Good Article

Livs and I were hangin' at the car wash yesterday and I surprisingly found a good read among the magazines there (after I read the article in Entertainment Weekly on how the Oscars totally bombed this year--I couldn't agree more...) Anyway, I picked up Redbook and found a "real" article about young girls and how parents can work against the media to keep them young and innocent while they are indeed, young and innocent (click here to read the article online).

I liked this part from it about saying 'no':

"Veteran teachers I spoke with said one of the biggest changes in students over the years is they've grown less and less accustomed to the word no. People are putting their kids in the driver's seat, but, let's face it, kids are crappy drivers. Your daughter may love the sweats with JUICY emblazoned across the butt — but she also may love eating Pixy Stix for lunch. "We've learned to feel that we can't go up against the culture or the peer group," Orenstein told me. "But I really think you can. Your child wants to know your values."

It sounds like parenting common sense to me but I am sure I have given in to my kids' wants many times when it would have been fine to put my foot down. I am determined to be better at that in all aspects.

The ending sums it up well as the author writes about her own small daughter:

"Every morning, I'm just so delighted to see that little face, those strong, chubby limbs. We call her The Viking because she's so exuberant, so gung ho. The idea of her some day comparing herself to Cinderella, or Barbie, or some simpering teen queen on TV and finding herself lacking — too fat, too skinny, too loud, nose too big, lips too small — and trying to compensate with store-bought sexiness breaks my heart. I don't want anyone to take that light out of her heart or out of her eyes. My goal then, I suppose, is to teach her to see herself as I see her, and to love herself as I love her, as someone who already possesses everything she needs."

Maybe the article struck a chord with me because I recently ran into an old neighbor and when I asked about her kids she breezily informed me that her 17 year-old daughter was pregnant. I was surprised, both by the news and her nonchalant approach. It broke my heart that someone so young would have her life forever changed at such a young age--she should still be growing-up and yet she'll now be the grown-up, and someone's mother. It overwhelms me just thinking about it.

Almost

After being a little too crazy and tripping over herself at the craft store last night, Cares looked like this:

I was so scared we would need to take her straight to the ER for stitches in her cheek, which would actually be an amazing first for her (she somewhat lacks in the "body awareness" department and trips, falls, and runs into things a lot...I am surprised she hasn't needed them yet.)

But after sending this pic to my dad and getting his advice we opted for a home remedy: clean it and steri strip it. This plan made Cares (and me) feel much more content--the idea of stitches gave her so much stress and many tears. And lydocaine spray is the coolest thing ever--Cares hardly felt us rubbing alcohol on her wound to clean it out.

sleeping soundly with a patched up face

Oh my sweet Caroline, glad you are safe and (mostly) sound. And you will never be crazy at the store again, right?

Reunion Weekend

Does anyone remember this guy (bottom of the pyramid on the left?)

Or this one?

Gotta love my very young hubby during his "glory days" at BYU singing with Vocal Point. This weekend the group as a whole celebrated their 20th anniversary and Joseph was down in Provo all day Friday and Saturday rehearsing, socializing, eating, performing and reminiscing with old buddies (you can read about all they had planned here.) It was quite a weekend, including a flash mob spur of the moment performance at the Provo Towne Center which you can watch here (Joseph is in an easy to spot green golf shirt and appears about half way through.)

I made it down for the awards dinner on Friday night and then the alumni concert on Saturday afternoon. I brought the kids thinking they'd really like it and especially want to see Joseph sing--but they were not feeling it and just wanted to race around the Covey Center lobby playing tag. They made it tricky to enjoy all the old favorites I loved hearing again (we really got into their music once Joseph was a member of the group.)

On Friday I was super excited to catch up with our friends Matt & Lizzie Stevens so they were a highlight of the night for me. It also surprised me how fun it was to see so many VP members who sang with my hubby. I was married to Joseph during both of his years with the group. We hung out with them a lot--almost every weekend during the school year actually, I choreographed for them a little and had them sing live for a piece I choreographed while dancing at BYU (the song was Be Still My Soul and I still love their arrangement.) It was a great time of our lives all those years ago--so incredibly busy and stressful but at the same time pretty amazing. I'm so glad we had such great friends to share it with back then and that we could reconnect this weekend.

(weird eyebrow from me--not sure what I was doing...)

with old friends Mary and Jeff Gabbitas

I'm hoping to post a video of the whole alumni singing Nearer My God to Thee. It was gorgeous hearing it sung live on Saturday and made wrestling my kids through nearly 2 hours of the concert mostly worth it. I know my hubby loved having us there to support him so that was really all that mattered. And we ate yummy Los Hermanos for dinner so that was a fun part of the day too :)

Becoming a Sewer

While working on my felt book pages and spending so much time on my sewing machine, I suddenly felt like an actual sewer. Creating 12+ pages must do that to a girl and it has sparked new inspiration in me. At first I just wanted to make a few more felt pages just for our own book--I was feeling the bug to create and I had some felt and muslin leftover. And then Michael's had a darling sea life felt board for sale which I grabbed up using a 50% off coupon and adjusted the materials to fit with all my other pages. Now we have these 4 extra pages for our book (not to mention the pages from all my sisters-in-law):


Now I have moved beyond the quiet book and have been working on aprons, pencil-cases, and toy bags all from online inspiration. It helps that I have many quiet afternoons while Livs is sleeping and Cares is playing with friends or willing to work with me. I will have to post pics of my creations soon.

All the sewing of late also highlighted how messy my sewing desk drawer had become. I used to have scissors and and bobbins and pins in there and that's it. But I have added more with each project: snaps, elastic, velcro, novelty buttons, ric-rac, nylon cord, fabric markers and so on. Cares helped me get everything organized this week:

Before:

After:

And who doesn't love a colorful thread collection?

Joseph got all these colors for me when I first got my machine and while making my quiet book pages I was so grateful for all of them-I think I've now used every single color.

I really need to work on my fabric and ribbon organization at some point too. Anyone have good solutions for either of those? A quick google image search popped up with this which I may need to try:

Dancing Girls

We had the main floor carpets cleaned on Tuesday and it was such fun to have an empty room to really move in (even if the carpet was still damp--didn't bother these two!)

Livs was momentarily distracted

and then back in the game

Later that day the kids played freeze tag, wrestled with dad, played suddenly falling down and calling out "whoa!" and rolled all over the open family room. The room felt huge with all the furniture crammed into the kitchen!

Reading

Bentley had some special guests at school today during his read-a-thon. I think my parents may have learned more than they ever needed to know about ocean life as Bean read to them, but look how snuggled up my little guy was with them. Love that.



My parents came to the house after being at the school and stayed with the kids while I went to work today. And they brought homemade dinner with them. I feel so lucky to have them so involved with my family and so willing to help. My kids all fell apart when they left for home this evening--they were not ready for grandma and grandpa to leave!

Fun Friday

Friday night at Fat Cats last weekend.

The picture is horrible but the bowling was awesome. Even better when Tom and Jess joined us. It is still hard for my kids to last through an entire game and keep waiting for their turns but Bentley is certainly figuring it out and loves to croutch down and carefully watch his ball as it makes its way down the lane.

Another well-used Groupon...