Sick or Not Sick

You wouldn't know by this energetic smiling baby that just an hour earlier she was lethargic and had a fever of 102.7 (fever temperatures always remind of me of radio stations). Its amazing what a little ibuprofen will do for a sick baby.  Rose had a fever (up and down) for five days straight. When her fever broke she broke out in a little rash on her neck and legs. Which would make it textbook Roseola-herpesviruses 6. Most children get it between the ages of 3 months and 4 yrs. Its just a high fever that lasts normally for a few days. It is obvious that's what they have after the fever breaks and a rash/red splotches appears. Not all children get the rash, and some children get the rash and had only a low grade fever. Most people get it as a child and then never get it again. So far Nellie hasn't had the high fever or developed a rash. Al has never developed the rash either. Talking to my mom she only remembers my sister getting it. Roseola is extremely rare for adults to get, it is assumed it is because just about everyone catches it while a small child and we then develop life long immunity to it. So now I'm playing the waiting game and praying that my two other children don't develop the illness and ruin our plans for this coming week.

Thoughts for New Choristers

Last Sunday, as I was walking through the halls after church toward the parking lot, I saw my friend *Sally* sitting in the back of the primary room. She was the only one in there and she looked a bit frazzled. I walked past and then stuck my head in the room and asked if she was alright or needed something. "I guess you're the one I need to talk to." I went and sat right next to her in the back of the primary room. She explained that she was called as the Primary Chorister and it was all really sudden, since our last chorister (who had taken over for me) had suddenly moved to Utah. Her husband had been offered a job and they packed up and moved all within the week. My friend had felt like her first time being the chorister had been a FAIL. I assured her that I was sure that it was no where as bad as she thought it was.
I gave her bits of advice some I had been given when I was given that calling and felt overwhelmed and some I have learned along the way. Since its been a while I thought it might be a good idea to post a few of those (some being posted again).
1- the first advice my mom gave me was that the children don't care how well you sing. I can't carry a tune in a bucket unless the piano is playing the melody. Even with the piano my voice is nothing to rave about. The children don't care. They do care about how loud you sing. They will match you and how loud you sing.
2- You need to have energy. Even if you don't feel "happy to be there" you need to act like you're "happy to be up there" and "be singing". Be positive.
3- Learn the songs, Learn to love the songs.
4- Use bight colors
5- Be simple. You don't need fancy, or completed, or elaborate visuals. Keep them simple.
6- If you have the attention of the younger children-You're doing GREAT. The youngest children in JR primary may or may not sing. However if you have their attention then that is all you need at that moment.
7- What may work for JR primary may or may not work for SR primary (and vice versa). An example of this is JR primary has few children that can read, using visuals with words won't work as well as with SR primary where you'll have more children that can read. Another example is, JR primary (at least in our ward) can easily stay reverent while "doing as I'm doing" while practicing a song (patting knees, swimming, hula hooping). In contrast, SR primary would get silly and rarely be reverent while having actions to do while singing. You would think it would be the other way around, but that was the way it was.
8- Get the teachers involved. I realized that especially during JR primary, the children sang better when their teachers were singing. Also its hard to watch all the children at once, get the teachers to help you  by pointing out children that were trying to sing and be reverent.

I hope these are useful and help those of you with anxiety about a new calling to just relax breath and find what works best for you and your ward's children. Good Luck. Heavenly Father called you for a reason. Make the most of it and enjoy the time you have (it will be over before you realize it and then you'll be sad).

Everyone Thinks They Have a Right to Judge

A friend of mine recently made a post called "On Parenting". She goes through a list of things that she reminds herself when she see parents Parenting in a way that she wouldn't. She has a lot of good thoughts. It brought a number of thoughts to my mind. It also reminded me of an e-article I read a couple months ago, "Apologies to the Parents I judged Four Years Ago". In this article, the lady talks about how she use to judge and realized, now that she's a parent, that she judged unfairly. 
Both my friend and this article, remind me at how much we judge each other as parents, but also judge ourselves. With my husband being deployed I am very much not the parent I want to be. I know that right now I am being a single parent but I don't know how single parents do it. I don't go to work all day, I don't have to balance a career and my children. I am still a stay at home mom, and I can hardly have time to keep up with my laundry, clean up my house, and do a bunch of other things I can't seem to manage all I want to do.
I have a hard time trying to be the type of parent I want to be. I have ideals of how I want our home to run. However I fall short.
Yes every household is different. Yes there is no one right way to raise our children. Yes there are always circumstances in other peoples lives that we don't know. Yes all of us have things that we want to change about how we parent. Why are we so judgmental of ourselves and others on how they raise their children? I think the operative part is "children". We see children who grow up with no discipline, with no respect for authority, with bad manors, with bad habits, and these are people. They grow up to be part of society. So often disrespectful, rude, bad, people reflect the parenting or lack of that receive. As parents or perspective parents, non of us want to be reflected poorly on because of our children's actions. In the bigger picture, we want to know that we can stand blameless before God and know that we did the best we possibly could in raising our children to love God and follow His commandments. 
Is how quickly and well I clean up from dinner going to reflect on how righteous my son is? Probably not. Is whether I have a decorated house worthy of posting pictures of on pinterest going to keep my girls from getting married in the Temple? I serious doubt it. 
Some things are essentials to our eternal salvation and to our children's. Every thing else is just- everything else. Yes those things make life nicer, possibly easier, less stressful, or more stressful, but they are not essential. The next time I wake up in the morning and realize I left the leftovers still sitting on the kitchen  counter, I need to remind myself that its not essential to our salvation and not beat myself up on it.

Passing Out Baby

Funny little girl. The other night Nellie was angry baby one moment trying to crawl to the computer (my girls LOVE to hit buttons on the computer) and then, just shy of the computer she passes out. It was so cute.

Three kids on a bed

My sister thinks my girls are the biggest hams for the camera. They are very photogenic. They were being so cute and I wanted to send this photo to their grandma by text/email on my phone, but my phone was almost dead. So I picked up my camera take take this fun smiling photo.

More Toddler Antics

My toddler has been up to it again. One twin was sleeping and it was time to eat so I fed the one who was awake. Then the other twin woke up. I put the fed one out on the floor where my son was watching "Little Einstein". I was just finishing nursing the 2nd baby when I heard the 1st baby screaming. I hurried out to the family room. My son was trying to put his sister into the baby swing. But as he tried to put her in, the swing would go back and then come forward hitting the baby in the head.  

 As I went to save her I realized the entire floor was COVERED in Cheerios. Oh joy. At first I tried to have my son clean them up. But that didn't last long. He had started picking them up and then throwing them back on the floor. I put him in time-out for the whole ordeal, while I cleaned it up. Every time he asked if he could get out of time-out, he was told he could if he cleaned up the mess. Finally he  agreed to clean up the mess.

By then I had swept up all the Cheerios. So to get out of time-out he had to pick up all the toys on the floor. (He had also dumped out the toy box.) I wasn't mad at him, I wasn't angry, instead I was more in shock. It was a waste of an almost full box of Cheerios.

Are we Twins or what- 8months

On the same day the girls turned 8months we went out for a picnic.

 

 We played on the playground.

and played on the grass

 and had a grand time. 

My girls are cute as buttons.

Are we Twins or what.

Looks Who's Crawling

Both girls are crawling and moving around. They are all over the place. I'm in trouble now. Rose is the better crawler. Good thing I have a baby gate. I was just getting to the point where me might as well take down the baby gate. A few people asked why I hadn't, my answer was that before I knew it I would need it there for the girls. And here we are with them only 8 months old and I NEED the gate there.

Mischievious Toddler

I took this photo a few minutes before hilarity ensued.

Rose had followed Al into his room, as you can see from the photo all is going well. So I went to try to get some things done. After a few minutes there was silence. I went down the hall, they weren't in the bedroom anymore. They had gone down to the bathroom, either Al had carried her or she crawled after him. As I started down the hall, Al came running out and tried to stop me saying "no mommy, no" That's when I knew I wasn't going to like what was in that bathroom. Al had given her a "bath" using the toilet water. He took the bucket we use to bathe him and had pulled the water out of the toilet. Then had scrubbed her head with the baby shampoo. So Rose was on the floor, happy has a bug, sopping wet, fully dressed, covered in shampoo. I wanted to yell at him and laugh at the same time. I couldn't find my camera (funny since I had just used it). I cleaned Rose all up and we went to where Nellie was through all this. Al picked up Nellie and said "she needs a bath". 

New Dress

At DI I found a dress. I rarely find good items that fit me at thrift stores. I was thrilled to find something that actually made me feel like I didn't look pregnant. I feel so fat. I am trying to loose the weight. Last time I lost the weight after the birth of my son only through diet. It took loosing 55 lbs to get to the point where I was fitting into clothes I was fitting into before I became pregnant with my son. I had only gained 13 lbs with my son. It really depressed me. This time around I am starting to exercise, focusing on cardio and strength training (with more on abdominal strength training). My goal is to fit into clothes sooner than 55 lbs, and eventually loose the 60+ lbs I'm overweight.

Easter Egg Hunt

Al and my niece were much more into looking for eggs.

We had way more eggs than we needed to have. With only three children total there was more than a dozen eggs per child.

 My nephew acted like it was a race to see who could get the most eggs.

 The girls didn't really look for eggs. Grandma took one twin.

 while Uncle took the other.

 Al ended up with a WHOLE basket full of eggs and candy

 - which was all gone by the afternoon.

 After the hunt we all sat down, ate boiled eggs, and candy. 

It was perfect weather and a nice day.

Eating Cheerios

These girls are just so cute and are eating solid food. 

AZ Museum for Youth

I had purchase 2 for 1 passes to the AZ Museum for Youth. My friend Sara and her two children went with us. Our children get along really well.

 The museum has a lot of cool features. One section was designed for senor exploration for ages 6 months to 2 years. Our babies seemed to enjoy it. Little Rose was crawling all over in it.

 Around the same area they had a reading room, arts and craft room, a play kitchen, play fruit stand, and giant   block building area- all part of an older toddler's dream

 In the other areas, there was areas to explore music,

 

 air movement, how airplanes work,

 there was a green screen for looking like the kids were playing,

 and an outdoor area to discover what bugs lurk outside.

fun day with our friends exploring the world around us at the museum.

Watching General Conference with babies

 My niece is so cute. I posted this photo of her cuz she was just sweet.

 During the Priesthood Session my mom, sister, and I with all our children went to DI. 

It was hard listening to General Conference with two adorable babies biding for our attention. Grandma and Grandpa were loving the time they got to hold my babies.