Skyler's Watch Solution

So, as a Mother you always worry about your kids... Who they're playing with, what they're learning from them, etc.  Well lately he's been really getting into playing with the neighbor kids as soon as school gets out.  He counts down ALL day until when he can play with them, then stays practically until dinner-time if I let him.  But I've been worried about some of the bad habits he's been picking up from them & have been wondering what to do, while still giving him the freedom & excitement of playing with friends.

I finally decided to pray about it.  I figured certainly Heavenly Father cared about such matters & could help me come up with some sort of a happy medium.  And He did.  I got the thought to buy Skyler a watch that had an alarm on it, so I could set the alarm for how long he could play with different friends.  If he didn't come home when it went off, he couldn't play with friends the next day.  And the best part was, I could change his amount of play time depending on WHICH set of friends he was playing with.  So yes, I usually always let him play with friends, but often it was only for 15 minutes with those not-so-great friends & maybe 1 hour with the friends I liked better.  It made me feel better having him HOME more often & helped me feel a little more in control of the situation.  But it still gave Skyler the freedom to have fun playing with his friends & to be more pro-actively in charge of coming home (which he'd been crying about every time previously).  Anyway, I'm so thankful to have found a solution that keeps Skyler home more often & around better friends.  Love you bud!

Exciting Times...

We've been BUSY around here lately!

Here's some of what we've been up to...

Two days ago we inherited 2 large rabbits (and their extremely BLUE rabbit-home!).  The kids have been LOVING it & have checked on them "to make sure they're okay" like 20 times a day!  One of those things you do only to make memories for your children...

We also planted a new cherry tree, which Laron is pretty excited about!  Right after Laron planted it, Skyler looked at the picture of the cherries on the tag & asked me, "Mom, why are we planting an olive tree?"  Apparently the cherries looked a little like olives in the picture! :)

 Skyler also finally got a working bike, so he's been feeling pretty proud of himself riding around like all his friends.  He also just learned to tie his shoes this last week (he figured it out a lot easier than I thought he would!), which seems so crazy!  I've also been worried about him spending too much time with friends lately & not enough at home with our family, so we just got him a watch with an alarm on it so we can set his watch for what time he needs to come home from friend's houses.  It's working well so far & maybe the rabbits will make him start to think that HOME is a funner place to be anyway.

Bailey has figured out how to wake up Kimberly from her naps & is pretty proud of some of the things she can accomplish these days... She's just lately learned how to give us "five", wave to herself in the mirror, shake her head "yes", & dance to music.  So fun to watch her grow & progress!

Laron really wanted to try starting some plants INDOORS this year (like tomatoes, squash, cucumbers & watermelon), which has been fun, but quite a learning process!  I'm not really loving my front room feeling like a greenhouse, but I've been surprised how thrilling it is to see their day by day growth & not have to go outside in the dirt & elements to see it.

MOST excitingly, we've decided to use our tax money this year to put siding on the house, change the trim from brown to white, get new windows in the back (the front ones have already been changed), & get a new white front door.  The only way we can afford to do it is to have Laron do all the work, so hopefully it'll be worth the effort & look good in the end.  Here's our pile of siding we just bought & the old rain gutters taken off...

A robin also recently decided that our front porch light was a great place to build it's bird's nest.  I wasn't too thrilled with that at first, but Laron pointed out what a fun process it will be for the kids to watch...  A neighbor-boy also pointed out that maybe when we turn on our porch light at night, it will help to keep the eggs warm!  What smart thinking!  I wonder if the bird thought of that...

This warm weather has been fun for us all to get out of the house a little more, but it's worn everyone out a little more too!  In the last 2 days, every one of the kids have fallen asleep in some weird, random place... We play pretty hard around here!

 Kimberly at the kitchen table

 Skyler on the living room floor

 Bailey in her high-chair

All-in-all, fun times!  I'm so glad though that my kids have got siblings to play with, laugh with & love.  What a blessing it is to constantly be surrounded by family!

Easter Fun!

So I think that this year's Easter was the best one we've had yet... Mainly because we were able to focus more on the REAL meaning of Easter during the week before, which really helped set the tone for the big day.  We used several ideas from the book "A Christ-Centered Easter" (which I TOTALLY recommend!) including making unleavened bread & some Easter Cookies where each ingredient has symbolism of something in the Death & Resurrection of Christ... We kept things pretty simple, but even on the days where all we did was talk about some aspect of Christ's life & read a few scriptures, I still felt like we were actually celebrating what the holiday was supposed to be about instead of just doing Easter-Egg hunts.  That being said, we did several Easter Egg hunts too...

We did an Easter hunt at my Parent's house the Sunday before Easter & then another one the next Saturday at my Grandpa Erickson's house.  The kids are always excited to find coins mixed in with their Easter candy & Skyler has already spent his!

Easter morning I woke up the kids with some loud Mormon Tabernacle Choir music singing "This is the Christ!" & we talked about how exciting it must have been to learn that Christ has risen from the dead.  It was the perfect starting to our Easter Sunday.  Then after breakfast, we sent the kids searching downstairs for their Easter Baskets (the toys were all hand-me-downs given to us from a neighbor!) & they played the rest of the morning with their new toys.  So fun & precious to watch their innocent excitement & squeals of delight!

Then, the Saturday after Easter, we had our Ward's Easter Egg Hunt in a neighbor's backyard, complete with their many fun farm animals for the kids to enjoy (ducks, rabbits, geese & even a llama!).  Skyler was a professional by now at running quickly & collecting loads of eggs, but Kimberly was too worried about the candy inside of the eggs that she was missing out on to want to gather very many eggs.  Luckily Skyler shared a few of his eggs with her!

Overall, it was such a great Easter... Lots of fun memories, spread over three different weekends.  And lots of great discussions & activities done just with our little family at home to learn more about the Savior & what he's done for us.  How grateful I am for his sacrifice, so that we too may live again with our families forever!

The story behind the dress...

So, way back in December of 2008, when we were still living in Logan & Skyler was 1 1/2 years old, I found out I was pregnant.  Something about this pregnancy just seemed different than with Skyler's & so I was sure that it was a girl.  Not only was I sure it was a girl, but we already had a name picked out & everything, so inside me was my little Kimberly.  A few weeks later, after telling my next-door neighbor Carmen (from Peru) that I was just sure I was having a girl (and that I was right with my instinct on Skyler being a boy!), she brought me over two beautiful white dresses that her only daughter Fatima had worn (one of them handmade from her grandmother).  One of them is the dress pictured below.  I hung up those white dresses in Skyler's closet & imagined the beautiful girl that would one-day wear them...

And then, a couple weeks later, I had a miscarriage.  It was a slow, drawn-out miscarriage that had me doubting & hoping for my baby's life day by slowly passing day.  Everyday I would look at those dresses & cry aloud, "Come on Kimberly!  Don't you want to wear these beautiful dresses?  I've got these beautiful dresses just for you..."  And then I'd imagine the girl that I may never have in the the dresses that she may never wear.  Those were some painful couple of days, but I think the image of my little girl in these beautiful white dresses almost made it harder.  We moved the next week after my miscarriage down to Bountiful & I could never bring myself to tell my neighbor of our misfortune for fear that I'd feel like I should return the dresses.  And I just couldn't loose that hope that I'd been holding onto through those dresses...

Fast forward a couple of years & now here's my beautiful little Kimberly, all grown up & wearing one of the dresses I've been saving all these years.  When I look at her in that dress, all sorts of emotions come back to me, but mostly now, all I feel is gratitude.  Gratitude for my sweet daughter.  Gratitude for the chance to be her mother.  Gratitude for a loving Heavenly Father that can heal all wounds & soothe all broken hearts.  And Gratitude for a second-chance.

And now that the dress finally fits her, I'm realizing that it's not the dress at all that's the prize, but the beautiful girl within it that I love & cherish so dearly!  So thank-you, thank-you for sending me my sweet little Kimberly...

Skyler's Drawing...

Skyler doesn't usually like to draw pictures much (he'd rather be playing outside!), but typically whenever he draws a picture lately, it's usually of him & Laron doing something.  So the other day when Skyler came up to me to show me his picture & had me guess who it was of, I was all ears when he said that it was of him & me.  But his explanation was even cuter... He said it was a picture of him holding a brush & brushing my hair!  Adorable, huh?  I told him that he wasn't allowed to erase it because it just melted my heart every time I saw it! The even cuter thing though is that he actually does brush my hair sometimes... He knows that if Mom is sad or crying, brushing her hair or rubbing her shoulders will make it all better.  Wow, Laron has taught him well!

No more NIGHTS!

Yeah!  We made it!  Laron is officially DONE working NIGHTS!  It's been a very long 2+ years, but somehow Laron's managed, although it's definitely taken a toll on his health... Laron is now Lactose-Intolerant, which means I can no longer cook anything creamy, which is limiting me far more than I like.  And his new shift isn't entirely ideal, but it'll be better than working at night for sure!  As for some of the drawbacks, he leaves at 5:00 in the morning, which means waking up at 4:30, which means no more slacking off on getting the kids to bed on time.  Also, he no longer has a carpool buddy, which means more money he'll have to spend on gas & he'll actually make less money now because he doesn't get extra for working nights.  But I suppose it's still worth it!  No more tiptoeing around all day because "dad's sleeping"... We're thrilled!

And guess who else isn't waking up during the night now too?  Yep, Bailey finally started to figure out the whole sleeping-through-the-night thing.  (Of course, now that I've got Laron with me at night to help me... Ironic, huh? :)   Oh well, I guess we'll take it when we get it!

I sure love that girl!