Fun Family Night

Tonight we got invited to a dance party by Leslie! Too Cute! She loves to put music on and dance around the house with everybody. Kenny even busted a move! He also put on some oldies for the kids, you know like Madonna and Oingo Boingo! The kids had a blast and so did we, I hope we get an invite again soon!

Pictures of the kids

Nothing much to write but I thought that I would put up a couple of pictures for the grandparents!
We had a nice cuddly day and yummy s'mores tonight after dinner, good day!


Liam giving us one of his great smilesLeslie's hair cutA family picture of our dogs: Left to right Sassy, Puddles and Honey

Luke also got his hair cut but I still need to take his picture. Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Outside Play makes Happy Kids

Wow, it is amazing what a difference it makes in our day when we get some time to play outside.
The kids and I are really enjoying the nice weather and today we took a walk to our "look out" as we call it. We took the dogs and they did really well too. Leslie loves it up there and the boys did well listening, it can be a little nerve racking with the little guys climbing on the great big rock over looking a straight shot downhill! I think we will try and go more often, it is a great walk and I will try to remember the camera and get some pictures of my rock climbers!

Quiet on the home front

Not much to report. It has been very quiet around here, well except for Leslie and Luke bickering!
It has been raining alot so we have been inside most of the time. It really seems to get to the kids after a while, so the last 2 days have been nice enough to get out for a bit of running around. They ride their bikes and scouters around on the driveway mostly. Yesterday they were checking out the pond and waterfall, since all of the rain the pond is really full and running under to the waterfall on the other side. It makes a really nice sound when you go out side. Leslie starts classes this coming week out at ERCLC and we will all be glad for something to do!

Our New Year

Another year come and gone, WOW! This means that Luke is now 4, Liam is going to be 2 and Leslie 11. Now how did I get old enough to have an 11 year old!

Luke had a great time on his birthday. We had a friend come over and share some lunch and cake and to help try out the new toys! Luke just loved having a friend over to play at our house. Because we live so far from most of our friends it is hard to have them over, I am going to try harder to get some more play dates for him, he just loves it.

Liam is becoming a parrot these days and is in to everything!

Leslie has been catching up on school work over the Christmas break. We fell behind in math and science with our busy schedule last semester. She is really ready to get back to school and see some friends!

I have not felt too well these last few weeks and have not been great with the communication end of parenting. This is something that I think will be a life long struggle for me. I hope that my struggles make it easier for my children to be effective communicators in the future!

A Quiet Christmas

What a blessed Christmas we had as a family this year! Kenny didn't have to leave for work until 6:00 so we had a nice relaxed day together. Leslie was up at an unnatural time as usual, but it was so cute when Luke got up and she took him to open his stocking. We could hear them on the monitor and Leslie was talking him threw all the stuff he got, really sweet! Then when Liam woke up she took him and did the same. She really loves special holidays and the little traditions that go with them. When Kenny and I finally got up they were all ready to rip into the gifts. Luke was really in to it this year, I think this is the age when kids realize that every gift has something else for them, so they just want to keep on ripping! Liam on the other hand was happy with the first thing he opened and had to be really encouraged to open anything else! Leslie was pretty happy with her gifts as well, especially her new bike. She was hard to buy for this year because she is getting out of the toy stage and everything she would like is expensive. So luckily she really likes clothes and was happy to get a bunch of them!

So we spent the morning open toys and stuff for them to check out and I was glad we could let them play all day with their new stuff. It can be hard at this time of year to have no other family around, so I try to look on the bright side of it. No other houses to visit, no schedules to work out and staying home all day Christmas as a family and enjoying each other!

I must say I love this after Christmas high, with all the new toys for them to enjoy and stay busy with, I just hope we don't have to big of a crash when the newness ends!

I love my family!

Not much to report today but I thought I would write about my latest parenting thoughts.
I have been struggling with my style of parenting as of late and I find it really hard to balance my Christian beliefs with my strong feelings for not using hitting as a discipline tool.

So I was sitting in the boys room while Luke was falling a sleep and I usually pray, in my head, for them while I am in there waiting, and while I was praying something, meaning of course God, spoke to me. He just reminded me that the whole point of everything is to love one another, and it struck me that alot of the time that message might not get translated to our treatment of those closest to us and kids especially. I mean, we have to be responsible for how they turn out as a person, and I feel that really weighs on me at times and makes me want to really get rid of the things that make me uncomfortable, like the tantrums and aggression. So when I am faced with this kind of behavior it makes me feel really angry and I have a hard time not reaching for those tools that seem, in the moment, what will get the behavior to stop. All this made me come to a personal conclusion, I need to parent from a place of love not anger, to be proactive not reactive. So instead of waiting for bad behavior I want to give my kids my attention and love a lot more so that hopefully when the bad times do come, because I have no delusions that they won't, I will be more connected to them and know why they are having the hard time, and hopefully be patient enough to work through it. I mean if a friend called and needed to vent some frustration, I would not yell at her and tell her to get over it. Anyway, I just feel like I am coming back to where I want to be, and that is a place of love for everyone, especially my Kids!