valentine's

A whole day to celebrate love--Valentine's day is the best.

It was even better this year since sweet, sweet and loving E surprised me with something each day to create Valentine's week! He came home from work with balloons, candy, flowers, or other small gifts. He took me out to dinner one of the weeknights. By the time Saturday came around, I was feeling pretty loved. ♥

We love celebrating as a family on Valentine's day. We filled the day to the brim. We started with heart shaped pancakes. Kyler and I passed out Valentine's to everyone in our family. I gave them the traditional candy bar cookies and love notes and Kyler set up little clues to have us find our valentine's from him (what a big sweetheart!!). Kacin went around and gave everyone extra hugs and kisses.

We talked to our kids about how Valentine's day is a day to celebrate love and how you can always have a good time no matter what you are doing as long as you are with people you love and have a good attitude. We had to give them that spiel before we told them what we were doing for the day. Ha!

We planned a fun day. But I also know my kids well and I knew that there would be some grumblings about a few of the things. Which is ridiculous. Who grumbles about the zoo? At least one of ours does.

We might have been winging this a little, but we told the kids we had four things planned. They would find out the activities as we went along. And it would spell out LOVE.

So "L" was for Lots and lots of animals! We went to the zoo to see Lions and Ligers and lots of other lovely animals.

Next we went to Kyler's swim meet. His first swim meet ever! After only 6 weeks on the team he participated and raced in 3 events. It was quite the learning experience for him. We are sooo proud of him and how he stuck it out to the end, never gave up, and tried his best. He is an amazing, courageous boy.

"O" was for Oooooooh, that tastes yummy! (I told you we were winging it here!) During the 4 hour swim meet. Eric and some of the kids went to a bakery and picked out some treats to share.

Kacin's guesses were much more creative than what E and I came up with, but our "V" was for Very good dinner. We went to Dick's Drive-in for the first time ever.

"E" was for Everyone plays a game. We took a raincheck on that one because the swim meet went longer than we expected and we were all exhausted when we got home. We played our game of Hide and seek in the dark on Sunday night.

A whole Valentine's day of LOVE with my family is just the best.

After the kids were in bed, we got together with a few friends for games. E made the best domino tower ever.

Until it fell.

Which was a metaphor that all good things must come to an end and Valentine's day/week was over.

Exception to the metaphor: our love. That will never end. ♥ :) 

valentine's cards

I was at the grocery store and I was really tempted to grab a few boxes of valentine's this year. I stopped myself. It has always been tradition to make our valentine's--completely homemade, kid-made, and simple.

Kyler and Kacin don't even ask anymore to buy valentine's. They just pull out the red paper and go to town. We don't look on pinterest or print anything out. It's straight from their brains and own little hands. They are as pleased as can be about them.

Kyler got really creative with his Valentine's box. He had to make it entirely at school on his own and had to meet three criteria: an animal, two different colors, and have a disney/pixar quote. He came home with this awesome Mickey Mouse box (which he sweetly gave to Perry as soon as his valentine's were out) . In the class contest, he won most creative box.

Layla and Perry worked hard on their Valentine's as well.

Layla passed out her Valentine's at the preschool celebration.

The excitement of Valentine's!

I'm glad I passed up those boxes of cards at the store. For my kids, simple, handmade valentine's are the way to go. 

children's museum

We got a membership to the children's museum. We've already had a lot of happy moments playing and pretending.

a reminder for me--busy isn't better

We are running around like chickens with their heads cut off (don't worry, our 4 chickens are still alive and well).

Eric has taught me that you can choose to either multiply and manage or simplify and serve. As much as I dream of simpler days, our life right now has definitely been a time of multiplying and trying to manage, but sometimes not managing very well.

E and I were just talking about how we go through spurts of nothing going on to everything going on. I enjoy being involved and doing things, but we have hit our max and we need to take some things out.

Why have we been so busy?
It's mostly because we have busy kids who are each doing completely different things. Gone are those days when the boys had the same interests and would take swim lessons together or could even take piano lessons on the same day.

Kyler is continuing with piano. On top of that, he decided to join the 5th grade band that meets twice a week before school. He is learning to play the trumpet. He also joined a swim team that practices twice a week. He has scouts once a week. And then he begged to go to a free after school STEM class once a week taught by a Boeing employee. Don't you forget that he is also a 5th grader with homework.

Kacin is also continuing with piano, but has to have his lesson on a different day than Kyler. He is in the school play that rehearses twice a week. He goes to a gymnastics class one night a week. There is cub scouts on another night. And he comes home with more homework than Kyler.

Perry and Layla's schedules are a bit less crazy since their stuff happens during the day. Perry has ABA, speech, or OT therapy every afternoon. Layla has a gymnastics class once a week in the morning. And they both have preschool.

I am probably going the most crazy with all of this out of everyone. Just simply keeping track of everything and picking everyone up at the right time keeps me spinning in circles some days, but let's add in teaching preschool, cleaning my house, and preparing for girls camp. And maybe I'll organize a weekend women's retreat, too. All while trying my best at the day to day of being mom.

Those loads are entirely too big. How did this happen?

It bothers me when everyone is so busy. Our stress levels rise, our tempers flare more easily, our to-do's and schedules rule the day, and we are hardly all home together.

I'm writing this as a reminder to myself to please not let this happen again to our little family! All of these things everyone is doing are good, but probably not all at once. Some things are necessary (therapies), but most are not. Good, better, best. Choose to simplify.

I repeat to myself: do not let everyone get this busy again. busy does not mean better.

I would throw my hands up in the air at everything, but I know that the end is in sight for these busy days. Kacin performs in the play at the beginning of march. Kyler's stem class ends at the end of the month. gymnastics and swim team will come to an end. I won't be teaching preschool next year. It will all wind down soon. Then we will go from too busy to just plain busy.

I've been reading "Mitten Strings for God". I really love this book. The author reminds me of things I already knew, but need to do better at or have forgotten. She's made me think and evaluate, too. It is refreshing and calming. I highly recommend this one.

I agree when she wrote "In simplicity there is freedom--freedom to do less and enjoy more." She says, "Like Thoreau, I love 'a broad margin to my life'--the less packed into a day, the better. Sitting still, I am able to appreciate my life simply because I am taking the time to experience it."

She encourages us to have the "conviction to say 'This is enough' " for our family and not to schedule away creativity and self-reliance because children need time that is entirely their own.

What great reminders to me!

I just hope I have learned.

Kacin's last Pinewood Derby

Kacin was quite proud of his final cubscout pinewood derby car. He went with an ASU theme.

Kacin's car did quite well that night. He won more than he lost and he was pretty happy overall.

Nice work, Kacin!

As fun as it is, we are rejoicing a bit here that we won't have to make a derby car for 4 more years! Yay!

2015--The Family is Ordained of God

Here it is February. Here I am just now stealing a chance to document our family goals for 2015.

We did sit down together on the first Monday night back from AZ and had the big reveal for our family theme. I wrote down each word on a separate note card and hid them around the kitchen. Each of our kids found at least one card and then "worked together" (I place this in quotations because I'm not sure if hiding cards behind your back, snapping at each other, and rolling your eyes counts as working together) to unscramble the cards and discover what our family theme for the year would be.

The Family is Ordained of God

Eric and I wanted our family to focus this year on reading and learning from The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Maybe we can even do a little bit of memorizing, too. Eric dangled the carrot in the form of a large sum of money to any of us who memorize the entire thing.

We looked back at our goals from last year. We were awesome with our goals. We met 6 of our family goals and some of our individual goals. The ones we didn't quite reach all the way we at least took steps toward, and I am satisfied with that. 

When we set these goals, we can't always predict what our year will hold and the unplanned ways we will learn and grow. But we aim anyways, and then see where we will go.

Allred Family Goals 2015

1. eat at least 5 fruits or vegetables a day

2. meet with dad (or mom) monthly for a personal interview

3. study scriptures together daily

4. memorize parts of the family proclamation

5. invite 4 new families over for dinner

Layla

write her name

identify the letters of the alphabet

Perry

learn the letters of his name

be calm during a prayer

Kacin

go hiking or rock climbing 12 times

Kyler

receive his faith in god award  

Mom

read 4 biographies

Dad

read 12 books

Go 2015!