my sister.

Davy: The ultimate chill, calm, cool, collected, capable, on his own time table, an anomaly, witty, strong, the glue in a crowd, independent from birth, modest, fierce but you would never know it, running, and finding, graceful in action, poetry on a skateboard.. my brother.
Daniel: True blue, heart of gold, passionate, filled with light, problem solver, determined, emotional, a TRUE friend, strong, a lover, a bit vain, rugged, romantic, hard worker, humble, blessed, selfless, capable, willing, a gift to our family right now, a hero



Michael: brazen, humble, quiet, sure, angst and love filled/passionate, cleared of charges, free and ready, hurt but healing, brave, curious, questioning, silly, ubber clean and conscientious, original, determined, and good.
Amy: Uncompromising, exact, faithful, meticulous, reliable, ambitious, assertive, bold, loving, blessed, ubber talented, resourceful, sometimes fretful and tense, super productive, clean, capable, calm, self assured... my sister.
It makes me a bit sad to think that I may not have it in me to have a family this big... 6 kids! I don't think so! I'm sad because I think it is so remarkable to be a part of a set of siblings like this who are all so different, but so fundamentally the same. Roots are so important, so deep. Tradition is so strong. I feel so blessed and even though we are a strange people, we are strong together in our strangeness. Thanks mom and dad.

PS. Why oh why won't my fonts match up? Is this blog possessed??

Ron Paul Rocks!

I don't know why I have been so shy to post my political opinions. I am a bit ashamed of my lack of courage. Especially now that I completely converted to Ron Paul's opinions and his call for a freedom revolution. I agree wholeheartedly in what he says. I love his humility and the way he says that this is not a one person job but a job for the people of America to unite and pick up the pieces of our broken government and work together to fix it.

View Ron Paul's most recent address here!

I liked what my friend Charla said here about our election process. Let's get this fixed!

LIVE a little...

I just got home from a fabulous trip to Utah to spend a week with my family. When we moved away from Utah I had no idea that I loved it as much as I do. Now I get so homesick for those mountains and my people.. my family.. my own. There's something about being with people who really get you and really understand why you are the way you are. It's also so special to be away from someone for a year and then see them again and pick up in exactly the same place because they are your family and you love them NO MATTER WHAT.
This picture is from one of the highlights of my trip. My bros and sisters all hiked up to the Y in Provo. Davy (on the left) who I've been told looks like a shaggy version of me brought his girlfriend (in plum) and my bro Daniel is on a mission so is missing from our picture. At the top of the mountain we played truth where we aired our secrets and shared a perfect bonding time which I will always always treasure. I love these guys.

My new years resolution has to do with optimism. This has really spread out to include my motivations. I've realized that if I am motivated by guilt instead of true love for people and for Christ, then I am doing things out of fear and this causes (or is caused by) so much anxiety. For me to really realize that the gospel of Christ is a gospel of peace, I have learned that I have to listen to my heart more, open up to the love of Christ and stop doing things just because I should, but because I love to. If I am not motivated by love instead of guilt I begin to resent everything and get angry and then pessimistic. It all seems so obvious doesn't it? Well, we each get closer one step at a time. I just got so sick of anxiety. I want to be done with it. With this new perspective I am working on I find that I can love people a lot easier because I am not so worried about if what they are doing is right or not because I truly let Christ's mercy be real. It doesn't matter if my siblings are making all the "right" choices. Good for them for being true to themselves and finding out for themselves what they believe and what is true to them. Good for them for being brave enough to address their questions. I am so happy that I can love them and not worry so much about them because I've finally realized that it is not my job to help them make their decisions. I trust that Christ will take care of them. I may at the current moment be putting a bit too much stock in Christ's mercy since I know that there also has to be justice, but coming from a place where I didn't trust His mercy much at all, I have to start somewhere. Paul told me one day that if Christ can open his arms and accept even the worst sinners back, then would it be so hard for him to do that for me with all my little sins? I've been so fixated on perfection and removing even the least degree of sin from my life that I forgot to leave room for imperfection and forgiveness as well. After all, isn't our agency one of the greatest gifts we have been given. It's our opportunity to sin if we want to and be able to come back unto Christ. Thanks to him we can be imperfect and still be loved. Thanks to him we can live a little, love a lot, and try our best to be at peace. It's my ongoing quest.

Great stuff to do with kids!

My good friend Tiffany just posted this list of fun activities to do with kids on our My Family website. I love this list and wanted it in close personal access and I thought some of my readers might like it too. I posted some of my own ideas at the end in blue.
Thanks Tiffany!

1. Shopping Bag Game: put objects in a bag and have your child take one out. Have them explain it (color, shape, texture, etc.) or tell a story about it. Great for learning to take turns as well!
2. Shopping List: This is one that I'm in the middle of working on for Cooper since he won't be riding in the cart on grocery trips soon! Make a picture grocery list of things you need to buy and have your child be in charge of those products (milk, cheese, special snacks, bread, etc.).
3. Opposites: Say a word or find pictures of opposites and have your child find the opposite. Examples include up/down, hot/cold, short/tall, etc. Go Dog Go by Dr. Suess would also accompany this really well!!
4. Cutting: For the older kids! Have them practice their cutting skills with age appropriate scissors. Can be a part of another activity (i.e., sun catchers) or by itself.
5. Textured Collages: Find different objects, such as wallpaper, fabrics, pictures from magazines, photos, etc. and glue them onto a piece of cardboard or heavy paper. You can then frame it and hang it in his/her bedroom!
6. Sewing Cards: You can use old greeting cards or cut a picture from a magazine and glue it to a piece of cardboard. Punch holes around the picture, put tape around the ends of yarn, and "sew".
7. Finger Painting
8. Watercolors
9. Marble Painting: Line a small tray (needs edges) with paper. Dip a marble in fingerpaint and put it in the tray. Have your child move the tray around causing the marble to move and create a masterpiece. Jodie also showed me one with bubbles, but you are going to have to ask her for details on this one!!
10. Red Light, Green Light
11. Food Coloring: Mix basic colors with water and give your child paper towels or paper to drop the colors on. Have them try to mix the colors and see what happens.
12. Follow the Leader: use motions and sounds, pretend to be different animals, shapes, etc.
13. Hide and Seek
14. Make Playdough (Ruth posted some great recipes that are non-toxic at one point in time) -- also use spoons, forks, plastic knives, rolling pins, etc. to create different shapes and textures within it.
15. Obstacle Course: make sure it includes around, under, over, and through!
16. Have a Dance Party!!!!!!
17. Put on a concert and make some music . . . you can make microphones out of tissue paper and toilet paper rolls, drums out of pots and pans or old coffee cans, you can buy recorders for less than a $1, etc.
18. Make Placemats: create art and laminate (you can even use contact paper for laminating).
19. Simon Says
20. Make Suncatchers using tissue paper and contact paper. Cut or tear different pieces of tissue paper and place on a piece of contact paper. Seal with a second piece and cut to your desired shape. String up with yarn.
21. Alphabet Search: use old magazines, photos, pictures, etc. to find different objects that start with the different letters of the alphabet (or you can even do different colors, objects, animals, etc.). You can create a book out of these that your child will love to return to over and over and over again!
22. Create personalized books: I have a ton more information on this on my book blog. If you are interested, I will find the direct link to the posts!

Those are just a few things that I have written down to do (or have done) with Cooper! When it gets warm outside, we also go on weekly adventures (though not all of our adventures have to be in good weather). We've done scavenger hunts (nothing too difficult . . . we looked for things that were tall, green, silly, etc.) and these can be done just by walking around the Truman campus or on the trails behind the TCC or at the lake. We also make a book of our adventures and Cooper is still going back and looking at it over and over again! I even wrote little stories to go along with each adventure -- kind of like a mini memory book, but I just used a cheap black and white memo book!

1. Stickers
2. Marker board
3. finger paint
4. play with a big pile of dried beans- lots of bowls spoons etc.
5. I often put Eirik in the sink while I cook. He loves to turn on and off the water, play with the turkey baster and other kitchen utinsels etc.
6. cook together- let them pour the stuff in.
7. peanut butter play dough-fun and yummy (google the recipe)
8. make a picture or banner or something for Daddy and put it under his pillow
9. make homemade thank you notes. Let the kids put on the stamps and take them to the mailbox.
10. glue cotton balls on things
11. make paper bag people/ puppets
12. make a moon buggy or space ship out of paper towel tubes and other trash
13. make a snake you can play with- anything will work
14. play with noodles- glue them on to something
15. make a rattle or noisemaker - nooodles, beans, paper towel tubes
16. research something on the internet- we love google video. Eirik learned about fencing yesterday. We looked up musical instruments once and listened to what they sound like. We like to look up animals to.
17. Google earth is a great way to teach kids about our planet.
18. Make felt animals and put them on tongue depressors to play with

You be Tiger Lily, I'll be Michael

I've had very few nicknames in my life, but i just got my favorite: Tiger Lily. Eirik watched Peter Pan last week and suddenly we're playing following the leader every day and chasing crocodiles and running from Captain Hook all the time. And I hear this constantly, "Come right back Tiger Lily, Come here Tiger Lily... Now you all ready Tiger Lily." I'm pretty fond of the new name. I've never been a princess before.. so thanks Eirik.

This great drawing is by this character designer from her blog. Great work Sarah.

On Mothering

check this out

Link Love

I just have to give Tasheena some link love..
You have to see this video!

A Season of Love

I love Valentine's Day.
#1 It breaks of the dreadful winter.
#2 It gives me something to decorate for
#3 I can insist that Paul take me dancing.. the one time this happens a year
#4 I really look forward to the surprises that Paul comes up with.
Our valentine's tree- When I pulled out this pink plant this year Eirik said, "A beautiful plant!" That's the first time he's used the word beautiful and from a two year old it made me laugh. Do I say things are beautiful that often?? (uh... I'm sure I do)


Katherine's Sugar cookies are one of my favorite things to make. Maybe because frosting them is sort of like painting! Fun and delicious!

Happy Valentine's day everyone!!
We love you

First Smile

We're finally getting some incredibly cute smiles from little Jbird.
He is such an angel baby! Have I said that yet? He is so good!
May I apologize again for our ridiculous camera that is totally inept at taking pictures of moving objects. This is unfortunately the best picture I have been able to get of his great grins..

Mothering a toddler...

I know a better woman would never think about putting her kid in a closet for a while when the whining never stops, but I am not that woman. This last week almost got the better of me, but I have a great husband who is totally here for our family, and I called my sister in law who gave me some much needed encouragement and from their help I was able to make a plan that is working for us.
Eirik is spirited, or so the "Baby Whisperer for Toddlers" says. That means he needs a LOT of stimulation and if I don't stay one step ahead of him, he will trample me to the dust, and that is what has been happening .. so I've been implementing these new ideas the past few days, and we are having a great time. Those of you who already have had toddlers, these are probably old news ideas to you... but to me they have been lifesavers.

*we hung a calendar in his room with pictures of things we do on the days. We count down to holidays and his birthday every day.
*I made this awesome schedule chart that is really helping us. He needs structure, but I need it more.
Obviously, this is a "flexible" schedule and we don't adhere to it exactly.
*we have planned a once a week play dates with two of his friends that we can put on the calendar as something to look forward to since he loves to have friends over, (or maybe I love to have less attention on me for a minute.)
*I have started giving him more responsibilities, like sweeping with his broom, clearing his plate, setting the table, helping me load the dishwasher, reading Joren books and making Joren smile. He loves this!
*we started quiet time in his room for 5 minutes a day (which I will slowly make longer and longer). He cries the whole time now, but he'll get the hang of it.. hopefully!
*We set the timer for play time for 30 minutes here, and 30 minutes there so I don't get bored and stop playing and so that I can tell him, it's not play time right now...I'll set the timer when it's playtime." This way I'm able to direct some of his demands better! Phew~
*We started 10 minutes of exercise time where we can't stop moving.. run in place, gallop, somersaults, stretches jumping, follow the leader, do as I'm doing, If you're happy and you know it... etc. This was a great idea!
The schedule really helps with TV too since I hate saying "no TV right now" all day long. If he has set TV time, he knows when he can watch and when he can't and I do too and we can keep it to a minimum. :)
*I've also started making a better point of teaching him how to think through problems. I ask him, "how can you help yourself with this problem?" and then I walk him through it. This helps a lot too. He's fond of saying, "I'm frustrated!" It's really cute actually and he's starting to problem solve instead of just scream about it.
*Choices. I've learned more about choices I can offer. Instead of saying, "you don't have a choice, you have to put on your diaper." instead, I can say, "you can lay there or here to put on your diaper." He still has a choice that way.
*"The One Minute Mother" is a great book. I am going to start on the goal setting ideas from this book with Eirik when he's just a bit older.

To those of you who actually read through this whole post.. wow.. thanks. :)

How much food coloring does it take?

Eirik got to hang out in the kitchen sink this week while I cooked dinner. As he was playing I got this crazy thought.... how much food coloring would it take to turn Eirik's skin a different color? At first I smiled to myself and thought how silly that was. But I just kept wondering and I decided that if he turned colors from the waist down, no one would know if I kept him dressed all the time (except Paul of course) so I put in about 8 drops of red. Cool! Eirik thought so too... but his skin did not change, he was just sitting in a pink bath, so I tried blue.... 8 drops... nothing, just purple water.. 8 more drops.... more purple.... a few more drops... and well... at this point, my better judgement set in and I decided I would love my son even if he were a smurf, but I better not push my luck.

Poll:
who thinks I should have kept going?
Who dares me to do it again?

A morning with a toddler

After I made it through yesterday morning I called my mom to get a listening ear and she encouraged me to write down my experience for future laughs. So here it is...

Joren didn't sleep well so I was up much of the night. Eirik woke up at 6:30. I went a got him a milk and insisted that he go back to bed for at least an hour since he is always WAY too tired when he gets up then. I sat by his bed until he was asleep to avoid the inevitable "process" of putting him back in his bed a gazillion times. Then I went back to my comfy bed for a few more Z's. 10 minutes later, there was Eirik screaming "Come on mommady, downsteeees. Wake up MOmmady." I knew my night was over but stayed in bed in a groggy state of stupor until Eirik turned on the radio on the alarm clock and turned up the volume all the way so I would have to stop ignoring him so that it wouldn't wake Joren up! So we got up and our day ensued. Grumpy, whiney Eirik could not be consoled and moved from activity to activity at breakneck speed crying in between each. As usual he refused to eat any breakfast so I threw it away. As I tried to put on some make up he found the sunscreen under the counter and squirted it all over. I put him on the counter so I could watch him better and he got soap all over his jeans. As we were washing his hands he "threw" himself in the sink and got soaked. So we changed his clothes for the first time 40 minutes after our day began. We were preparing to go to story hour at the library. Eirik insisted on wearing his church shoes instead of his snow boots. I put them on and his coat and he was out the door before I could stop him. Did he go and nicely wait by the car? or did he go straight to the biggest mud puddle and sit in it? B- he sat in the mud.
At this point, the baby got to wait in the car while I pulled off his mud soaked clothes and in the process got myself covered in mud head to toe. The idea of going to the library was sounding less and less appealing minute my minute, but we persevered. I finally got everything loaded and we backed out to discover that the brakes were not working in the car. I pulled back into our space and sat there thinking.... what are we going to do to fill up this never ending day?? I called Erin to tell her we would not be at the library and she suggested a walk in the stroller to her house to use her car. What a good friend. Well, the walk was just what we needed. It was 40 degrees, but no wind and Eirik and I had not had any good exercise for a couple of weeks. Up and down the stairs does not count. When I got everyone loaded in the double stroller and realized that there really was no wind and 40 degrees is not that bad with no wind, we decided to go to the park instead of the library. So I pushed and ran as much of the way as I could and then we went sliding on the rain soaked slides and got soaked and ran home. When Eirik started screaming because his mittens were soaked and he was freezing was when I called my mom.

I don't know about you guys but being cooped up inside all of Jan and Feb has always been hard for me, especially the past few years when I haven't gone to work everyday. Eirik is the same way so getting out, even in the drizzely cold was just what we both needed. We came home and drew pictures of palm trees and hammocks on beaches. We're making big plans for Mr. Sunshine when he comes back around.

Be this guy!

You may all think this is very cute, but you haven't heard it 500 times a day for the last 2 months straight! Fortunately this video doesn't illustrate the ensuing tantrum that inevitably follows my refusals.
You try being a horse or a pig or He-man all day long to appease your toddler. I don't think I can snort like a pig one more time and retain any of my adult humanity!

Design Star here I come!

So my awesome cousin Juliana wrote an article about me and the design of our nursery that is featured in a new Utah based Parenting magazine.
Thanks Juliana, you totally rock!