Notes for my sister

“Wouldn’t it be so fun to buy a cabin and have a place of our own, out in the woods?”   Three years ago we tossed this question around, and decided the answer was yes.   We wanted to teach our city kids to live off the land.   We wanted a remote getaway, where we could enjoy quiet and serenity.   We wanted to make memories.   The drive there was inspiring, through beautiful mountains.   It took just over an hour, so we thought we could go up on weekends, no big deal.   The land had a beautiful house with a well, a generator, propane tank, electrical, everything.   It was passive solar, so the windows got tons of sunlight.   The thick log walls kept heat in during winter, and kept it cool in summer.   There were even bat houses around the house itself.   I learned that bats are friends because they eat pesky bugs.   It was perfect. But in the end, it took too much time, money and effort to maintain it.   L...

See this gem?  You can probably tell I made it sometime in the 80's.  But I love it, so I've kept it all these years.  As a girl, I thought it was a cute way of saying, "Be cheerful."  As it turns out, the message to "Make your own sunshine" is even more profound in my adult years.  Every winter I struggle.  Every winter when the sun hides and the gloom sets in, I have to dig deep.  This is what my backyard looked like earlier today.  Usually I can see across the valley, but there was a serious cloud and not much sunshine. Maybe you also struggle with wintertime depression, or seasonal affective disorder (SAD).  Here are a few things that help me.  1.  Exercise.  I used to wake up at 6am.  This is what my basement looked like on an early morning back in November.  Good news here:  it's starting to get light outside, earlier in the day.  That means winter is almost done!!!  The main thing I want ...

January 31, 2018  Okay, I’m not going to lie.  This transition is really tough.  My little girl used to be pleasant and easy, and then a few weeks ago something shifted, invisibly and without warning.  She quit going to sleep so easily.  She doesn’t want to take naps anymore, and going to bed at night started taking forever.              Notice I haven’t posted anything lately?  That’s because naps are gone.  This blog may die before it even gets off the ground!              For moms with kids who are approaching this stage, I guess you’ll know it when it happens.  When your child spends an hour singing out, “Mo-om, I’m awake…”  or “I’m done with my nap,” before they even go to sleep, you’ll know.  My oldest kept napping until he turned 4, then his brother quit napping right around 3.  I felt like I’d...

January 11, 2018 Recently I was looking through an old spiral notebook, and found pages and pages of sentences.  It made me laugh, since that’s a consequence I haven’t used in a while.  “The rules apply to me…I will control my temper…I speak kindly to my sisters…Mom was right.”  (I must have been feeling kind of vindicated on that last one.)  One quick note:  the whole purpose of the sentences is to make my son or daughter  think .  There’s two details that are really important here:  keep it in the present tense, and word things in a positive way.  Instead of saying, “I won’t burp at the dinner table,” change it to something like, “I have good manners at dinner.”  Instead of saying, “I won’t lie to my mom,” (s)he would write, “I am honest with my parents.”  Assigning 50-100 sentences for an infraction is usually about right. Another consequence we like is running laps around the block.  The other day the boys we...

photo credit Rachael Nelson I love the candid shots where you can see some personality coming through. For example, here's big brother with baby sister on his shoulders and Amber sticking out her tongue. We love doing them outdoors.  It feels less staged, and it's fun for the kids to be able to run around at a park.  In October we had some beautiful golden colors.  There's a mellow light about an hour before sunset.  My photographer friends know these kinds of things, but this was something I just learned a few years ago.  We went to Highland Glen park, right by Lone Peak high school.  There were at least four other families doing pictures there, taking advantage of the scenery and the late afternoon light. See how Norm is smiling?  That's because he only had to be there for half the photo shoot.  Here's my #1 secret for the reluctant spouse.  You know the one who says, "Do we really have to do family pictures?...

December 4, 2017 Every so often, we go out of town together…without the kids.  There’s something magical about detaching from the normal routine.  We have time to rest and relax and reconnect.  I can’t say this enough, especially for my mommy friends with young kids, remember to invest time in your marriage!  Just like cars need maintenance, relationships do too. There’s something special about dating your spouse.  If going out of town is tricky, you can carve out 24 hours and go to a hotel downtown.  If grandparents are healthy, and live nearby and are available, bingo.  That’s like the perfect trifecta:  willing, able, and local.  If this is true for you, count your blessings!  If not, find a nanny.  It could be a newly married couple, a college kid home for the summer, or a single lady who doesn’t mind looking past all my messes.  OR you can split the kids up between friends’ houses.  Seriously, I know how cr...

November 27, 2017 Okay, let's say that I'm a terrible planner. My main strategy for surviving dinner includes the following tips: If you have a busy afternoon, make dinner at lunchtime!!!  One of my smarter friends recommended this. It's a game changer. If it's 4pm and you still haven't figured out what's for dinner, you can scrape something together if you have some building blocks on hand, in the pantry and in the freezer. Let's say you like to buy cooked chicken at Costco, and you split the package into four portions. This package costs $13 and will feed my family for 3-4 dinners. Once I open the package, I stick the other portions in freezer bags.  Using this cooked chicken, you can make stuff like pasta with alfredo sauce, soups, tacos, salad, etc. Hopefully your pantry is stocked with pasta, potatoes, rice, bread or tortillas. The same idea applies to ground beef.  While the big kids are at school, I make time to cook 2 lbs of grou...