Bit of Advice

Jemma stuck her earring up her nose the other day. On the way to the doctor (because it was so far up I couldn't get it out with tweezers) she sneezed and by the time we got into see the doctor it was practically out by itself. So note to self: Next time one of my kids stuffs something up their nose. Give them some pepper before spending $15 and 2 hours at the doctor. :)

Warning

Today at the pool, Aurora was in the Lilly's "boat", which is one of those baby innertubes with the leg holes. But because she was top heavy (meaning, taller than a baby) she flipped over and couldn't get back up because she was stuck in it. I was right there and helped flip her back over. But I learned a lesson. Those are meant only for babies with low center of gravity. Most people probably already knew this, but I thought I would put it out there just in case you are thinking of letting your older child borrow your younger babies pool floatation device.

More reasons why I love being a mom

1. I love when my kids learn a new thing and they share it with me.
2. I love when my kids want to snuggle with me.
3. I love when they won't go run errands with dad unless I get a kiss and a hug first
4. I love when they make me something special like a picture or a painting
5. I love hearing my kids laugh
6. I love when the boys get something they want and they say thank you over and over again.
7. I love when my kids say something funny
8. I love when they remind me to be a better parent
9. I love when they do something without me having to ask them
10. I love when they call me a princess
11. I love when they are kind to others
12. I love when my kids dance

Reasons I do not like being a mom

1. I have to repeat myself a million times every day.
2. Everytime I turn around I find a new mess
3. I am a waitress and maid all day long.
4. I feel like I am a jungle gym
5. I don't sleep a whole night through.....EVER!
6. I don't have an adult conversation with anyone unless the lady at the grocery store talks to me.

Marshmallow popcorn

We love love love this popcorn.

2 big bowls popcorn (discard seeds)
1 cube butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 package small marshmallows

Melt butter and brown sugar in medium sauce pan. After sugar and butter are well blended add marshmallows, cook until melted.
Pour over popcorn, stir and coat evenly.

 Here's something I came across on the BYU website today. Pretty awesome, huh? Found here.

New research also shows loving siblings promote good deeds more than loving parents

• USA Today
• CNN
• ABC News
• Deseret News
• CBS News
• Chicago Sun-Times
•  

Something about having a sister – even a little sister – makes 10- to 14-year-olds a bit less likely to feel down in the dumps.

That’s one of several intriguing findings from a new study on the impact siblings have on one another. Brigham Young University professor Laura Padilla-Walker is the lead author on the research, which also sorts out the influence of siblings and the influence of parents within families.

“Even after you account for parents’ influence, siblings do matter in unique ways,” said Padilla-Walker, who teaches in BYU’s School of Family Life. “They give kids something that parents don’t.”

Padilla-Walker’s research stems from BYU’s Flourishing Families Project and will appear in the August issue of the Journal of Family Psychology. The study included 395 families with more than one child, at least one of whom was an adolescent between 10 and 14 years old. The researchers gathered a wealth of information about each family’s dynamic, then followed up one year later. Statistical analyses showed that having a sister protected adolescents from feeling lonely, unloved, guilty, self-conscious and fearful. It didn’t matter whether the sister was younger or older, or how far apart the siblings were agewise.

Brothers mattered, too. The study found that having a loving sibling of either gender promoted good deeds, such as helping a neighbor or watching out for other kids at school. In fact, loving siblings fostered charitable attitudes more than loving parents did. The relationship between sibling affection and good deeds was twice as strong as that between parenting and good deeds.

“For parents of younger kids, the message is to encourage sibling affection,” said Padilla-Walker. “Once they get to adolescence, it’s going to be a big protective factor.”

Many parents justifiably worry about the seemingly endless fighting between siblings. The study found hostility was indeed associated with greater risk of delinquency. Yet Padilla-Walker also sees a silver lining in the data: The fights give children a chance to learn how to make up and to regain control of their emotions, skills that come in handy down the road.

“An absence of affection seems to be a bigger problem than high levels of conflict,” Padilla-Walker said.
BYU professor James Harper and BYU graduate Alex Jensen are co-authors on the new study. Jensen, now a Ph.D. candidate at Purdue, also co-authored the 2009 study showing a link between video games and poor relationships.

About the Flourishing Families Project
The Flourishing Families Project is a longitudinal, multi-informant, multi-method look at the inner-family life of families with an adolescent child. The project began in 2007 and to date includes four waves of data (including questionnaire and video data) on nearly 700 families from two locations. The project involves dozens of BYU students every year in data collection and provides a unique opportunity for undergraduate student involvement, which will continue next year as the project seeks to follow the families for a fifth year. Scholarly articles by Flourishing Families researchers have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Family Psychology, Journal of Early Adolescence, Journal of Research on Adolescence, and Aggressive Behavior.

Painting

So I was inspired by Deon's post to share this. Spencer loves to paint- he wants to do it everyday! My favorite painting is when we fill up a bucket with water and paint the water on the sidewalk with big paintbrushes. We found a package of 3 huge ones (like you use to paint your house) for about $5 at Walmart. This is also a favorite of any neighbors that come to visit- we had to buy extra brushes for all the kids at the school.
Spencer looks so little in these pictures, they were taken about 1 year ago.

great sloppy joe recipe

Okay so I decided to make sloppy joes tonight for dinner and after I was done cooking the meat I realized that I didn't have my sloppy joe prepackaged mix. I then found this recipe on line and I liked it a lot better than the mix. My boys also loved it, they each ate a whole sloppy joe! The other thing I like about this recipe, is that all the ingredients are probably already in your cupboard.

Sloppy Joe Dinner

1 lb. lean ground beef
1/4 c. chopped onion
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp prepared yellow mustard
3/4 c. ketchup
3 tsp brown sugar
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste

brown meat and onions, drain off any liquids
stir in garlic powder, mustard, ketchup, and brown sugar; mix thoroughly, simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Some of my kids favorite toys

Scotty loves anything that has to do with action figures. He has at least one action figure in his pocket at all times. He usually likes the minature ones (warning they do get lost). He also likes the minatures toy story action figures. Scotty is really good at pretending so he doesn't need toys that make noise.
These are knex. Conner was introduced to these by his buddy Ben Baker. He loves them, but they do contain a lot of small parts, so beware if you have kids who put things in their mouths. We went to target the other day and got a good size set of these for $8. It was a good set to start out with, with see how many pieces are missing in a month.
Trio Blocks are my kids favorite! I think Kelsey's kids love these too. We bought a boy set of trio blocks for $29 (they are big sets, about 75-90 pieces in the box. Then the other day at target they had a girl set on sale for $14! My kids don't care if they are pink and purple as long as they can still build guns out of them. I like these because they are easy for any age to put together. Conner likes to build dinosaurs, bugs, guns and buildings out of these. Scotty likes to build houses for his action figures.

The Leap Frog Tag pen is great for car rides. This is a little more expensive about $50 for the pen, it comes with a few books. I got on ebay and bought 6 books for $20 so I saved a few bucks that way. This is probably one of the best investments I have ever made for car trips. Not only does it help your kids read and learn letters but it also has games and stories on it.

So those are just a few of my kids favorite things.