a Kacin post

Kacin is goofy. Always ready with a joke.

He is pretty much always one of the first ones done with any assignment at school.

His goal to read a chapter book each month has really sparked something in him. He is going above and beyond that goal and reading a variety of books. I've never seen him read so much!

He is the sweetest big brother. Look at this moment I was lucky enough to capture on my phone while we were going on a walk. This about sums it up.

Layla and Perry adore their Kacin. And Kacin adores them. He plays chase and monster and helps them in the shower and bath and loves to tuck Layla and Perry in at night.

Kacin is in the midst of a gymnastics session. He listens well and works hard. When he puts his mind to do something, he does it and does it well. He struggled with climbing the rope the first week, but has worked hard at it each week. He can now make it to the last knot! I wouldn't be surprised if he soon made it to the ceiling.

Kacin is our biggest sports fan. He loves talking ASU and Phoenix sports.

So grateful for my Kacin. He brings so much light into our lives.

a Layla post

According to Layla, if anything has the color pink on it, it is hers.

Her favorite friend is Ava. She loves her brothers.

She is the best shopper and helper.

She is often found playing with her babies, minnie mouse, barbies, or stuffed animals.

She often refers to herself as Layla Belle. Sometimes Layla Allred.

She loves Tangled. Especially Flinn Rider.

She has the sweetest little voice.We have had some concerns about her speech, but it is still the cutest when she asks for a "bullabye" (lullaby) or to eat a "packer" (cracker).

She loves coach Amy at her gymnastics class. After every class I remind all of my kids to tell their teachers and coaches thank you. Last week I forgot to remind Layla, but wen we were heading out the door she stopped and said she needed to go back and say thank you to coach Amy. So sweet she remembered on her own.

Perry and Layla still share a room. Perry really needs his own room, so out of necessity, Layla falls asleep in our room and we transfer her over to her and Perry's room when we go to bed. She really is too big to be sleeping in the pack and play. We still have it up in there, but most nights she climbs out and falls asleep on our bed. But not without getting into our bookshelf first. 

Love this girl. She brings so much happiness into our home.

a Perry post

It seem like every four months or so Perry takes a few big steps forward, and right now we are in the midst of a big leap!

It's so exciting to be his mom.  I get to see so much progress on the things we've been working on at home, at therapy, and at school. 

The biggest news: he is calling Eric daddy now! 

Sometimes he reverts back to calling him mama, but if we say dad he will repeat dad. Oh, happy day!

He is eating at the table better. He is imitating our actions and words. He is responding to "first _(do this)_ then _(you can do that)__" He is speaking more clearly and deliberately. ("No curtain" "want that one" "where's the bus" "Perry truck" "green car") 

The other day we were going to the park. I got him out of his car seat first. When I told him I needed to get Layla out of the car next he answered "get Layla". He followed my directions to walk with me to the other side of the car. He waited patiently. And when I asked him to hold Layla's hand as we walked to the park, he did it! Maybe it seems like a small thing, but my heart was soaring! He listened, he understood, he was in control, he followed directions, he responded. 

Perry loves being dad's sidekick these days. Whether yard work, fixing broken doors, or fixing the dishwasher Perry is right next to E "helping" him.

This boy changes his clothes at least twice a day. His favorite choice of clothes: sweatpants. on backwards.

Three bedtime stories is not enough for this boy. He wants more books. and more books.

He gives the cutest kisses and hugs. I love when he is feeling cuddly and wraps his arms tightly around you.

He is obsessed with our new truck. He wants to live in it I think.

I love all of his facial expressions, even the mad ones.

He goes to a parent-child gymnastics class once a week. Eric and I take turns bringing him. We need to focus more on his motor development so we enrolled him in the class. He is used to the routine now when he goes with me and does well.

Love this sweet boy!

women's retreat

Two of my friends and I organized a women's retreat for the Friday before mother's day.

The idea to have a women's retreat had been floating around for awhile, but after I listened at the General Women's meeting and I heard this from Sister Oscarson I knew we had to make it happen. She said

"We must stop concentrating on our differences and look for what we have in common; then we can begin to realize our greatest potential and achieve the greatest good in this world. Sister Marjorie P. Hinckley once said, “Oh, how we need each other. Those of us who are old need you who are young. And, hopefully, you who are young need some of us who are old. It is a sociological fact that women need women. We need deep and satisfying and loyal friendships with each other.”⁶ Sister Hinckley was right; oh, how we need each other! "

I think it's true. We need friendships that will strengthen and uplift us. We have so much we can learn from each other. And sometimes we need a chance to be ourselves without the busyness of to do's and motherhood and life.

When we were up at Ensign Ranch during Spring break we realized that the lodge would also be a perfect place to gather some ladies for a night to relax and have fun and get to know each other. It just so happened that the only weekend opened for the rest of the year was Mother's day weekend. When we heard that we thought it wouldn't work out because our stake has always held their fathers and sons campout the weekend of mother's day. And then when we got home I found out that, for whatever reason, the stake campout was actually scheduled to be the following week. It was a sign! It was meant to be!! So we got the lodge reserved and made our retreat happen.

There were 11 of us (and one adorable baby). We kept things as simple as we could, especially the food. Cooking was kept to a minimum thanks to costco.

We ate dinner while we played a really fun game. We each drew a piece of paper that had an If, Then statement on it. For example, mine said "If anyone laughs, Then raise your glass and say "this deserves a toast." You have to do whatever your paper says until someone figures out what yours was. It was an entertaining meal.

After dinner, some of us went on a walk around the water. We came back to the lodge and played a get to know you game. We each wrote down our answers to 5 questions about ourselves. We split into two teams and took turns reading someone's answers out loud. The other team would guess who's paper it was. You got 5 points for getting it right on the first question, four points on the second etc.

I led a discussion on motherhood when we finished the game. I loved hearing these ladies experiences, ideas, and thoughts. It gave me much to think about.

We spent the rest of the night playing games and talking.

In the morning, I led some of us in doing yoga. Even though I'm not an instructor or anything. I like to pretend. ;)

We spent the rest of the morning canoeing or walking or talking or whatever else we wanted to do.

We ate lunch together and cleaned up the lodge before heading home.

It was such a nice break and I'm looking forward to when we do it again!

work hard, play hard

Work Hard

We've been using this system all school year and it has worked so well for us. The boys work hard and are learning about the value of money and budgeting. We've adapted things we've done before and some ideas from here to make this work for our oldest boys. They have a chart like this printed out each week.

Here's how it works. When they do one of the things on their chart, they mark it off. Each mark is worth 25 cents. They can only mark off for that day or the previous day. If they forgot to mark earlier in the week they don't get paid. If they fill up a row or a column then on pay day they get an extra 25 cents. I remind them all the time to mark their charts. Their morning jobs are brush teeth, scriptures, get dressed, etc. and a house help. For house help they are assigned an area of the house each day. That hasn't changed in forever. Kyler just knows now that every monday and tuesday he helps in the kitchen, Wednesday is bathroom, thursday is his laundry day, friday is living room, and saturday it is whatever we need done and an outside chore. They check with me each morning to find out what their specific house help is though (usually kitchen is unloading the dishwasher). Exercise counts when they have a sports practice, actively play outside, or do exercises inside. Piano is 15-20 min. When they keep on eye on L and P they mark off babysitting. Often they ask to go get them out of their room and help them get dressed in the morning. Extra chores are random things like taking out recycling, putting everyone's shoes away, transferring laundry from washer to dryer, cleaning a toilet, or whatever task is needing done. Kacin hates putting on his creams and lotions for his eczema so we added medicine to his chart to encourage him to remember. Kyler's used to say no socks (because we had a major problem with finding his socks out everywhere), but after awhile he got really good at that one and it's not a problem anymore. So he gets paid to take his allergy medicine. I sometimes tell them to put an extra mark on their chart if they have had a good attitude or done something extra or if their babysitting was extra long or extra difficult.

There are two charts for each of the boys on each full sheet of paper. I print out 2 or 3 papers at a time. When we go through those charts we have a pay day (so every 4-6 weeks, it doesn't take long to do, but I don't have time to do it more often). On pay day, we add up their money earned and keep track of it in a spiral notebook. In one week's time they have earned anywhere from $2 to $8.50, but usually it's in the $4 to $6 range.They keep track of tithing (10%) and savings (20%). Because they are earning money now, they are responsible to buy most of their clothes and to buy any other things they want. We keep track of those purchases in the spiral as well. 

I could keep going about how they use the money, why we do it this way, the benefits we see from this system, our after dinner jobs (that they don't get paid for), etc. but I've been interrupted 150 times while writing this 

so I am done. 

:)

Play hard

Even though these particular pictures were from a few weeks ago, our afternoons this week have looked a lot like this. It has been sunny and warm so the kids are playing on the trampoline, riding bikes, throwing balls, driving the escalade car, digging in the dirt, and reading in hammocks. Their cheeks are red and they fall asleep as soon as their heads hit their pillows.

Mother's day

I gave myself permission to throw my to-do lists out the window for a few days. There was a women's retreat friday through saturday and then mother's day. It made for a nice weekend, that carried over through Monday, too. Without feeling guilty I even laid around yesterday afternoon after P's therapy and watched a show. I don't usually get a rest like that in the afternoon, where I don't think about anything that is going to happen or needs to happen or has already happened. I should give myself permission to do that more often.

My mother's day was so wonderful. I am lucky to be mom to these four and to have so many great women and mothers who surround me.

               

                   

                 

 

            

My mother's day morning I slept in and then was led downstairs to a lovely table and breakfast. I loved the sweet notes from my kids and Eric and hugs from each of them.

cards from Layla, Perry, and Eric

portrait of me by Kacin

coaster made by Kyler

I can't make it through a mother's day without thinking about how much pain the day used to bring. There are so many women out there who righteously desire to bear children. I'm so grateful for adoption and modern medicine so that when the time is right many who experience infertility can be moms. But I do believe that motherhood in all its forms, as a neighbor, an aunt, a teacher, or a friend is most important work and refines and blesses.

Band Aids Fix Everything

This little girl

noticed an owie on the wall

and promptly fixed it

with a band aid

all better