Happy Mothers Day

I had a great day today! It started with Jaiya waking me up saying, "Mom can you make me some food?" That is kinda my 7 o'clock wake up call, she loves breakfast. Loves it.
So we did waffles and I admit this morning to making her breakfast and turning on Busy-town Mysteries with Richard Scary and then climbing back into bed for a hopeful 5 more minutes. Then she came right back in and wanted me to pick out her clothes. So I decided to help her get ready then get myself ready before the boys got up. Ben is always the first on up but today he was battling a cold so he got a little extra sleep. But he did ask Jaiya to bring me something, and she opened the envelope that said #1 mom and it was the cutest card ever! It was a recordable voice card that had Jaiya's sweet little voice saying, "Happy Mother's Day mom, I love you, you're so beautiful!" I listened to it alot today, it is just so stinking cute the way she says it. Wish I could play it for you all! Inside the card she signed her name, dad helped a little but I am so proud of her for writing her name because we have really been working on it and she gets real frustrated with the J. Inside a was gift card to I tunes for some new songs to work out to! I was so excited!! Go Ben! So we got ready and went to church. Afterwards Ben told me I could pick where we had lunch, we decided on take out because neither one of us have been feeling to good this weekend. I have random hives that keep showing up each night and he has a cold. It was a long week for him, a softball game, yl golf tournament, and fusion b ball fundraiser tournament. Plus I woke him up at 3 am Friday morning freaking out because I had hives all over! He Googled it and told me to take Zyrtec because we were out of benadryl.

Back to lunch.....my first choice was rockabelly.....its my fav. But it was closed. sad.
So we headed to get Chinese. Moment of silence please now that Happy Valley is closed. Today we went to a new drive through Chinese place and it was good. But not Happy Valley! After lunch the kids rested/napped and Ben and I worked on my work out play list. Then we went outside with the kids to work on the yard and decided to start the garden. We wanted to get it done earlier....but what can I say.. chunks of time to plant a garden these days....its hard to find. The kids loved helping dig and plant. They got so so dirty from it but loved it! I'm so OK with the getting dirty part if I know we can go right into the tub! So here are some really fun pics of us gardening! I love the memories I had of my family garden growing up, it was HUGE and we always had a ton of veggies. This year we did tomatoes and cucumbers...mmmmm!

Happy Mother's Day everyone. I'm feeling thankful!

Easter 2011

We had a great Easter this year. We had a Easter Egg Hunt with the kiddos Saturday, then decorated eggs at home. Jaiya and Ben made a bird house and hung it in the tree in our front yard. She had been asking Ben to make one and they went into the garage and they had it done in like 10 minutes! Mom came up Saturday night and we had Cox Brothers, and made sugar cookies for Easter. Then Sunday morning came and we decorated the cookies, and I helped hide eggs at church for the kiddos and it was fun to be a part of that. Every year when I was little, the egg hunt at our grandparents house was SOOOOOO much fun. I love being able to watch our kids hunt eggs. We also got to talk with Jaiya about the Easter story and it was fun to see her understand and begin to see that its not all about a bunny hiding eggs but a man dying on the cross for our sins and rising from the grave.

After church we went to a friends house and Ben made his AMAZING mashed potatoes. YUM! They are my favorite but I cannot watch Ben make them because he makes so much cream cheese and butter. Then we went to a neighbors house for dessert to enjoy the cookies! The kids took a nice nap, mom went home and we relaxed for a while then did some yard work and finished the day with cheap mexican food!

Tuck is 1!!!

I decided to put some pictures up of Tucks bday party in October. We had a John Deere party with lots of yellow and green!!

Umbrella

Some sweet pics of my kids because I love them so much in the midst of my blog about embarrassment and consistency.

It's 11:00 and pouring rain outside. The kids and I run through the Walmart parking lot while Jaiya holds our only umbrella from the dollar store that is falling apart. Once inside I immediately trash it. We get the kids walmart stickers then head out to look at curtains. We pass an umbrella, not just any, but a Dora umbrella. It was pretty cheap so I told Jaiya we could get it since it was raining outside and we needed a new one. She decided she would rather have a barbie one. I put some batteries and curtains in the cart then its time to check out. She does what often happens when we go to a check out..she walks away. So here I am in walmart paying for all this stuff, I have Tucker in the cart and my daughter is standing over by the easter baskets. After asking her to come a few times I start to get frustrated. "Come on J," "I am mom!" with a bit of sass. I look at the walmart clerk then at Tucker trying to climb out of the cart.....I go over and grab her hand. She hits me, then she starts to throw a fit. So here I am in walmart. My child is throwing a fit. She starts to ask for her umbrella and get upset that I am not giving it to her. I take the umbrella and walk right over to customer service to return it, the whole while she is crying that she wants a new umbrella. Everyone was looking. I put her arm around her and hugged her and told her calmly that it's not ok to treat mom like that. I explained that she will not be able to get the umbrella today because of her attitude and disobedience. We get to the car and she is still screaming. We talk about it and by the time we are home, she is fine.

This is an example today of me being consitent.....But the battle I feel that I face every day is the consistency when I feel worn down or feel like not following through. Yes I could of handed her the umbrella and she would of stopped crying, but what would that of taught her? That crying and whining gets us what we want. We have conversations about fairness and sometimes are not always going to be fair or easy but its still important to have a good attitide and a happy heart. I feel like I am really learning alot about being the best parent I can to the kids in the moment even if I am embarrassed like crazy or even if everyone is watching my child scream .

Tucker often screams right now because he gets frustrated I think when he cannot communicate something. He can say about 25 words and can sign some too. I am really encouraging that. But this weekend we were around about 100 people at Ben's dads birthday party and it was so much of Tucker screaming.....He was tired and out of his normal nap routine and it was really hard for him. I struggled....alot with what others thought of my parenting. But I am learning that I have some real areas in parenting where I am really insecure. But I am still learning to give them what they need in those hard moments where I need to follow through. Even when I am embarrassed or feel that another parent would do it differently. But I love my children so so much. And I am so grateful for their sweet hearts and am learning that confidence in my parenting comes from love from above.....


Throwing a fit.
Screaming.
Discipline.
Consistency.
Vulnerability.
Embarrassment.
Confidence.
Love. Lots and lots of Love.

Making the Cake!

Spent all day November 6, 2010 making this cake. I am excited to put pictures on my blog about it. You tube has super great videos on cake making! This video was a princess cake video and super easy!

Jaiya turns 3!!! Tinkerbell Tea Party

Jaiya's bday party. Friends came to pixie hollow dressed in dress up clothes and we had a giant tea Party. We sprinkled everyone with pixie dust, colored, opened presents and had cake! It was so much fun! It was a magical time in pixie hollow!

jaiya's second bday, at the park!

jaiya's second bday...at the park