Movie Night at the Beard's

We host a movie night with our neighborhood friends every now and then.  We have a lot of fun, and it's a great way for Darin and me to get to know the kids our kids play with a little better.  They're a fun bunch of kids and we really enjoy them. 

We made brownies and popcorn, but these crazy boys ended up filling up on my beef stew. 
Warms a mother's heart, I tell ya.

Dare I say it? 

Girls, they wanna have fu-un. Oh, girls! They wanna have fun!
(my 80's roots are showing)

Boys....they just wanna wrestle. 

ChickaChickaBirthday

I'm turning 43 on Saturday and can't wait. I've found myself slipping over the last couple of months and telling people that I am already 43. Whoops! ONLY 42. ;-)

It's been a blessing to grow old...er. Older. I feel like every year that goes by I am shedding the ignorance and silliness of youth. Oh, to go back and do it again with what I know now. But I can't, so I look forward to moving "onward and upward." God is good.

One of my favorite things about age is that I feel like now I know how to properly read my kids their books. Back in my 20s, I read with feeling. Reading with feeling is good. A lot better than monotone. But now....NOW I have let go my inhibitions and can really slam dunk a read-through of those books that I used to try to skirt around when my kids would bring them to me because REALLY. How does an author think to put the phrase "ChickaChickaBoomBoom" in the middle of a story about the lowercase alphabet that climbs a tree together? Well....ChickaCHIckaBOOMBOOM! My kids don't care. They just think it's fun to hear me read it with ChickaChickaBoomBOOM-Pizazz, and I enjoy giggling with, and snuggling them in my arms as we "read it again!"  God is REALLY ChickaChickaBoomBoom-GOOD!

Eight O'Clock Pick-Up

An excerpt from 401 Ways to Get Your Kids to Work at Home: Household tested and proven effective! Techniques, tips, tricks, and strategies on how to get your kids to ... become self-reliant, responsible adults
I mean, really, if you can't find something that works after reading 401 suggestions, it's time to send the kids back to wherever they came from.  ;-):

Carolyn discovered a natural consequence that worked wonders.  The incident that motivated Carolyn, and her husband, Bob, to try this program was the mess they came home to one night.  Books, toys, clothes, towels and dishes were everywhere.  Rather than wake everyone in their anger, they laid out a plan.  The next morning they explained to the children, "We will go through the house twoice a day at eight o'clock.  anything left out in the general living areas will be put in the Extra-Service Box and will have to be redeemed with a chore sometime before Saturday at noon.  Consider yourselves warned."  That night, Carolyn and Bob picked up twelve things.  Next morning, when the children noticed the Extra-Service Box sitting in a conspicuous place on top of the refrigerator, they were all curious about who had things in the box.  "What do I need to do for you, Mom, to earn back my shoes?"  "Wipe off the TV screen" was the answer.

Carolyn had unsuccessfully tried using a similar technique before, where she would pick up an item left out at any time.  This was asking for perfection from the child and the parent had to stand guard all the time.  It was unenforceable.  Her real purpose was not to make the child perfect but to get him or her to notice and put away their own things.  She did not mind so much that things were left out in temporary spots once in a while, but it angered her when those temporary spots became permanent and the child never noticed the item until it was needed several days later.  For example, one of her sons had three coats.  He would go to the closet every time he needed a coat and only when there was not a coat in the closet would he think about where he could have left them.
This time, as Carolyn used this behavior modification technique, it was easier to be consistent with the consequence because it only happened twice a day.  She also watched for chances to reinforce the desired behavior when a child did pick up something: "Becky is saving herself an extra-service chore by picking up her shoes." An important ingredient for changing a habit is giving positive recognition for the desired action.

The evening of the second day, the fifteen-year-old could be seen picking up a whole arm load as she headed toward her bedroom.  Succes!  It was working.  This young lady was very involved in school activities but was especially careless at home.  It was this teen who put her dad's shoes in the box because they were out after eight o'clock and declared he would have to do her an extra chore.  The fourth morning was Saturday.  As the eleven-year-old boy appeared for breakfast, he noticed the service box and started checking to see if he had to redeem anything.  "What do I need to do to redeem my coat, Mom?"  Carolyn had him take the newspapers out to the garage.  This young man not only redeemed his own items, but everyone else's too.  Then he proudly took each item to the owner, telling about his generosity.  Carolyn's eight-year-old daughter had a spurt of energy while her mother was gone, and emptied the dish drainer and washed a sinkful of dishes.  "Did you like the way I helped out?  Does that mean I have redeemed something ahead of time?"  Success again!  She was noticing things that needed to be done without being told.

This eight o'clock pick-up was used by Carolyn every day for several weeks and then she let it die because the childen were much improved at picking up after themselves.  Three months later, she used it again for a few days to reinforce the principle.  Why did the eight o'clock pick-up work?

1. The children were mature enough to understand.

2. The eight o'clock rounds were easier to enforce than the "all the time" rule.

3. The Extra-Service Box was left out where it could be seen.

4. Redemption chores were kept very, very simple - less than five minutes and chores that were normally not theirs.

5. Special efforts were made to give lots of positive attention when the children picked up and put things away at other times.

6. A gentle, one-time reminder was often given before the parent's rounds were made.

7. The child's things left out in his own bedroom did not count; rather, they were treated with the daily pick-up chore by the child in the room and on Saturday when the bedroom was thoroughly cleaned. 

God's Vision, God's Passion

Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.

2 Corinthians 5:9

It's sometimes hard to remember that we should be raising our kids so that we glorify God - to be "well pleasing to Him" rather than to pump-up our own parenting egos.  I struggle with keeping that right frame-of-mind.  My upbringing was a little skewed, so I find myself trying to compensate for it by doing all the things I think should be done in order raise good kids.  A lot of times that means that I pile on book after book, after fun activity, after meaningful discussion. Bleh.

The biggest danger in me making the list of priorities for the kids is that there is the very real possibility of losing sight of the vision God has given me as a mother.  My little things can muddy the waters and make me forget The Big Thing that God has given me to do.  Constantly asking God to give me His vision for my family has kept me going strong.  With the vision, comes a passion, a yearning to fulfill and live up to God's goals.  What a blessing and a joy it becomes to "do all to the glory of God." (1 Cor. 10:31)

With that said, it doesn't mean that I sit idly by, waiting for God to pick me up from the couch and give me a kick in the right direction.  That's not the point!  The point is to "do all to the glory of God."  When I do that, the unimportant is easy to shake off as I focus on the true calling God has given for me as a mother. 

One thing I come back to over and over again, is spending time with our kids.  How can I win their hearts if I won't even have a conversation with them?  So I'm always looking for any amount of time that I can give to them - even if it means I'll never get to read for pleasure again - it's worth it.  ;-) 



Can one ever have too much cinnamon & sugar?



I found a book titled "Mothers and Daughters at Home: 35 Projects to Make Together" (check out my Amazon widget over in the sidebar).  The book is divided up into projects that take an hour, half a day, all day, and an indefinite amount of time.  I gave Lydia the book and told her to pick our first project together and she picked a half-day project.  We made homemade cinnamon rolls together.  We like to cook and bake together.  Something we like to do most often is what I call "Every Other Cooking."  Silly name.  All we do is alternate putting in ingredients and following directions for a recipe.  But we do it together and that makes it time well-spent.   



CARAMEL Cinnamon Rolls.  Yum!





 

He's daydreaming about all that cinnamon-y goodness.
CAN'T WAIT!



The finished product!  (don't look at my dirty oven)





 

Lay Hold

It's so easy to forget that the day that God blesses us with a desire for children, He is calling us into parenthood. That calling, and the importance of it, is taken for granted by so many.  Our culture looks at children and parenting without understanding the deep importance of what it means to parent and disciple.  It has become a selfish-driven desire.  We want children because babies are so sweet, or because our biological clocks are ticking, or because isn't that what married people do?  Parenting is a marathon, and the issues become more complex as the kids get older.  We can never abdicate our God-given roles to teachers, preachers, neighbors and the culture in general. 

I picked up a copy of My Utmost for His Highest this afternoon and was thumbing through it when I came upon the June 28th entry. These words, meant for those called into the ministry, still ring true for any calling from God:

"...when once God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left.  We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has apprehended us.  There is never any thought of - 'Oh, well, I am not fitted for this.' "

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Philippians 3:12

Huggies!

I am a huge coupon clipper and scrounge around for the best Huggies diapers (because really, they're the best!) coupons I can find until I found this good deal on Amazon.  It's a diaper subscription!  You can sign-up to receive diapers whenever you choose.....every month, 2 months or 3 months.  I order the Size 4 box of 140 diapers and receive them once every month and pay a lot less than I would at SuperTarget, even with coupons!  After joining the Amazon Mom club, I receive a 15% discount on the diapers.  Then because I have a subscription I get another 15% off!  The Amazon price for my diapers is $33.  After 30% off because of my club membership (which is free!) and my subscription, I pay $23ish.  That works out to about .17 cents for each diaper, AND there is no tax involved.  It's good.  :-)

UPDATE: I just found out that as an Amazon Mom, I can also receive FREE 2-Day Shipping on my orders!  I am so excited.  :-)