Sedona Arizona April 2016, Part 3

 On Thursday we went to the place I had been most excited about: Slide Rock Park.  It was awesome!  Natural water slides in a most beautiful setting.  The water was FRIGID though.  I felt numb after getting out!  We stayed and had a picnic and then Brad, Amalie and I left to take Andre home for a nap. 

Sedona Arizona Vacation April 2016- Part 2

 On Tuesday, we decided to take a quick trip to Montezuma's Castle before Shannon had to leave for the airport.  We had a wonderful surprise when we found out that it was the National Parks Birthday, so admission was free instead of $10 per adult.  That was a blessing!  We had a fun time looking at the ruins (from afar) and learning about how these people who lived 1000 years ago. 

 The family had a FUN time swimming on Wednesday!  ALL of the kids LOVE the water and Andre is no exception. 

Sedona Arizona Vacation April 2016, Part 1

 Last year when Brad's mom and dad were visiting, they were showing us pics of their recent trip to Sedona, Arizona.  We were all in awe of how beautiful the pics were and what a neat experience they'd had.  So, his mom told us that they were going again the next year in April and would we like to come?  Brad and I came to a very quick decision that YES!  We wanted to come!  Brad's parents generously used their timeshare points to book us a wonderful 2 bedroom timeshare condo with a full kitchen and laundry and it was AWESOME!  We loved Sedona!  It was the MOST beautiful drive and even though it was 8.5 hours, it was such a lovely and pleasant drive.  It was amazing.  

 We got there late Saturday night and Monday we decided to do some hiking.  And we even got to see Brad's sister Shannon who was there for a couple days.  It was such a beautiful, easy, fun hike. 

Parent Victories: Hard Won

I think Andre was about 9 months old when I would rock him to sleep. I would go in his room, take him in my arms and sit in the rocking chair. He would cuddle up against my shoulder and his body would start to relax until eventually he would go limp in my arms and I knew he was asleep. Over Christmas break of that year, the two older children were not used to the routine of Andre's nap. I would hear them yelling my name throughout the house and eventually they would burst into Andre's room, yelling for me, and startling baby Andre. The first time this happened I tried to explain to NEVER come in the baby's room when the door was closed as it meant that the baby was sleeping OR I was trying to put him to sleep. They had known and respected this rule only months before over summer break. Well the third day in a row this very important rule was broken, and baby Andre was once again woken up by a child yelling for me, I was TICKED! I told the two older children they would have full responsibility for putting Andre to bed for his naps over the rest of Christmas break. They whined and complained and asked for second chances, promising they would never do it again, which usually would break my resolve, but because of how TICKED I had been, my resolve kept. I told them they needed to learn how difficult it was to put a baby down for a nap, and only then would they be able to appreciate and remember not to disturb Andre's nap time. It was funny when Noah put Andre down for a nap the first time, he came downstairs and said “Mom, you said it was hard, but it wasn't.” He had actually loved the experience. Amalie had a little bit rougher of a time, and she had tears in her eyes when she came down, because she'd had to leave him crying. However, they continued trading off putting him down for naps the rest of Christmas break and it was a wonderful thing for all of us! I got a nice little break, the kids were learning to serve me and their younger brother and Andre became more connected to his older siblings.

Fast forward to a year and a half later. I was sick, not the normal sick where you just plow through it and still do your duties, but the sore throat, fevery, headachy, no energy kind of sick where I couldn't just plow through it. I could hardly take care of myself. On day two, where I felt even worse, I called my two older kids in. They sat down with paper and pen in hand, while I listed off responsibilities and they divvied them up and wrote them down and then did them. Things like Unload the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, clear and wipe all the kitchen counters, clean the family room, clean the guest room, make lunch, put Andre down for a nap, etc. They didn't complain at all, but were happy to help. I CANNOT believe my kids are like this now. It is SUCH an incredible blessing.

I've struggled so much the last few years in understanding how to discipline {teach} my kids. For a long time I had felt that my kids were very entitled. Not in the sense of feeling entitled to things, but they felt entitled to a clean house without doing much work, they felt entitled to eat a nice dinner but not help clean up afterwards, they felt entitled to much of my time and energy even though they refused to help out much of the time, and most of my time and energy were spent trying to get them to do things, so that when they wanted to spend time with me, I was too mad at them and too exhausted.

But every time I went to my Father in Heaven and the Lord in prayer, and told Them of my frustrations, the answer was always the same. “Kate, you need to change.” Oh how I hated hearing that, how it made my blood boil. “The kids are the ones who need to change!” I would think. And yet, a few days later when I had cooled down and my desperation had reached an all time high, I would experiment with the change that I had received through inspiration, and guess what? Every time I changed, the children would respond and change for the better. I have learned that it is a BLESSING that I can change. I'm grateful I have the power to change my life and my circumstances.

These last few years have been some of the most frustrating of my life with regards to parenting. I have prayed that my Heavenly Father would teach me to be the parent He wants me to be, and oh boy has it been a BUMPY ride! I have felt that He has opened my eyes and shown me weakness after weakness, and boy it is painful. The most distressing eye opener was when I realized that I was loving my children conditionally. Oh the pain and anguish that came from that realization! I had to spend much time repenting. I was grateful however that my Mom had taught me over and over HOW to have Christlike love: to pray with all the energy of your heart for it. So I did. And as I did, that brought me to a second revelation that also broke my heart. I had been storing up all the hurt and anger I had felt from my childrens disobedience for years, such that each day was not a new day, and I would wake up feeling like I'd already had enough. So I had to learn how to forgive, how to really forgive, not to simply brush offenses aside and blow them off, but to pray like I'd never prayed before and really USE the atonement to help me to forgive others. It took many months to free me of all the hurt I had been storing up for years, but eventually it came, and I realized too how much I absolutely LOVE my children. That was a gift from my Father in Heaven and it came hard won after months and months of prayers and that beautiful, yet harrowing journey He took me on.

I was reading in the 5 Love Languages for Children something that really resonated with me. The author remarked that you would be surprised how obedient and how much your children want to please you when they absolutely feel your love for them.

I have realized that to be true. My children respond so much better now that they really FEEL my love. It hurts me that I spent so many years storing up hurts and greatly reducing my ability to love them, but I am grateful that God showed me my weakness and helped me to overcome it.

Of course my children still complain and they still throw their fits and they still get mad at me, but overall I cannot believe how much more obedient they are and how much more gratitude they have for me and for Brad. I am so grateful for those days where I have a parenting victory. They do not come every day, but when they do; all the tears, all the prayers and all the times I spent searching the scriptures and asking others for words of advice, were well worth the time spent. I'm so, so grateful that Heavenly Father loves me enough to show me when I am in the wrong. And the beautiful thing is that when I ask, He shows me my weakness and then He helps me to change! What a beautiful thing!

Halloween 2015

Hogle Zoo

 One of the cool benefits of the homeschool program we are in, called MyTechHigh is that there are some neat field trips we get to go on, for a very minimal cost. The first field trip of the school year was to Hogle Zoo and the students were free and I only had to pay $8 for myself.  Since Ian and Serena's family was living with us at the time, the kids really wanted their cousins to come, so I agreed to drive them if their parents wanted to pay for them, so Kaitlyn and Derek got to come with us and we had a BLAST!

 I forget that while I have been to zoos and Wild Animal Parks a number of times, Amalie and Gabe had never been.  So it was fun for them to get up close and personal with some of the animals that they had never seen in real life before.

 I think everyone's favorite was the Bird Show, it was amazing and Amalie wanted to donate money so the bird would take it out of her hand.  Cute.  One of the most memorable parts of this trip was that I had packed some food for us so we could hopefully stay a few hours before everyone getting hungry and having to leave.  So,  I had packed some corn tortillas with melted cheese on it and cut up a huge block of mozzarella cheese into sticks.  Well, it was a hot day and that mozarella kinda melted into a bit of a gross texture, but I didn't want to waste food, so the kids had to eat it, and I told them if they ate all the food and were still hungry, we would stop by a fast food place on the way home and they could each get two things off the dollar menu.  It was funny how they struggled eating those mozarella sticks that were a gross texture.  But they did it! Ha Ha!

 We also got to attend an elephant show, which was A LOT of fun!  And sweet little Andre really liked the animals and would coo over them, he seems to love animals the most out of any of my babies.  What a fun trip!

Papa and Bubby's Visit

 We always have a lot of fun when Papa and Bubby come to visit and they always spoil us rotten.  The first night they arrived, we all went out to Kneaders and enjoyed a lovely dinner and then they took Amalie and Gabe to pick out their birthday presents.  The next day we went Bubby, Noah, Amalie, Gabe and I went bowling while Papa stayed with a napping Andre.  We had so much fun!

 On the third day, we drove up to the Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake, where we were treated to an annual pass to the park by Papa and Bubby and we had a lovely time.  It is a beautiful aviary and it was so mellow with hardly any crowds.

 We went into a closure where there where four different types of birds flying around and one of the monk parakeets fell in love with Noah and stayed perched on his shoulder.  It was adorable.  It was especially sweet, because I had tried to get the little guy to perch on my finger and he had bit me!  

 Noah stayed in the enclosure where we went on to the parrots and the parrots were talking back and forth with us, it was a lot of fun!  Then we decided to go and do a feeding experience with the sun conures, beautiful small rainbow colored birds that perched on our hands and ate corn out of the containers we held.  It was a perfect, beautiful fall day and we had a wonderful, relaxing time.

It was a very sweet visit with Papa and Bubby.