What’s for Breakfast?

A little known fact about me is that I come from a father with a strong cereal addiction gene. Cold cereal was always one of his top choices for a late night snack, and I have picked up on this habit big time! Rob teases me that I can’t go through a day without eating a bowl, and it was especially true when I was pregnant. Maybe my body is craving the calcium, because I’m not much of a milk drinker. Well, the addiction is now being past on to yet another generation. We always have at least four boxes of cereal in the pantry and eat it almost every day for breakfast.

I have a rule for picking out cereal at the store: it has to have 10 grams of sugar or less per serving. That way when the kids bring me the box of Cocoa Puffs I can say, “How much sugar is in it?” And their usual answer goes something like, “oh man, 12!” And that ends the begging. There are exceptions for cereals like Frosted Mini Wheats that also have a higher protein or fiber count.Needless to say they were very excited when the cereals came out with “75% Less Sugar” or “1/3 Less Sugar” in huge letters across the front of the box. Now cereals that were once out of reach are within the rules!

At our house we also have “breakfast dinner” which is where we eat the traditional breakfast foods like: waffles, pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs etc. for dinner because otherwise we would miss out on these great foods. My mom was one of those wonderful moms that got up every morning and made a nice breakfast for us. Even through those early morning seminary years! I will always admire her for that, but have come to accept that in that area my children will have much different memories… “Mom, we’re out of paper bowls and milk! Now what do we eat for breakfast?”

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Wedding Dresses

I have been looking for dresses for my girls to wear at Matt and Ashley’s wedding in August. I would like to use their wedding colors: chocolate brown and aqua. It has been tough to find something that I really like so I’m throwing around the idea of making them myself. Yes, really. I went through some of the “easy” patterns (I didn’t want to fall in love with a hard one) and found this dress. I thought I would do knee length for the little girls and floor length for Emma. It only goes up to size 8, but I can just cut it a little bigger and do a 10 for Emma right? Heather, Mom? What do you all think, can I pull it off? Which color combinations should I use? Brown dress, aqua sash? Aqua dress, brown sash? Tracy, would you want to do this for Adriene too? I’m scared…

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New Testament Study Lesson 17

My Dad sent out a challenge to all of his kids to follow the Gospel Doctrine reading schedule. This is something we should be doing anyway if we want to get the most out of our Sunday School lessons, but it’s so easy to let it slide. I actually did it Dad! Ok, I read today’s scriptures after the class was over, but I still did it.

Included in the lesson was the story of the widow’s mite; One of my favorites from the Bible that reminds us true worship is not about giving what is easy, but about giving all you have. There was one other thing I wanted to mention that caught my attention. Mark 10:31 reads: “But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.” The context of the lesson is to discuss what is required to gain eternal life. Taken as it is, this scripture seems to imply that those who are wealthy or that seem to have it all will not get eternal life. I read the JST which seems to add quite a bit. It adds: “There are many who make themselves first, that shall be last.” This seems to imply that it is not really about those who are wealthy, but about those that put the attainment of wealth or that choose to put their own interests before their God. It seems to be a caution of pride and covetousness, and these are traits we can find amongst people in all societies regardless of their class status. Anyone else have any thoughts on this lesson?

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Chore Follow-Up

If you have read my post, But That’s Not Fun, then you know I have been working on getting my kids working. The last few weeks we have had Work Saturdays at our house. We cleaned the garage (also the laundry room) together in just an hour, and it was actually fun. We turned up the music and organized, swept, and cleaned. Some friends of ours have a set routine where they have a family activity one Saturday a month, and it is such a great idea. We are now doing that too. Tomorrow will be our Activity Day, and the kids are so excited. The anticipation actually makes it even more fun!

I have also found a kind of cheesy, but effective site where you can build your own chore charts for printing. Every week I pick a different picture for Hunter and Emma’s charts and list four chores they are in charge of for the week. With homework and things it was just too much to expect that all four chores get done every day. So for now they need to pick two from their list every day except Saturday. (On Saturday they need to do all four.) When they tell me the chores are done, I go and check them and then award a star on their chart. At Family Night on Mondays they are paid by the star as their allowance. So the more chores they do in a week, the more they will get paid. They can earn just over $5.00 per week if they do all four chores every day, but that hasn’t happened yet. So far it has worked pretty well, although it is still a program that needs some tweaking.

I came across a pod-cast that has some great advice for getting kids to do their chores. It is by Kelly Nault on Ultimate Parent, and she starts out the 16 minute talk by saying that we are inadvertently training our kids not to like doing chores. By telling the kids to go and play while the adults work or taking over a job when they don’t do it right, we are actually doing them a disservice.

Two suggestions she gives for keeping kids motivated:

1- Encouragement and Thank Yous -acknowledge how your child’s actions help you.

2- Notice the positive. Say what the child has done right.

Four suggestions she gives for making it more fun as you work along with them:

1- Dance to music

2- Make chores a game -Time them

3- Talk to each other

4- Make up stories

She says if all else fails and you’re dealing with older kids -Go on Strike!

I’ve been trying to remember to encourage and notice the positives more. I have to admit I do spend a lot of time saying things like, “You’re still not done?” or “You missed something.” Hopefully I will keep getting better about that part.

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Baby Bird Brina

Lately Sabrina has taken up a new way to communicate when she’s hungry. She looks wide eyed at whatever you’re eating and opens her mouth as wide as she can! It’s so cute, and she reminds me of a baby bird waiting in the nest for her momma to feed her. We all smile and laugh every time she does it. Such a cutie pie!

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