So this is Christmas

I missed my post a few weeks back but we are starting our Christmas traditions today and I just love me some traditions. This year we are doing something new that I'm excited about and hope to enjoy for years to come. I got the idea from my sister-in-law who did something similar. Many people celebrate Christmas Advent in different ways as a count down to Christmas. If you want to read an article about Advent the Deseret News has a good one here.

When I've thought about Advent in the past I thought it was just the day by day countdown calendar involving chocolate boxes or activities or what have you and seemed totally overwhelming. Turns out the original tradition is specifically Christ-centered and involves lighting a candle each week as you countdown to Advent (in Latin Advent typically means "coming"). Some celebrations involve each of the four countdown candles representing the four gifts we have because of our Savior: Peace, Hope, Joy & Love.

So here's our take on Christmas Advent that we will start today and continue each Sunday evening.

I have a little Christmas box for each week. In each box is a little thing of treats with a scripture to read that talks about one of the four gifts we have been given. Today will be love and we're reading John 13:34-35. I also have a little candle votive and a LED candle tea light to put in it (because really fire and four year olds, yeah...). Then I wrapped Christmas books that we got to go along with each gift from our Savior. Today will be "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".

Anyways, it will be fun to read some Christmas books together and enjoy a special time talking about the importance of the Savior in our lives. Our other three Christmas books are: "Polar Express" (Joy), "A Christmas Carol" (Hope) and "The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey" (Peace).

Our other Christmas tradition is to use our Monday FHE's before Christmas to talk about the Nativity story and the different people in the Nativity. Tomorrow we'll talk about Joseph & Mary, next week Baby Jesus, 3rd week the Shepherds and Angels, and the last week the Wise Men. We pull out each person from our nativity and set it up on the shelf after we sing and talk about them.

We'll probably use this Popsicle stick Nativity to act out the different portions. Zeke got this from a nursery class last Christmas and it is super cute and looks pretty cinchy to put together. And no worries about breaking figurines!

Anyways, I liked these traditions because they were fairly simple and didn't require doing something each day but still help make Christmas about Christ. What are some of everyone else's favorite Christmas traditions that make it a special time without a lot of stress?

New favorite website

I'm probably so late on the bandwagon, but I have a newfound love for the website PicMonkey. It's what I use to make any invitations or signs these days. You can pay a subscription for access to some of the extra cute stuff, but I've been able to use the free version for everything I need. It is quite user friendly, which is a big plus. The main complaint I have is that you can't save a project and come back to it--you can only export what you're working on as a picture and won't be able to work on the individual elements again.

Here are a few things I've made during the last couple months:

A flier for our ward party:

A banner to order for when my sister gets home from her mission in December:

A flier for our Primary breakfast:

Sources of Inspiration

I want to share a few sources of inspiration that I have read recently that have made a difference in my life:

1. Mothering Inspiration
A few weeks ago, my feelings of adequate homemaking and mothering abilities were ebbing and my feelings of being overwhelmed and discouraged were flowing.  This mom business can be tough.  I said my prayers before getting in bed, then continued my scripture study from where I was reading in Doctrine and Covenants section 64.  I love reading D&C because it is the Lord's voice directly.  I came upon verse 33:
"Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work.  And out of small things proceedeth that which is great."
It was an answer to my prayers.  I have felt strength and patience as I reflect on that scripture each day as I change diapers, do dishes, pick up toys, read to my kids, give baths, etc.  Each little thing we do as mothers really REALLY matters.  We truly can find inspiration for all aspects of our lives in the scriptures, and should look there before seeking other sources.  With that said, below are a few other sources of inspiration you might want to check out as well :)

2. Marriage and Relationship Inspiration
Do you all know my brother Richard?  I think you do-- he was on the ballroom team with me at BYU and we were together a lot.  His wife Celeste sent us an email a few weeks ago, letting us know that they've started a blog.  She said, "Rich and I were motivated by Elder Bednar's recent talk about spreading the gospel more online (To Sweep the Earth as With a Flood).  So, we're starting a new blog.  It's a blog about marriage.  Here it is:  www.athingcalledloveblog.com.  We're hoping to make it a big, beautiful collaborative effort where people will feel comfortable commenting, sharing and posting with the aim of producing edifying, uplifting posts about improving marriage and also providing a natural platform from which to share the gospel."  They have various people post on the blog and give relationship or marriage advice.  It is uplifting and funny, and I recommend you check it out!  You might come away with a new idea on how to strengthen your marriage.

3. Cooking Inspiration
My number one resource for the past year or so of finding recipes is from a website called Mel's Kitchen Cafe.   She is an LDS mom with 5 kids I think, and is a creative and amazing cook with a focus on nutritious, family-friendly food.  I have no clue how she does all of the things she does (I feel like I barely have time to check her website every few days, let alone create a recipe/cook it/photograph it/write about it like she does!).  Almost all of my latest favorite recipes have come from her website, so much so that Autumn started calling dinner time "Julie's Kitchen Cafe."  A few that you might want to try: Green Chile Enchilada Stack (we had this for dinner last night), Thai Chicken Crunch Wraps, Delicious Greek Pastisio, Freezer Beef and Bean Burritos, Black Bean and Butternut Squash Enchilada Skillet, Skillet Creamy Macaroni and Cheese, Chopped Thai Crunch Salad, Creamy Tex-Mex Quinoa Dippers, Healthy Applesauce Carrot Muffins, Perfect Lemon Bars, Lava Flow Drink, Orange Cranberry White Chocolate Bars, Caprese Skewers,  Those are a few that I thought of off the top of my head that we've had multiple times and really liked, and there are so many other great recipes.  Let me know if you try anything that you love!

4. Family Inspiration
You all get the BYU Magazine as BYU alumni, right?  I have a hard time throwing them away after I've read through them because they are so well done!  In the latest edition (Fall 2014), there were two articles that were especially inspiring to me.

The first article is about the importance of family recreation, called Living the Play-Full Life.  The article starts off with a story about Patty Freeman, who Nelson and I took a winter camping class from at BYU years ago.  We owe a lot of our outdoor-knowledge to Patty!  There is another anecdote in the article about a dad taking his daughters on a backpacking trip to the Highline Trail-- a different section and direction than we did, but still pretty much the same thing :)  So you can see why I loved this article!  It has some really great suggestions and ideas for recreating as a family.

The second article is called Immunization Misconceptions, and it addresses three common myths about immunizations, I feel that the reasoning is sound and very similar to what our pediatrician recently told me.  I agree with the points made in the article, and I feel so grateful for immunizations that keep us safe from the life-threatening diseases that our grandparents faced.

If you haven't had a chance to read them yet, I would recommend it!

5. Friends
Each of you provide inspiration to me, and I love reading your blog posts. You each have such insightful and valuable ideas. I'm so glad we're friends.  Love you all!

p.s. Happy Halloween tomorrow to everyone!  If we all made Michelle's white chicken chili and turned ripped jeans into Monster pants, it would be a pretty great day, wouldn't it?

Monster Pants

I am also late, I was working on a different post but as with most things in my life it is half-finished and I haven't set aside the time to complete it. But I thought I'd put up this super quick crafty fix for boys' (or girls') pants that I found on Pinterest. I made it even easier by using Liquid Stitch instead of iron-on interfacing or stitching like I saw on some different Pinterest examples.

So all I did was cut a piece of thick corduroy fabric in a rectangle and glued it on the inside of the pants. Then I cut out little eyes and teeth out of felt and glued them on the inside and outside of the hole. We'll see how it holds up, but even if I have to replace it every so often at least he can wear the pants now whereas before they just sat in the back of his dresser. Literally took like 5 minutes per patch when I wasn't being distracted by Zeke. I think these pants now scream "awesome sauce" and I'm excited for him to wear them instead of hiding them in the back of his drawers.

Chili recipe

So, I also am late.  But better late then never!  So we had our ward Halloween festival on Saturday and I had signed up to bring cornbread.  (I am not a chili fan)  Then my husband said they were asking for more people to bring chili cause they didn't have enough.  So I made some chili, but I figured if I was going to make some, I would find a recipe that I would actually like.  So to Google I went.  I found a recipe for a white chicken chili and I decided to try it.  I ended up winning first place overall for it, it was soo good.  I actually only got a taste of Jared's because by the time we went through the line it was almost all gone.  We finished it off with the kids and Brandon.  And my kids ate it, Emily was done with it in like 5 min.  I was amazed.  Brandon has requested that this become part of our normal dinner schedule.  So I thought I would share with you the link to the recipe.  The only thing I did differently was not to add cayenne or lime juice and I just used regular cream cheese.  White chicken chili recipe
Let me know what you think if you try it!

How moving is like becoming a vegan

Whoooooops, I'm super late. But maybe that's better because I actually have something to post about now.

The other day Matt and I were both (for a variety of reasons) missing our life up in Seattle very much. After a good night's sleep we felt better, but I was chatting with my sister-in-law the next day and trying to process that experience of being so homesick.

I decided that our relocation is like when someone tries to take a food group out of their diet (like dairy, meat, gluten products, etc.). There are many "substitute" products out there, but none of them taste quite the same. A veggie burger is yummy, but it doesn't taste like beef. I think almond milk tastes pretty good, but it doesn't really taste like milk. So to avoid continual frustration, it's almost easier to just enjoy the foods in your new diet rather than try to replace each item that you miss from your old diet with a substitution that will never quite cut it.

So when we moved back to Utah, I made the mistake of trying to recreate everything we had up there. I signed kids up for the same types of activities, I tried to find doctors that were exactly the same style, etc. And I was continually frustrated. I was trying to chug the almond milk but taste dairy milk.

After a few weeks, I realized what was going on and instead have tried to make the most of what we have going on here instead of focusing on how it's not the same--because it will never be the same, and that's okay. I also think it's okay to miss where we came from, because that's a sign that we loved it there and met wonderful people.

Any tips/thoughts about relocating and how to make it feel more like home?

Individualized Child Time

Hello everyone! I was supposed to post last week, but again, I am late! :( Oh well. I think we are all enjoying this blog, even if some of us are slackers. :)

My post today is about some ideas on how to create individualized time with your kids. Growing up, this was something my parents were very good at. From a young age, I remember my dad taking each kid on date night once a month (so one night a week, dad was gone on date night). Some of you may already do this, but I just want to say how important it is for our kids to spend quality time with their dads, most of whom they don't see enough of! Doing daddy date night once a week is quite the sacrifice on the mother's part too, especially if dad is involved in church activities on another night.

Other ideas on how to have more individualized time with your kids:

1) When the older children (or child) are at school, take some time to actually play with your baby or toddler. Although it is tempting to "get as much done" while there are less children around, it is still important that your youngest see you playing on the floor with them (just like you did when you had your first and only child).
2) Find something in the community that you and your child can participate in:
story time at the library, music class, mommy & me swimming classes, dance class, tumbling class. One time I put McKay in a tumbling class, and I actually got a baby-sitter for Nelson just so that McKay and I could have some alone time together. Everyone may not be able to pay for a baby-sitter, but it was only 1 hour a week that we went together. Now, one day a week while McKay goes to pre-school, Nelson and I attend a free music/singing time group at the local library. It is a group of moms who got together and decided that our kids need more singing and music. We each take a turn teaching, which means we only teach once every few months. We usually don't do church songs. More holiday/seasonal and nursery rhyme songs. It is super fun!
3) When kids are doing their daily jobs around your house, choose one at a time to help:
If the younger one usually needs help, give them a job that they can easily do on their own. Then spend the time helping or cheering on an older child. (Or vice versa)

I think some moms think they are being a great mom if they have all of their kids with them all of the time (I am sure they are great moms), but it is also important to remember that sometimes kids need individual attention. In some families, maybe there is one especially needy child and that child always seems to get the most attention. Or  sometimes the youngest child gets the most attention and then the other kids start to feel left out (and will start acting out to receive attention).

What other ideas do you have to spend more alone time with each child?