Jill

I took this picture while Jeremy was at scout camp.  Jill got the umbrella and tutu for her birthday. :) This particular day she kept wandering around the house like this, insisting that she had to use my flowers too.

Little Jill is so fun!  She is such a little mommy to her dollies lately.  Her doll cradle that Grandpa Badger made is getting more use than ever.  She has two dolls that she loves the best, and I realized just recently that the reason why they're her favorites is that they both have braided hair.  One of these dolls Jill named Kaleela. Kaleela was made for Jill by a nice old lady in our ward.  I have no idea where she came up with the name Kaleela, but she sure reminds me of myself sometimes.  She gets all dramatic about naming things, just like I used to.  Anyway, the other doll is from the store.  She is named Sally, but Jill's s's often come out as ts's, so when Jill says her name it sounds more like Tsally.  Jill has noticed me nursing my baby, so she sometimes will say that she has to feed her baby at bedtime.  She even lifts up her shirt to do it.  I like that I'm passing this on to her, but it still kind of makes me say, "Gah!"  As far as I can remember I never pretended to nurse.  Well, it's all good, and I like watching her. She likes to make up things that happen to her dollies too.  Sometimes she'll tell me that Kaleela fell off the bed and got all bloody or something.  One day she told me that if one of those dolls misbehaved she would spank her and punch her in the belly.  What in the world?!  We had a little talk about how we don't do that to our babies.  My goodness! 

Here are Kaleela and Sally. Sally can't seem to keep track of her dress.

At night after lights are out I sit on Jill's bed nursing Brom with Jill on her pillows and Timmy at the foot of the bed, and Jill talks and talks and talks!  She talks about everything under the sun.  It's fun to listen to her cute little voice rattle on and on.  She often makes me laugh out loud, and then I intend to write down what she says, but I always forget it before I get around to writing. :P

 

Timmy likes it when I print him a coloring page with "Iron Ma'am" or "Hoke." That's Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk as Timmy says them.  He likes coloring and drawing a lot.  He's even written some ABCs on the wall. :D And he really likes this Iron Ma'am action figure.  It's Benji's.  Whenever he says, "Iron Ma'am," I can't help thinking, "That would be Pepper, right?" ;) I'm not sure why he pronounces it that way, but it tickles my gizzard.

And just a bit about Brom - he has been clapping and dancing. He will clap sometimes if we say, "Yea, Brom!"  And if he hears music playing he sticks his arms out to the side and turns his upper body side to side and grins really big.  It's so cute, even if he is sitting when he does it. ;)

Sometimes

I had an off day today. You know the kind. Low energy combined with sleepiness and a kind of delirious, hazy fog surrounding my brain and later punctuated by a headache and an upset stomach. The funny thing is that when this happens it takes me about half the day to realize I've spent half the day in a stupor. And then I wonder what in the world I've done all day and how in the world I'll ever get ANYTHING done. But the good thing is that when I came out of my stupor today I did realize that I had changed Brom when he needed it and everyone was fed and clothed. (Well, except that Timmy wasn't. Since he started potty training he's decided he doesn't need clothes. He undresses immediately after I get him dressed. I can't even keep underwear on him! Why do I try?!) Thank heavens for autopilot, right? Thank heavens.

Throw-back Thursday

Here is cute little Timmy in our park by our house in Cedar City way back in July 2011. Awwww!

And here's little Brom the other day for good measure.

They could be brothers, right? ;)

Things I've been thinking about

All right, you, my audience of, what, 2?  Here's a suggestion for you.  Go to the library and pick up a copy of A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille.  And then pick up a copy of Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning by the same author.  What I have learned from these books has astounded me.

Some of you know that I've been homeschooling.  Maybe some of you know that I've been trying to revamp it, that I started out last year with a stressful online school that made me want to puke and then dropped it and have been looking for a better version of homeschool. Well, I've found it.  And it's not a curriculum.  It's a method.  Here are some things I like about it:

• It is highly personalized.
• We wait until our children are ready to learn things before helping them learn them.
• It's not stressful or rushed.
• It's built on inspiring more than requiring.  That means that I need to be educating myself and setting an example of how to learn.
• It helps children fall in love with learning.
• It encourages us to talk with our children - a lot.  We are to find out what they want to do and then help them figure out how to do it, and then we discuss and pick apart.  Have I mentioned that I think it is way fun to talk with my children?  I love it!
• It's built on good books and original great thinkers.

This method has taken everything I knew about education and thrown it out the window and then put it back together in a form that seems so much more natural.  I will admit that for my brain that has been trained in public schools (And please know that I'm not against public schools.  They were such a blessing to me!) has been quite boggled, and it's been a workout to turn my thinking around.  I will also admit that Jeremy and I won't be implementing our homeschool exactly like the DeMilles have because (a. I think just a few of their ideas are a little too far out there for us and b.) I want it to be personalized for our family, which, actually, is what they are asking us to do anyway.  They're just telling what they do, and then they say pray about it and make it your own.

But the real reason why I'm telling you guys to read these books is that I think they can be a blessing to people of all ages.  They are a lot about homeschool, but the idea of getting yourself a great education, public or not, is awesome.  And these books show the way to get a great education.  It explains all the principles behind it.  There are just so many things to learn!  I'm so excited to be learning again myself! I'm currently working on the 7 Keys Certification that Thomas Jefferson Education has.  It's nothing that will be recognized by the state or anything, but it's helping me learn how to implement this method.  I've read several classics along with that first book I mentioned and half of the second book.  Yeah, I'm excited!  It seems very apparent to me that anybody who is feeling stuck in a rut (and even people who aren't) can be blessed by doing the 7 Keys Certification or at very least reading the DeMilles' books.

So there's my sales pitch. Moving on.

Jeremy has a job!  His old boss at the mine contacted him a month or month and a half ago (something like that) telling him that they had a job opening at the mine doing his old job.  He asked him to apply, so he did.  What they were looking for is somebody who can replace Jeremy's boss that's directly above him now and needs to retire soon.  They really are hoping for somebody who'll stay until the mine closes in 20+ years.  I'm not sure how long we'll stay, but they had pretty much singled him out and just went through the formality of posting the job just to be fair.  They offered him the job last week and the next day he was getting his pre-employment physical done down in the valley.  And then he started on Monday.  We did a lot of talking about this before the job was offered.  We couldn't decide.  It seemed like it might be unethical to take the job if we weren't going to stick around when "someone who'll stick around" is pretty much what they're looking for.  I figured we'd know when they made the offer whether or not he should take it.  So I guess we're supposed to stay here for a while.  It helps knowing the size of the salary offer they made to him, of course!  It's more money than he's ever made!  I'm kind of puzzled that we're still supposed to be here, but I'm not going to complain about the salary.  The downside is that he's remembering why he was so glad to leave when we moved to Utah.  He's remembering why he needed to go to the gym every day after work.  It wasn't just for fun.  He needed to relieve stress.  I feel kind of bad about that. :( But it is quite encouraging knowing that we can pay the bills this month!  Yeah, we were able to pay them last month, but our reserves are running low.  I'm thankful that we can pay the bills and build up reserves.  And we can pay down debt and get things fixed in our house.  And we can go to the gym again!  I'm excited to start running on the treadmill again. :)

About a year or so ago our bishop asked us in the Relief Society to start working on Personal Progress.  He said if we'd already earned the award we can earn it again.  I'm finally getting my buns in gear, and I'm remembering why it was a blessing to me before.  It takes real effort and brings real blessings.  I'm thankful!

Timmy has been doing great with potty training!  I had felt like such a slacker for waiting so long, but every now and then we'd try and he just couldn't get it.  I guess we just needed to wait until he was ready.  He isn't 100% yet, but I can just ask him, "Timmy, do you need to go potty?" and he'll smile and run down the hall to the potty.  Hooray!

Brom still isn't walking on his own very much, even though he can.  Just a couple of steps now and then.  He loves it when we hold his hands and run him around, and, yes, I do mean run!  And he loves it when I sit on the floor and stand him in front of me.  He just stands there by himself with a mischievous grin for a few seconds and then takes a step and falls in my arms and giggles.  So cute!  I love that boy!  He loves being in the kitchen with me lately, too, so I need to be better at keeping that floor clean!  Or rather, Benji needs too because that's his job!

And speaking of which, one thing I read in the book I'm currently reading says something like, "If you are a mom and you're still doing all the work you've missed your promotion."  Ha ha!

Well, that's enough for now.  If I think of anything else I'll post it another time.  I'd better!

Important things only

Ha! How's that for a title? I agree. Lame!

So over been thinking lately about all the things I bear myself up over and all the things I worry about, and I had an epiphany of sorts. See, while Jeremy was at Scout Camp, one day we decided to go to the library. In fact, I demanded that we go. We needed time out of the house that wasn't spent running around the store. But as we started up the second big hill the car started shaking and the check engine light, which is always on, started flashing.  In my head I freaked out, but I calmly pulled over and turned off the car. I said a prayer that the car would work fine and that we could make it home safe. Then I turned the car on and we went home. (But we stopped at the store on the way because we did in fact need to go there.)

I decided, though, that that was itand we were going to stay home until Papa got home. (2 more days) I thought about how that's exactly the kind of thing our old van did that made me freak out and helped us decide to get a new van, beside the fact that we needed another seat, of course. It freaked me out driving to the valley and back with such an unhappy car that was, in my mind, liable to explode into flames or suddenly stop where I would get into an accident. So when Jeremy came home I told him what happened, and he said, "Yeah, that's annoying, huh? When that happens, just downshift and you'll be fine." What in the world?! The car was shaking and the bad news light was blinking extra bad news!

It was then as I sat and thought about it that I was taking things too seriously. It's a cranky car, not the end of the world! And that thought snowballed into a cascade of instances where I take myself and things too seriously. It was mental smack in the face. All these things I worry about are not life and death. If something needs fixed I can pray and/or fix it. And if we don't have money to fix it, it can wait. It certainly can't do anything else!

Anyway, that thought has stayed with me, and I've decided I need to keep it around. I need to pare down my list of worries to the ones that are actually important and then do something instead of just worrying. And the rest does not need to be taken seriously!

The end.

One more reason

One more reason to stop reading C. Jane's blog: she is in favor of the Ordain Women movement. I'm so disappointed. Not surprised, but disappointed.

I think one reason why the movement makes me so upset is that they say we're just denying ourselves if we say we don't feel we're mistreated as women in the church. They say that whether or not we feel it, the fact that we're not ordained is trouble that needs corrected. That makes me feel like they are saying I'm defective for not feeling the need for the change they are seeking. I don't like feeling like people think I'm defective. :P

Well, I am happy in the church. I love the callings that are available to me, and I see no cause for change. I don't understand these people who picket for God to change His mind.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is scout camp. Our bishop asked Jeremy to please go because our scoutmaster just moved. It is convenient that he doesn't have work this month. Funny, huh? I'd be lying if I said I'm not nervous about him going. At least I'm not pregnant this time. XD So Jeremy is taking Hyrum and Joshua along with one other boy from our ward, and he'll help haul some boys from second ward too. And they are leaving at 3:30 AM, of all the ridiculous hours.

And while I'm whining, about every day like clockwork I remember that Brom has never been blessed. It kills me. He is such a sweet, wonderful boy, and we are good people who are just trying to be good. I know that God knows it is important to me. I don't know what to think. I'd cry injustice, but life isn't meant to be fair or easy. I talk to Him about this regularly, and all I know is that I'm supposed to be patient. And I can easily acknowledge that He blesses us beyond measure in other areas. I'm thankful for that.

There. I said all that and it feels good to vent. I guess it's one of those days. Tomorrow always feels better. :)