Aug 25 2016

The Week Before School Goal 6 & 7

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Karin

Goal number 1 is still as tough as ever. It’s probably the toughest thing for me during the school year. I just can’t wake myself up! Anyway still have the same problems as before. Yesterday’s shopping was as horrific as I thought it would be. By the end of the day we were all tired and cranky. Next year the oldest is going to go with his dad. He’s the one I had the most trouble with. Can you believe that? My 14 1/2 year old was the worst. It doesn’t help that he hates shopping and didn’t want to be there in the first place. I’ve tried shopping for him before and just bringing something home but that doesn’t work either. He’ll usually complain about how it fits and then never wear it. He has to be there as painful as it is for the both of us. Anyway, that goal is done and I shouldn’t have to do that again until next year.

The first week of school goal #6: Today we have a big goal to obtain. It’s something that I usually do at the end of the school year but I just kept putting it off and here we are it has to be done now. It’s cleaning up all the old papers and clutter from the last year of school. My kids have some baskets that I let them put their school papers in. Throughout the year we’ll sift through them and throw away anything not worth saving. I can’t tell you how many times this has saved us with Levi and missing assignments. Before school starts the next year we clear out the baskets and make room for the new year. I swear my kids alone bring home enough papers each year to kill a forest. Here is a picture of what we have to deal with today.

Sophia’s dresser

Sophia’s basket

Levi’s dresser and basket

Levi’s shelf

As you can see we have our work cut out for us. I’ll try and take pictures when we are all done so you can see the results. It’s crazy how it only takes a short amount of time before it’s out of control. I know the kids are going to hate doing this but they’ll appreciate it when it’s nice and tidy (at least I hope they do) One way a child learns best is in a clean and uncluttered environment. I’m just prepping them for homework later right?

The first week of school goal #7: Tonight we have Back to School Night for the elementary kids. So we are going to tackle all those school supplies. We went school supply shopping back in July before our trip to Oregon. I had to stop by the store yesterday because I needed a few last minute items. Don’t you love it when they change the school supply list the week before school starts?! We’ll get them all organized and ready to take to the school tonight so we can drop them all off. The kids will also get to meet their teachers tonight. As much as I don’t like back to school night I think it’s great for my kids. It helps them get familiar with the environment and ease some of their night before school starts jitters.

Aug 24 2016

The Week before school Goal 5

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Karin

Goal number 1 is going to be the death of me this week. I actually woke up before my alarm because of the smell of smoke from the fire burning in the hills. Getting out of bed though was a joke this morning. Even my normally chirpy 3rd grader had a difficult time. She eventually climbed into bed with me which made it even harder to wake up. We eventually got out of bed at 7:00. We would never make it to the bus stop on time if we kept doing that. My oldest, however, had an easier time getting up. I woke him up around 7:05 and he was up eating breakfast less than five minutes later. I’m not sure I’ll ever win this battle but hopefully it’ll get easier.

The week before school Goal 5: Today I have activity days at my house so we can’t really get going until after lunch. Remember Goal number two? We made room for new clothes. Today is the day to go and get those new clothes. One thing I like to do is go to any websites of places I plan to go to and download any coupons that we could use. It’s expensive to buy new clothes for the kids and any kind of break I can get I’ll take. Shopping is not my favorite thing to do especially with three children in tow. As my kids have gotten older it becomes easier in some ways and harder in others. Easier because they are more well behaved harder because they have become more picky on what they want to wear. I may need a long nap by the time the day is over. Wish me luck!

Aug 23 2016

The week before school Goal 3 & 4

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Karin

This morning was rough. My oldest still didn’t get up until 20 minutes after I woke him. I was very sluggish. After I woke the elementary children I tried to sneak back to bed. I’m really not a morning person. I really appreciate my youngest brightness when she wakes up. When I told her wake up she said “hold on I’m still sharpening my dream pencil”. She makes me smile and helps me be better.

Goal 3 for the week before school: I have to go lunch shopping. My kids usually take a cold lunch to school so I have to stock up on things like chips, juice boxes, fruit cups, and granola bars. This means a big box store run. Which I really hate because I always spend way more than I planned. While I’m there I also need to stock up on tissues. We all know that when school starts so does the spread of germs. It doesn’t take long before my kids come home with a cough and runny nose. My sister’s kids started school where they live a couple of weeks ago and only 3 days after the first day of school two of her three kids were home puking. Not fun! I hope our first week goes better than that.

Goal 4 for the week before school: Since my kids take a cold lunch I try and have something besides a sandwich that they can choose from. I make muffins. I usually have a couple of varieties in the freezer that they can take instead of the sandwich. My kids favorite is chocolate zucchini muffins and huckleberry muffins. I’ve also done raspberry, banana, lemon poppy seed, blueberry, and bran muffins. The bran ones didn’t go well I think each kid took one and the rest I got to eat. That was okay with me. My kids love having this option. Sandwiches all the time get old really quickly. So today I’m going to make some muffins. Might as well start with their favorites. I’ll cook a couple batches and stick them in the freezer where they will last about a month before they have disappeared. Then I restock. The kids stick a frozen muffin in their lunch box in the morning and by lunch time it is thawed and ready to eat.

Aug 22 2016

The week before school Goal 1 & 2

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Karin

We have had a great summer and it’s hard to see it gone but alas summer is almost over. My kids start school one week from today. The week before school starts I like to prep my kids so I know they are ready. My first goal for the week is waking my kids up at the time they would get up for school. That is 6:30 am for my elementary age kids and 7 am for my oldest. During the summer our sleep hours become lax. Bedtime gets pushed back and I let my kids sleep as long as they want in the morning. If I waited until the first day of school to start waking my kids up their bodies would not be used to the deprived sleep. They would be grumpy at school and want to sleep. I can’t do that to the teachers who work so hard to give my children their all. That is why we prep them for school. That way the first day isn’t a shock to their system and they are ready to learn. This morning was tough. My alarm went off at 6:30 and automatically my hand flies up to push the snooze. I’m usually up at 6:30 for my morning walks but I’ve taken a little break and it’s already tough to wake up. Once I was up I went and woke the little ones. My 3rd grader had an easier time getting up. She is really a morning person. She will wake up all year round with a song and a smile. My 6th grader is a different story. He took a little longer and usually I pay for it later when tempers flair and he isn’t quite awake. It’s now 7:30 am and my two oldest are already arguing. My 9th grader who has been a morning child before has crept into that teenage cycle of wanting to sleep all the time. He gets to sleep in an extra half hour than the others because his school starts later. I woke him up at 7:05 this morning and didn’t see him until 7:20. Hopefully this gets better during the week.

The second goal for today is cleaning out my children’s dresser drawers. We will at some point need to go get new school clothes this week. So today we have to make room for those clothes. We will remove anything that isn’t being worn or is too small or worn out. We will fill a bag of slightly used clothing and take it to the DI (Deseret Industries). This is a must. I let my 6th grader hang on to too many shirts last year and now his drawers have a difficult time closing. He doesn’t even wear half of the shirts in there.

Jun 15 2016

Day Hike with Activity Day Girls

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Karin

This morning we left for a fun adventure with our 10 and 11 year old activity day girls. I was called to activity days last September. I was so excited to get to hang out and teach these girls. This has to be one of the best church callings I’ve ever had. We decided since summer is here we could try and do some fun activities with these girls. So today we hiked the Menan Buttes. I love these girls all there silliness and craziness too. We had a ton of fun and the view was spectacular. I hope the girls enjoyed it as much as I did. Mary and I also took our own girls with us and they had a fun too. Oh and there may be a rumor going around that I got lost on the way home. I may or may not have taken a wrong turn in the tiny city of Menan. The girls had fun using my phone to navigate me back to the right road.

Before the hike picture.

Silly picture

Just the beginning of the hike.

Aren’t these guys the cutest!

Another silly picture.

Mary and I were behind and when we got closer we could here the girls pretending to cry and whine. So funny I had to snap a picture.

Eating lunch at the rim.

reading the signs.

Great view

The girls climbed up on this outcrop. It almost gave Mary a heart attack.

They are having so much fun

Another silly picture. Every time I took a picture they felt it important that we take a silly picture too.

climbing around on the rocks

Last climb before heading back.

End of hike picture. Do they look tired?

Last silly picture.

Jun 12 2016

Old fence boards

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Karin

Back in May we had a major wind storm that blew a big portion of our fence down breaking some of the fence boards. Instead of throwing them out I wanted to use them somehow. I asked my husband to make me a flat plank out of them so I could make it into a flag.

This is what he gave me. He even sanded it down for me.

This is the back of the plank. You can see what the fence boards looked like before sanding.

This was perfect. I’ve seen the flags made out of pallets and I think they are cute but a little tacky with all the spaces and only a few stars on them. I’m not trying to offend anyone this is just my personal preference. I wanted something that looked closer to a real flag.

I started with white washing the whole board. I chose a white wash because I really liked the look of the grain of wood and wanted it to show through a little. We had some extra paint from the chicken coop my husband build a few months ago so that is the paint I used.

paint from the coop

White wash. 1 part paint and 2 parts water.

paint the board and then wipe with paper towel.

finished white washed board.

Then I cut out stars out of contact paper. I have a slice machine which made this easy. You could use a die cutter too. If you’re really dedicated you could cut them out by hand. I’ve also seen people stamp them on. I laid the stars out how I wanted them and then tediously peeled the backs off and stuck them to the board. I used a big craft stick to press them firmly on the board.

Stars cut out of contact paper

Star lay out

After they are applied I taped a boarder.

Next I went to home depot and got a sample can of dark blue paint for under $3. I did a wash on this paint too. 1 part paint to 2 parts water. I then applied it and wiped it off with a paper towel. I did this a couple of times until I got the look I wanted. I then waited for it to dry and took the stars off and the tape.

After I applied the blue paint.

After I took the boarder tape off.

After I took the stars off.

The blue paint bled a little into the white so I touched up a little with some white paint. My son thought I should leave a little of the blue paint on the stars because it gave it a rustic look so I did. Next I had to tape the border around the blue again to allow the red stripes to touch the blue. I measured and taped the 13 stripes. My planks height was 19 1/2 inches which made a nice 1 1/2 inch stripe for 13 stripes.

I used a wash on the red paint too. Again 1 part paint to 2 parts water. I did a couple of coats.

After it dried I took the tape off and Voila it was done. The red bled somewhat into the white. I left it because I wasn’t that picky about it. It kind of left it looking a little rough. Over all I like how it turned out. Now I have a little decoration for the 4th of July!

After I took all the tape off.

Finished flag.

What a great use out of old fence boards!

May 25 2016

Friendship

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Karin

I was debating whether I should post this or not. I’ve decided to compromise. I usually share this on facebook but this time I’m just posting this here. I don’t believe I have too many who actively visit this site so probably only a few will see this. I hope that I don’t offend anyone because my intention is to try and inspire someone.

I had the opportunity to participate in a school activity with my middle child. At the beginning of the day he looks at me and tells me “mom the real reason I wanted you to be here is because I don’t have any friends”. I kind of laughed it off thinking yeah right this is my social butterfly child he has friends he’s just being overly dramatic. As the day progressed to my horror I realized he was right. I was so worried about my first kid having issues with making friends that I missed out on helping my middle child. I watched as other kids excluded him in playing game after game. It broke my heart to see. This sweet little boy who is so welcoming to everyone not even given the chance to play. However, Among this heart ache I did witness how caring he is. One girl from his class was sitting alone on a bench and had a sad/angry face on. He sat down with her and started talking to her listening to what she had to say. She eventually got up and walked away happy. What an awesome example of friendship. Later that day I picked my son up from scouts. He gets in my car and immediately started crying. This isn’t the first time it has happened after scouts and usually I brushed it off as being overly dramatic. This time I listened, really listened to what he had to say. He was crying because the boys played a few games at scouts and he was left out. Since I witnessed this happening time and time again earlier in the day it broke my heart to hear that it’s not only happening at school but at scouts too. I just took him in my arms and held him while we cried together.

When I was in 4th grade I had a friend who spread some rumors about me. This resulted in almost all of my friends dropping me. My 5th grade year I had no one to play with. Many school recesses were spent in the the library helping the librarian. My old friends didn’t say mean things to me or do anything bad to me they just stopped including me. They stopped talking to me. This was one of the hardest years of my life. For 6th grade we were combined with other elementary schools into middle school. I had one friend who went to a different elementary school. Because of her I had instant friends going into 6th grade. Now I can look back on that experience and be grateful. I’m better prepared to empathize with my 10 year old. I can tell him with confidence that it may be hard right now but he will find friends. He is a good person and because of who he is he will someday have more friends than he knows what to do with.

Friends are good to have and in many ways we let that define who we are. When I was a junior in High school my family moved. I had to start over making friends which terrified me to the core. It brought back memories of 5th grade all over again. The one difference was I knew I had a bunch of friends already. They just lived farther away now. I knew that it didn’t matter what other people thought of me but who I thought I was. I felt like I could better choose who I wanted to be around. I think I went through 3 groups of friends before I found a wonderful bunch of girls that took me for who I was. This is what I want to help my son realize. He is an awesome person. He has friends right now but they just happen to live farther away. He can better choose who he wants to hang out with. As long as he treats others with kindness the friendship will come.

Now this is a warning for other mom’s. I saw this happen with my son but I also see why it happens. We as mom’s set the example. We get so comfortable with the people we know that we don’t take the time to reach out to people we don’t know. This will result in others feeling left out or like they don’t fit in. Our children will learn from us. I’ve had this happen to me a couple of times since moving but I’ve also had the opposite happen where someone will take the time to try and find out more about me. I appreciate these people. I’m a shy person until you get to know me. I have a really hard time approaching someone I don’t know very well. If our kids see us including those who are on the outskirts of our little groups than maybe they will want to do the same. Let’s make it a point to seek out those who are new. Let’s not just talk to them but get to know them. Let’s do our best to teach our kids to do the same.

May 16 2016

The Big Number 8

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Karin

Birthday Breakfast. Strawberry crepes and bacon.

I can’t believe this little treasure of mine is 8 today. We celebrated with a birthday party on Saturday. She wanted a skating party. While skating rinks are pretty rare now a days there happens to be an active one here in Idaho falls. She and 5 friends had fun rolling around. There were a couple of first timers but they did pretty well considering never skating before. Sophia and I have this special bond that developed as soon as she was born. She is a sweetheart always willing to help me out. She isn’t your typical girly girl, although she loves things that sparkle, you will often find her outside digging up worms to feed to the chickens or climbing around anything she can climb. She has a passion for animals especially wolves. She is often pretending to be one. She loves camping and being out in the wilderness with her family. She is so excited that now she is eight she will have the opportunity to be baptized. Her baptism date is the first Saturday in June and it can’t come fast enough for her. I love this precious little girl that my Heavenly father entrusted to me. She was worth the 8 1/2 months of pregnancy sickness. Corey and I keep joking with her that she needs to stop growing. She always tells us she can’t stop growing and then she giggles at her silly parents. Even though she keeps growing I do and have enjoyed each stage she goes through. She is amazing!

Sophia all ready to skate

First timer O. He was a trooper

C. was really good. She is has been practicing.

Another first timer N. did really well. After a couple times around she could do it with out holding onto anything.

Sophia opening her presents.

Sophia opening a card she got from C.

The Party!

Apr 27 2016

Signs of Spring

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Karin

Our spring wreath

I love this time of year. Spring is one of my favorite seasons. I feel lucky because I get to experience it twice this year. The first was in Grants Pass when everything there was in full bloom and the second here at home. When my children were pre-school age I used to take them on walks around the block. I would always ask them to look for the signs of spring. They would tell me about the flowers and the leaves on the trees. They would hear the birds singing and see them flying around. They could feel the sun on their face and the warmth in the air. Even though my kids are a little older I still like to walk around and see the signs of spring. It’s been really fun this year because we are in a new area. I have so many little surprises popping up at my house that I didn’t know about. For example the tulips that popped up in the front. I didn’t plant them but I think I like them so much I’m going to add more for next year. Another surprise is the tree in our front side yard. It has these pretty blossoms coming on. I have no clue what kind of tree it is but I’m really enjoying the blossoms. One of my favorite signs of spring is the garlic in our garden. I plant the garlic in the fall and I know it’s planting time when the garlic pops up out of the ground and starts to grow. I can’t wait to get out there and start planting my spring veggies like onion, lettuce, peas, and even getting the beans in the ground. I’m grateful that I have the chance to see all these beautiful things and that I have time to enjoy them. I like to say it makes my soul smile. It just plain makes my world brighter. So take the time to enjoy the signs of spring and give your soul a chance to smile.

The surprise tulips

The blossoms on the tree

Garlic sprouting up

I even have strawberry blossoms.

Apr 23 2016

How time flies

Posted on April 23, 2016 by Karin

Can you believe it. This little dude on the left is 14 today! He is such a blessing to have in our lives. This past year has been tough for him with the new move and having to start in a new school and making new friends. He has had some pretty big mile stones this past year too. He got to fly in an airplane for the first time to Denver and then again in November to California. He was able to go to Disneyland for the first time too. The biggest mile stone that I think he is most proud of is he is now taller than his mom. It’s really not that big of an achievement because I’m not very tall. I guess to him though I’ve been taller than him his whole life and to finally get to see the top of my beautiful head is pretty cool. When he was little and before little brother and sister came along Preston was my buddy. We did everything together. Everyday we would go for a walk or to a park. He loved spending time with me. Now that he is older he spends more time in his room, playing video games, or hanging with friends. I guess that is part of growing up. He isn’t too old though to tell me he loves me everyday. I even will get a big hug from him. I guess he does hug me before bed every night too. I’m hoping he won’t ever get to old for those things. I love this little dude, who isn’t so little anymore, and I’m very grateful that he is in our lives. Happy birthday little-big dude!

In A Nutshell

Take time to listen, to laugh, and to play together– Elder M. Russell Ballard

Author Archives: Karin