Busy January!

We had a busy month! At the beginning of January, my fifth grader was assigned a couple big projects at school that were due at the end of January. She had to do a state report(Vermont) and did an American hero report as well as her regular homework such as math, reading, and spelling, assignments. ACK! In addition, she signed up for a couple choir groups this past month. She is singing in the Hope of America Choir which she will perform in May at BYU and she also signed up for the school choir, which they are learning some Disney songs to perform for the parents in a couple months! She goes to school early twice a week to practice the songs. She absolutely loves to sing! As for her research, I helped her collect resources on her American Hero project via internet. John took her to the library to get some books on her person. Her assignment was hefty! She had to not only write a report in first person about her hero, she has to do a speech (under a minute) which had to be MEMORIZED! Then she got to dress up like her hero and present her speech "Wax Museum" style for parents, students, and friends. It was way cool! They had their desks lined up in the cafeteria with a open or closed sign as well as a home made button to push. They brought props as well as dressed up as their American hero! Oh, I suppose you want to know who she picked out? Well, she chose drum roll please.... Laura Ingalls Wilder! In the past, she has read a couple of her books and loved them as well as watched the TV series Little House and the Prairie. She has enjoyed reading her biography these past couple weeks. I even learned a lot from helping her research. A couple of my favorite quotes by Laura Ingalls Wilder are the following: "It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all." She wrote a letter to a fan that said, "Remember, it is not the things you have that make you happy. It is love and kindness and helping each other and just plain being good." Laura Ingalls lived a challenging and amazing life. Life was not simple back then and she knew how to work! She went through some hard trails such as a her house burning down, loosing a child after birth, and her husband was partially paralyzed. I am so impressed that Laura was able to fulfill her dream of being a famous author at age 64! Wow, it is never too late to accomplish things in life! As for fifth grader's costume, we were so lucky to borrow some pioneer clothing (a red skirt, cream apron, red bonnet, and black lace up boots) from Aunt Marilee and Cousin Holly. Our quest was to find some cream button up shirt at some thrift store to wear as her top but we had a cream shirt in her closet that worked out perfectly. I braided her hair like Laura although it is hard to tell since her hair is still short. We are so glad to get those projects done! I am so proud of her in putting in the effort!




Is she the the cutest prairie girl? I am so glad we had the props and costume! Yay!


As for younger sister, my little first grader, she brought home a penguin stuffed animal last week. His name is Ponko. For her assignment, she had to play with him and write about it in a book. She had a lot of fun playing hide and seek with older sister and Ponko as well as playing other games. She has quite the imagination! She is such a cutie! She is an amazing reader! I just discovered yesterday that she jumped a whole level in reading. She is now on level F when she started on Level B at the beginning of the school year. I suppose reading scriptures with her has helped her sufficiently become a better reader! Her two front teeth are almost completely in. She is looking forward to her birthday in a couple months. We promised her that she could have a friend's birthday party. She has never had one yet, which surprised me because Audrey has had quite a few. My youngest daughter is very shy and has made a couple friends at school finally! She has already came up with a list of girls, cousins, and boys to invite to her birthday party.





I love her smile! She is a sweet girl and very sensitive like her parents were at her age!


I am enjoying my church calling. I am a activity day leader. I plan and do activities for a couple girls in my neighborhood. This past month we did a lesson on budgeting (we used M&M's to represent money one M&M was $20). My partner that helps me came up with some ideas and amounts to teach the kids how to budget effectively. I learned some great ideas from her and hopefully the girls understood the importance of staying within a budget and not using credit cards. I usually do the fun activities like something crafty! So this month I decided to try teaching the girls how to make friendship bracelets. It was tough! I forgot how to do them and had to practice making them a couple days before the activity. I cannot think when the last time I made a friendship bracelet. I was probably in middle school or junior high. Anyway, I found an easy method on the internet http://www.makingfriends.com/jewelry/bracelet_klutz.htm and the activity didn't go as well as I planned. I had to do a lot of one on one with each girl and the hour goes by quick! My daughter was not interested as well as my activity day leader partner's daughter. We were trying to focus on the other girls. So I did a one on with my oldest daughter after the activity to show her how to do it.

As for my weight loss goals, I wasn't very successful or 100% committed to my exercise routine last month. I didn't even go jogging due to snow storms and I was just not in the mood to freeze to death! I am not a fan of running in the cold weather but I need to change my attitude and just do it anyway! On average, I worked out maybe 3 times a week at most. So my husband and I started the dreadful cabbage diet this week. http://www.cabbage-soup-diet.com/index.php He has a lot of weight to loose as well as me! I hate the holidays because I always gain weight and it is not a couple pounds either! We decided that if we do it together, we can support each other better on our weight loss goals. We are currently on day two, which is probably the worst day! We basically eat cabbage soup all day and fresh veggies. NO FRUIT, DAIRY, GRAINS, OR MEAT! We are suffering with headaches (due to sugar withdrawals) grumpiness, and hunger, lol! Hubby and I are very determined to make it through this diet until Sunday night. It is only recommended to do it no more than seven days straight. Then start a different diet afterwards. We will probably do the South Beach Diet. We were successful on that a couple years ago. Although, the reason for quitting the diet on Sunday night is we have a super-bowl party to attend at a friend's house and more than likely be faced with a lot of junk food temptation. We will be fasting that day too due to it being fast Sunday! I suppose it will be our reward after this week to partake some of the party food but we have to get back on track on Monday with the South Beach Diet Phase One! I am so proud of myself! I ran today for the first time in a long time (a couple months since I last ran) and did some strength training yesterday. The funny thing that happened today is I got lost running in the foothills (surrounding neighborhoods) near my house. I normally take the canal trail which is a couple blocks from my house but due to snow and mud, I decided to stay on the roads. The problem with my jogging route is I kept running into dead end streets so my jogging time was 1 hour and 20 minutes instead of one hour! Duh! I was so tired and sore afterwards and starving to death! I was ready to chow down that cabbage soup! I have no idea how many miles I ran due to running in circles and there were a couple times I had to walk due to the hills being too steep and I was totally out of breath! I cannot wait to run again on Thursday and hopefully won't get lost again, lol! I miss running and enjoy the time listening to music on my iPod as well as doing some thinking while I jog. I am looking forward to making great healthy changes this month! I hope to accomplish my goals by the end of the month as well as continue to make a commitment to a healthier lifestyle!

Technologic

Here is a photo of my girls taken in 2008. They were "borrowing my Ipod" while on a road trip. The interesting thing to this photo is what my oldest daughter's T-shirt says,"Can you say no to this face?"



What is going on in this world? It is going way too fast for me and I wish it would slow down or stop for a while. What happened to the simple good old days when we would hand write letters, play night games, make friendship bracelets, listen to the radio, and go bike riding for hours? I don't understand why my almost eleven year old daughter feels the pressure to own a cell phone, iPod, have a Facebook account, wear skinny jeans, see You Tube videos, etc?

Last week Daughter One(a fifth grader) came home from school last Friday all bent out of shape!

Daughter One: "Mom, I hate my friends!"

Me: "Why do you hate your friends?"

Daughter One: "Because they all have cell phones and iPods and I will never own one of those!"

Okay, calling all parents out there? Hello, how is a ten or eleven year old mature enough to own a cell phone or iPod? Sure, she or he is old enough to babysit a small child and can make Mac and Cheese, but is she or he ready for the responsibility of taking care of electronics. There are a lot of things to do to maintain a cellphone/iPod. I cannot imagine my ten year old doing the following things IF she had a cell phone:

1. Charging her own cellphone on a regular basis and not loosing the charger in her cluttered room.

2. Updating personal contacts home, cell, and work numbers(Mom and Dad).

2. Remembering to delete text messages before it it reaches its maxed storage limit.

3. Setting the phone to silence before she enters the school building everyday and remembering to turn the ringer on after school in case Mom or Dad tries to call her.

4. Being prepared or on alert for the unexpected weirdo strangers calling or texting her because the previous owner of her phone number forgot to update his or her's new phone number change.

5. Dropping the phone in the toilet ewwwww(it happens not to me yet, gross, but it is a possible scenario that her phone could drop out of her pocket into the loo!

6. Having the risk of loosing, damaging, or her phone getting stolen by another kid.

I consider myself a mature grown up, however, I am prone to loosing my own cell phone, keys, or iPod Nano sometimes if I am not careful. Nobody is prefect! While observing Daughter One's behaviors, she is already having a hard time keeping track of her Nintendo DS games, Barbie stuff, hair pretties, books, etc. I have explained to her several times the trouble that my niece (Lou Lou) had owning a couple expensive electronics. Lou Lou has this tendency to leave her iPod in her pant's pocket and her mother is like me never checks the pockets before starting a load of laundry. Imagine all the money, notes, and treasures we find in the washer! Anyway, over the past couple years Lou Lou has replaced her iPod shuffle or iPod nano at least four times! OUCH! By the way, Lou Lou's parents didn't replace the iPods she earned the money by babysitting, doing jobs, and saving birthday money to purchase them and still neglected to take the devices out before she put her clothes in the dirty laundry bin. I wonder when she will ever learn her lesson? This same niece also had a cell phone when she was eleven or twelve years old and lost it. I can imagine it is hard to find a phone when the battery is dead or the ringer is set to silence. The idea of Lou Lou having a cell phone didn't last very long after that. Why would any parent want to replace a child's lost, damaged, or stolen electronic? It is terrible enough to have to risk loosing and damaging our own electronics but to add a child to the master list of all electronics (cell phone and some kind of mp3 player device), is just too much at stake! Furthermore, how can you trust your child to not go over their minutes or text messaging? Yes, I am aware of the pre-paid minutes and unlimited text messaging options, which are great, but one of my biggest issues with the cell phone is the camera feature. We cannot control the incoming videos or images that show up on our cell phone screens. How can I protect my child from the inappropriate material that could be circulating by a stranger on accident or from a contact she knows with different standards? Technology can be a very scary thing these days for some people who don't have good intentions!

Thinking back when I was around my daughter's age, my family didn't own a computer, CD player, or DVD player. When the new technology devices first came out, we usually waited a couple years. I remember having a VHS player, records, or cassettes, for a several years before we upgraded to higher technology. In junior high or high school, I went to the library to use a computer or I typed on my mother's old typewriter that usually had a couple letters not working. As for the telephone, my phone was hooked up to the wall and during most of my childhood we didn't own a cordless phone. Because I grew up with step siblings as well as my brother and sister, we had phone rules and if we broke them we were punished by having the phone privilege taken away. We were restricted to fifteen minute phone calls because like most pre-teen or teenager girls they tend to be chatty with their girl friends about boys, etc! Oh, now I wonder how do parent's these days monitor how long their ten year olds or teenagers are on the cellphone before they get the phone bill. I suppose you can just log on your cellphone account and check it but what parent wants to add that to their "to do list" every day?

Something just occurred to me, the radio is still free to listen although the material may not be so good anymore, but nonetheless, it is FREE no need to download onto a device which is another additional charge to having an iPod. There are websites like Pandora that will play music based on your genre preferece of music and guess what it is FREE! Yes, I buy music on iTunes for my iPod, which I take with me to go jogging, but do I really want to buy my ten year old Selena Gomez, The Jonas Brothers, and Miley Cyrus with our money? I suppose she could buy her own music with her own money, but why the hassle. It boils down to this and I maybe considered not a cool Mom! No, I don't think she is ready for an Ipod and cellphone!

My point to blogging my rants about telephone and music technology, is my daughter is growing up too fast! I wish she would just stop and enjoy the beauty of being a kid like playing dolls and pretending instead of trying to fit in the grown up world. I really hope she can try not to give into peer pressure at school. I seriously don't understand why those parents at school allow their ten year olds to have expensive electronics. The thing is Daughter One has only a few more precious years left of childhood before she becomes a teenager, which I am not prepared nor ready to face yet. Is there an accurate handbook on how to raise a pre-teen or teenager because it is creeping up on me very fast and I don't know how to stop it?

Busy Busy Monday (read it like the ABBA "Money Money" tune)

So far today, I have been very productive this morning and it isn't even ten o'clock yet, while I write this! I did some cleaning (weekend messes), laundry, and worked out for one hour. For my exercise today, I picked Kenpo (P90X) kick boxing! It was a lot of fun and I was sweating like crazy! I am thinking about doing strength training or one aerobic work out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I would like to jog 3-5 miles on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays (optional) after the girls leave for school in the morning otherwise I won't do it. I know myself well enough that the only way to accomplish exercise in a day is to do it in the mornings. If I get called into work that means I need to get myself out of bed around 5:00 AM. Yes, 5:00 AM seems like a crazy hour to workout but for some reason I have no energy or motivation by the early afternoons or in the evenings to workout. Later today, we scheduled a fun family night with the Nelson family! We are in charge of the lesson, which I need to start preparing soon! The Nelsons are doing games and treats. Hopefully we get to see Holly who is now living in a college dorm on BYU campus! We also would like to see Ryan, Stacy, and Avery! Since we moved to Pleasant Grove, it seems like we don't see many family members lately. We are looking forward to it!

Speaking of work, I got a job a couple months ago! Out of the blue, one of John's old companies REIS (a real estate seminar company), which I did some data entry a couple years ago called and asked me if I would like to work for them again. I am scheduled to work part time on call basis. My hours are usually (9AM-4PM). They let me pick my hours which is a huge blessing since my kids won't be home alone too long after school. My oldest daughter is now old enough to babysit her little sister, which means we don't need a babysitter anymore! My schedule is so random. My boss calls or texts me when they need help with data entry or answering costumer service calls. It is an easy job! I don't necessary enjoy answering calls (ugh) because some people are just rude, but it keeps me busy during the day while the kids are at school. It is nice to earn some extra money especially during the holidays last year (November-December). I haven't been called in to work this month yet. It has slowed down but should be picking up in a few weeks. So on my days off, I want to make the best of it by doing constructive projects and scrapbooking pages!

Lastly, I would like to share a couple of my scrapbook pages!

These pictures were taken while we were renting Matt's house (my brother in-law), 2006. Aren't they the cutest snow Angels? Credits: "Winter Chic" by Shabby Princess.

Snow Angels, 2006



I loved these precious memories of my in-laws reading with my girls. Reading is a Hoot! Credits "It's Elementary" kit By Dani Mogstad, template by Yin, and kids font.

Reading is a Hoot, 2009

A Fresh New Start!

It cracks me up to see the first post on this blog. Apparently, I created this blog almost four years ago. I have forgotten about it until I registered for a new blog today. I was very surprised that I already had an account, lol! I am sure I had good intentions and was probably too busy in school. I think it was an assignment for one of my classes to create a blog but not write anything. How lame is that college assignment? I bet I would have blogged more if I was forced back then! I suppose it is better to get back on track now than never!

Since it is the start of the new year, I have been thinking about some goals that I should work on to improve my well being (blogging is one of them too).

1. As like most people, weight loss is on the top of my list! I am having the worst body image lately. As a result of suffering with depression, I have seriously gotten lazy on my workout routines and eating healthy. I have been gaining the weight back that I worked so dog gone hard to get rid of these past few years! Ugh! Another issue that distracts me from working out is Facebook! There are so many darn applications that consume my time! I seriously need to change my routine in the mornings by not logging on the computer to check email or Facebook until AFTER I work out! It frustrates me that I am a Facebook application junkie! I need to cut down on the silly games and get focused on more important things in life!

2. I would like to get caught up on my family scrapbooks. For my daughter's birthdays this year, I would like to create them each a scrapbook. Their birthdays are in April! It is overwhelming to think about all the many pages I need to complete in the next couple months. However, I know that they will cherish their scrapbooks forever. I will add some more goals later. I really should end my ramblings now since I have been up all night with the worst insomnia. My hubby has been out of town on a business trip for ACN his part time job. He is doing a training. I cannot sleep very well when he is gone.

So I will leave you with some photos of my darling girls that I took yesterday! They were looking very stylist in their pink outfits! I could not resist a mini photo shoot! Ha ha ha! :)

My space...

This is my first blog...