What to do now?

My little Tess has stopped taking naps.

In the afternoon, while her siblings are at school; I am left to entertain.

This little 3 year old does not entertain easily.

She comes to me all day and says, “what I do now?”

There are a few things that I have found that will entertain her for a while.

I made this fun little activity, and as long as I sit by her it will entertain her for quite a while.

You might enjoy doing this with your kids.

Start with a muffin tin.

Cut 12 circles out of different colors of paper to fit the bottom of the tin.

You will also need a cupful of buttons or beads in the same colors.

Then let your little one separate the beads in to the right color of the muffin cup.

It is a fun activity.

It also teaches them about colors; if that wasn’t obvious.

I have also made one for Isaac who is five and learning about numbers in Kindergarten.

He is actually obsessed with numbers.

His circles have numbers on them and then he counts the right amount of beads to put in the cup.

Both activities are a fun game, and time well spent.

Enjoy!!

How we roll these days.

I have started a new laundry routine.

Our laundry room is in the basement of our house. 

I call it the deep dark dungeon. 

That means I am hauling laundry up and down two flights of stairs. 

It was time to enlist the help of the kids.

I did this for my own sanity, but also to help teach our kiddos.

I started separating the kids clothes into their own baskets once it was washed.

Then it is placed in their room, and they are responsible to fold it and put it away.

Mind you, I still hang everything that needs hanging.

I do that as soon as it comes out of the wash.

The kids have underwear, pajamas, pants and socks to fold.

I even taught this little one how to fold.

At first, I felt so guilty for asking them to help me.

Then I realized that was silly.  They wear these clothes. 

It is important for them to learn to be helpers.

Helping with a smile is such a good character trait.

It has helped me so much.

It only takes the kids 5 to 10 minutes.

It was taking me 1 hour or longer to fold all the laundry.

Like I always say, many hands make light work.

I appreciate the help of my little ones.

I am thankful that they are so helpful.

I love seeing this little one do it with a smile.

Helping others is how we roll.

Thanks for coming…

I just wanted to say….

…could you possibly warm up some?  It’s still just a little to chilly for me.

Also, Thanks to all of you who visit my blog and faithfully read it.

I love seeing you here.

Here’s to hoping for warmer days.

I enjoyed walking around with this little cutie and snapping these spring pictures with our camera’s.

 

Isn’t she cute?

Raising kids who want to spend time with each other

I often get asked, “Do your kids ever fight?”

My answer is, “Yes!”, in fact I just helped my two oldest handle a little squabble about 20 minutes ago.

I will also be honest and tell you that our children fighting is not a daily occurrence; and has become quite rare.

For the most part, our kids stick up for one another rather then stand against one another.

In fact, just minutes after helping them work out their problem, Tess came inside saying, “Jex and Stella won’t play soccer with me.”

I asked Jex politely to include Tess.

I looked out the window just a few minutes later, and this is what I saw:

(taken with iphone)

I was touched to see that Jex found a way to include his littlest sister.

This little example shows that Jex respects and loves Tess.

So how do you ask, have we kept our kids on the same team?

We are team Swenson; it is not every man for himself in this house.

We do not allow it.

 

(photo taken by Krysta Moes)

We work as a team.  We play as a team. We laugh as a team.

Here are my top eight suggestions to help your kids learn to love being together.

1.  Set aside habitual family time.  Our family always has: family dinner, family prayer and family scripture study.  This is something we do EVERYDAY.  These are times that we are to be pleasant and kind to one another. They happen around the same time every day.   We encourage each other to pray for one another, and ask each other about their day.  Genuine concern shows respect and love for the other person.   These simple activities have taught our children to value one another as a person.

2. Carve out time to have fun together.  We often take our kids to dinner at a fun restaurant.  This gives us the opportunity to teach them about manners and talking to one another.  We do not  allow electronics at the table when we are together as a family.  We feel it is important that they learn how to be respectful at the table and not rely on something to entertain them.  They should entertain each other with some polite conversation. 

Just last week we took our kids to dinner.  Jonathan and I sat at our own table, and the kids sat together.  Our table was right across from them, but this gave them the opportunity to talk with one another. It also showed them that we trusted them enough to be on their own. A nice woman even asked us how we get our kids to sit so nicely.  I believe it has to do with respect and expectations. 

We have always told our children what we expect before we go anywhere and then ask that they respect our wishes.  We always compliment them and often reward their respectful behavior.

 

There are other times that we don’t go out; often times we stay in.  I remember our first movie night after Tess was born.  She was just eight days old.  Our family looked much like it does in this picture above.  I remember thinking this is so surreal.  All our children are here; and we are together as a family.  All of us. We have family movie night or family game night often, still, and almost every week.  We enjoy spending time with each other and try to make it fun. We look forward to this time together.  The kids will always ask what are we doing tonight?  I love that they expect that we will be hanging out together.

3.  Make your kids play together, just your kids and no other friends.  I truly believe that friends can get in the way of our own children forging friendships.  Now, I am not saying that your kids shouldn’t have friends.  Friends are important also, I love having friends. I want my kids to have friends.   What I am saying is, that you should set aside time when you don’t have friends over.  Time for your kids to learn to play just with one another.

 

Our family has had so many wonderful opportunities to move all over the country.  There have been times we have moved in to a new neighborhood and not known a single soul.  Our kids have had to rely on each other for a few weeks until friendships have been made.  I love that they have had each other to rely on.  I love watching my kids put their arms around each other, as if to say, “hey, you are my best friend,”  It is ok to make your kids be friends and playmates.

4.  It is ok for your kids to share a room.  I promise.  No one will die or resent you because they didn’t have their own room.  Our children have shared rooms from the time they were born.  YES.  I put newborns in with my other children.  WHY?  out of necessity.  Was it the best thing that ever happened to our family?  YES.  Night times when my kids were put in a room to go to sleep together is when the friendships were made. 

As they got older, we allowed our kids to spend time with each other before they fell asleep.  We would put them to bed, but we didn’t enforce not talking or playing. This is the time our kids would laugh, be creative, and make up games that used every inch of their imagination.  Did I care that they weren’t going to sleep right away?  NO.  As long as they stayed in their room, with no fighting, they could play until their little eyes couldn’t stay open any longer. They always laid down when they were ready and couldn’t stay awake any any more.

(photo taken by Jill Burton)

Were there times they got in fights?  YES.  When they did they were punished with going to bed, without making a peep.  They learned to not do that, because then they missed out on time with each other.  They also learned that if there was a disagreement that they should work it out on their own.  If they came to me I would just say, “I don’t want to hear about it; if you can’t work it out it’s lights out and no more fun.”  This solved so many problems in our home.

Were there times they came out of their room? YES. and that was also an automatic lights out no talking bedtime. Even if it was only one of them who got out of bed.  They soon learned to encourage one another not to do that.  See how they are working together?  We even had our oldest boy share with our oldest girl for a while; when they were younger.(as in above pic)  I believe that is why they get along so well.

 

(photo taken by Jill Burton)

We will now be moving in to a home that is big enough for each kid to have their own room.  Guess what; they are still going to share.  They want to share.  In fact, every weekend our kids are sleeping in the same room and having their very own slumber party; per their request.  With out friends; a brother and sister sleepover.   It is not a punishment to share a room.  It is a blessing.

5.  There is nothing better for teamwork than working together on a job.  Our kids are often paired up to work together.  The older kids have to help the younger kids, and other times they are all working together.

 

They have learned that many hands make light work.  When they work together the job gets done faster.  When they don’t; they don’t move on to whatever it is they want to do.  A common goal can bring a family together faster than anything else.

6.  Teach your kids that friends will come and go, but family is forever.  I have friends all over the world, I love them and they are an important part of my life.  However; my husband and my children are who I rely on the most.  I also rely on my sisters and  my parents.  My sisters are some of my dearest friends.  I remind my kids about this often. 

With this in mind, they are not allowed to hit, kick, or inflict pain on one another ever.  It is never ok to hurt someone.  I have asked my kids if they would punch their friend for what ever upset them.  If they wouldn’t punch their friend from school, then it is certainly not ok to punch their forever friend; their sibling.  When feelings are hurt or problems arise, they are expected to work them out and apologize.  Each apology ends with a hug and an “I love you.”

 

7.  Traditions.  Need I say more.

 

Traditions are the glue to keeping our family strong.

8. Respect for one another in the home begins with mom and dad.  If Jonathan and I are not respectful to one another and our kids we can’t expect them to do the same with each other.

I am not writing this because we are perfect. Believe me; we have plenty of problems, trials and arguments. Every situation is different.  These are just a few things that work for our family.  They may not work for you. However, we have tried to help our kids form great relationships, and I do feel like we have made great progress.  Hopefully one or more of these suggestions will help you in your own family.

 

Families are important.  They are forever.  Family is where our security, trust, and love lie.

I hope to continue encouraging our children to form those forever bonds.

A new way to dye your eggs.

Ok. I know Easter has passed.  This is coming to you a little late.

But… just pin it for next year.

Each year, along with hard-boiling eggs, I also blow the yolk out of some eggs to dye for Easter.

This is a fun way to preserve your dyed eggs and use them for holiday decorating.

I admit that I have been carting dyed eggs across this country for ten years.

The first time I did this was with a friend when Jex was a baby.  I still have some of those eggs.

They look beautiful in a bowl at Easter time.  I even have eggs with my kids names and year on them.

 

It is so fun to put them out each year.

This year was no different.  We did it again. 

However; I did it a little different. 

Along with white eggs, I also blew the yolk out of some brown eggs.

 

I wanted to have some eggs with a more muted color scheme.

 

I loved the way they turned out.

Want to make your own?

Start by washing your eggs (brown or white) and dry them off.

Use a safety pin to poke a hole in one end of your egg.  It takes several holes to make the whole large enough.  You want the hole to be small, but also large enough to blow the yolk through.  I would say smaller than a pea, but larger than a pencil lead.(you can see my holes in the pictures, that will give you a good idea)

Do the same thing on the other end of the egg.  Once you have two holes, blow out the yolk into a bowl.  You have to blow hard and it can be quite time consuming.

If you are careful, you can use the yolks as scrambled eggs.  You have to be careful that you don’t blow any shells in there.

Wash the inside of the egg out by running water through both holes and let it dry.  If you wash it well, you will be able to keep these eggs for a long time.

Once they are dry, they are ready to dye.

Dye like normal.  They do tend to float to the top so sometimes you have to hold them down with a spoon.  You can also spoon the dye over the egg.

Make sure to shake all the dye out the holes before you place them in an egg carton to dry.

Once the dye is dry, you can put them out in a pretty bowl to use as a centerpiece for your Easter dinner.

I also use mine as a decoration for the holiday.

I am really excited about how fun the colors turned out with my brown eggs.

 

Some of my brown eggs were speckled and I just love how they look.

If you want to save these eggs for holiday decorating, store them in egg cartons and they will stay in tact.  Trust me.  I have moved mine all over this way and they haven’t cracked on me yet.

Sorry for the late post about Easter egg dyeing but hopefully you can plan ahead and do try this fun technique next year.

Reverse and Neglect

Sorry dear blog.  I have neglected you over the last few weeks.   I took a little trip with my hubby to look for a new one of these…

It was a fun trip.

We found a beautiful house that we have under contract; hopefully to be ours in just a few months.

Before I left, I told myself that I would blog and get all the posts ready that I had planned for last week and this week; knowing full well I wouldn’t.

When I am on vacation, I have a hard time getting on my computer.  It seems like I should just take a break from it as well.

Even though I love some of the activities I do on my computer; scrapbooking, blogging, and blog reading; sometimes it is nice to just take a little break.

Before I left, I had planned on sharing some of our Easter activities.

 

I will still share them because I like to have them included for my history sake; so I am going in reverse.

It was a beautiful weekend.

At one point I heard the kids say; this is just as exciting as Christmas.

I believe what makes it as exciting is that we have traditions for both holidays.

The Easter Bunny comes to our home on Friday night.   We like to keep it separate from our Easter Sunday.

The Easter Bunny hid everyone’s baskets.  The kids enjoyed hunting for them on Saturday morning.

They also did a little egg hunt in the yard.

It was a nice long egg hunt.

 

With way to much candy involved.

I ended up filling 174 eggs; that is a lot of eggs to hid and find.

After the hunt, we dyed eggs like usual.

I boil eggs and I blow the yolk out of some of the eggs as well.

We dye both kind.  Then we have the blown eggs to keep from each year as a memento and to use as Easter decorations.

I will do a separate post on this coming soon. 

Each year, the Easter Bunny brings the kids a can of silly string in their basket.

(photo taken by Jonathan; so proud to see him use my 50mm lens so well)

We had our traditional silly string fight.

Tess laughed her head off the entire time.

After just enjoying the day together, we ended our night with our 2nd Annual Glow in the Dark egg hunt; cute neighbor girl Lauren included.

It was a great day.

Easter Sunday was also just as wonderful. 

I enjoyed getting all of us ready in our Easter attire.  I wish we had a picture of the whole fam; as Jonathan and I also wore yellow.

We went to our friends the Mahoney’s for a beautiful Easter dinner.

We love the Mahoney’s and felt right at home with their whole family; it felt like we were celebrating Easter with our own loved ones.

This is something we have been blessed with every holiday.  We have been given friends to spend holidays with while we are away from our family.

Our church services were also just as lovely.  It was a beautiful day full of reminders of the Savior and his resurrection.

We ended the night watching these two beautiful videos.

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=911104787001

http://www.mormonchannel.org/bible-videos?v=1548356253001

I hope you enjoy them as much as our family did.  You won’t want to miss these.  It is worth taking the time with your family to watch them.  Even if you are not a Mormon; these are wonderful for Christians everywhere.