Putting Edgar to bed I asked: “are you cozy?
Edgar: what is cozy?
Me: it means you’re comfortable.
Edgar What is comfortable?
Me: It means you’re relaxed and happy.
Edgar: what is happy?
And it goes on and on.
Edgar Arlo ago 4
We are the Happy Hippies and this is a glimpse of our life
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Meet Jr Hot stuff.
I put Edgar in a sweater for church and on the way to church I told Edgar if he gets hot we could take off his sweater. He quickly declared he was already Hot.
Gwenevere jumped in and agreed.
“Yes, Edgar you’re really hot. She went on to explain “Hot means you’re pretty.”
Edgar excited by this new understanding starts declaring everything as hot.
“Look at those hot flowers.
Look at that hot store. Look the road is hot. And he did that all the way to church. 😂
James’ nicknames are The warm-y Guy and HotStuff. I think we might have a Jr HotStuff on our hands
mommy burnout
I get asked often how I can handle homeschooling and being a stay at home mom. “Don’t you ever get burnt out?” Yes.
When Everett was 1 and we just started homeschooling and life with three littles was emotionally draining there where times when I felt burnt out. I remember the Spirit telling me to take a year for myself. My workouts came before homeschooling, park days came before laundry. I took time to rest and I felt so much better. I took a whole year to heal from burn out. My kids watch more tv that year and that was ok. I wanted life to continue this way forever. However, unsurprisingly and also surprisingly, almost a little over a year later I felt impressed to do more. Make my kids education first priority and home care second with lots of breaks as I needed them in between. The change wasn’t as easy as I had hoped but within time I realized I needed far less me time than I thought. To this day I feel that way. Self care can be as simple as resting without your phone by your side or cooking a meal with music playing.
I will be the first the point out staying at home and homeschooling my kids is made much easier with James’ flexible work schedule. Some weeks I’m grateful we works four days in a row. He’s days off tend to be used for family fun, errands, and even me time. James only works 4 days a week and it provides lots of flexibility. But it’s also nice when he works 4 days in a row and life is filled with routine of schoolwork, laundry and cleaning. I love the balance in my life. I love watching my kids grow and become more emotionally regulated and independent. I love seeing their brains and bodies grow and develop. I love seeing the cycle of growth on a larger scale. The phases you see in a baby and toddler continue on. Parenting doesn’t get easier, but with all things, the more time you put into parenting the more growth you get out.
So now I have days of burn out but I don’t let them stay for long.
That’s my long winded answer to the common question I get asked.
Sunday, January 8, 2023
Grace Goes to the Temple
Yesterday Grace and I went to the temple to do family baptisms with our ward youth. It was Grace’s first time and I am humbly honored to have witnessed it.
Our ward isn’t the most organized and when they planned a youth temple trip the very first weekend of January I figured they’d also be setting up temple recommend interviews too, but no. 🤪. It was so frustrating and I wasn’t going to try to go since it felt like the youth program wasn’t going to be much help but at the last minute I messaged our ward secretary who contacted the bishop and he gracefully agreed to interview Grace 30 minutes before the departure time.
I felt bad putting Grace on the spot and with such short time to prepare. But she read through the questions and got dressed and away we went. While she was reading the temple recommend questions I got in family search and printed out four family names.
We invited Gwenevere to Tag along with us and away we went to Portland.
Gwenevere stayed in the car since she wasn’t feeling good.
Grace followed instructions asked questions and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. She was one of the last to be baptized.
When we came out of the temple Grace immediately said “I wouldn’t say it was fun, but I liked it.” We took a few pictures and then rushed to the car to meet up with Gwenevere. We drove to ikea and dinner and spent and hour planning and dreaming of a kitchen remodel and a game plan to convert the school room into a spare bedroom.
In our way home we picked up milkshakes and pretzels at sonic (Gwenevere’s favorite) and arrived home tired at around 10pm.
I hope to never forget the sweet moments in the temple watching Grace so beautifully demonstrate her testimony as she participated in the gathering of Israel.
For our family records I wish to record the names of our family members Grace stood in proxy for.
Gertrude Fagg
Ida Fagg
Margaret Clifford Moore
Ella Snider
Thursday, September 8, 2022
words of encouragement
the other day, while feeling overwhelmed and on the verge of anxiety overload, I took a moment to breathe and the thought that came to me was
“I am bravely strong.”
Then the other day while chatting with a friend about the ins and outs of the day my friend interrupted my questioning of why I even try with this amazing statement
“you are a domestic goddess”.
My friend then went in to stay that I am ever tweaking my family’s home life.
I had to ponder what it means to be a domestic goddess. My own interpretation
“I am ever tweaking and creating a universe within my home that only i can create.”
I love it!
“I am a domestic goddess here me roar.”
In other news. I received my back to homeschooling blessing this week. I was given foresight to know what my children will need and an extra measure of the ability to love my family.
I am so grateful for direct revelation my Heavenly Parents give me.
Sunday, July 31, 2022
Gwenevere's post
Mama wants me do blog so here I am. uhh I don't know what do write so here is a pic of Rocket, a friend's cat.
Friday, February 11, 2022
Gwenevere’s Birthday
Gwenevere turned 13 this week. We celebrated throughout the week. Monday her actual birthday was also Martin Luther King Jr. Day. James had to work, I woke up early to make Gwenevere a cheese quiche for her birthday breakfast. We where still late to Piano and the quiche wasn't that great tasting. Sorry honey. Elli gave Gwenevere a peace lily plant for her birthday. and after Piano lessons we but invited friends to come play at the signal point boat lunch in Lowell.
We roasted marshmallows, snacked on food and the kids explored all over. Edgar fell and cut his head. It bled pretty hard for a while but he seemed to be okay.
Oliver gave Everett and Edgar dinosaur toys
as we drove home from the lake we stopped by Fred Meyers to pick up ice cream. Gwenevere had haagen ice cream when she went to visit her cousins Daniel and Dalynn's family in Utah and had been wanting haagen ice cream since. as we walked out of the store we say the beautiful full moon rising in all her glory so I made Gwenevere take pictures with her birthday moon.
When we got home no one was really hungry since we had been snacking all day, so we skipped dinner and just opened presents and age Ice cream.
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| Papa got Gwenevere a compass |
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| Everett got Gwenevere a felting book |
We went all out with chocolate syrup, ice cream cones and mini Oreos. It was a fantastic ice cream treat.
After ice cream, everyone brushed their teeth and got ready for bed. I put Edgar to sleep and when I came out of the boys room I found the rest of them hanging out on Gwenevere's bed with Papa. We said family prayers and went to bed. But the birthday celebrating continued.
When we got home the amazon package with Gwenevere's birthday presents arrived so she opened up another gift.
Wednesday, James asked to go hiking in the woods, so we packed a picnic lunch and got in the car. Not 100% sure where we would go, but as we all sat in the car it became unanimous that we should attempt Kentucky falls again.
We didn't make it to the second falls because we had to get back in time for Gwenevere's Gymnastics but we still had fun. We saw a salamander, and lots of fun mushrooms.
After Gymnastics we celebrated with the sparkling cider Gwenevere got as a birthday present from the Brazil family.
Thursday we celebrated Gwenevere's birthday by going to the movies to see Sing 2. It was awesome.
Not part of the birthday celebration but still an event worth documenting. Thursday night or should I say Friday morning at 2am we woke up to the smoke alarms going off and smoking coming from our intake vent for the furnace. We searched all over for the source of the smoke but never found flames. Since our furnace is gas I could imagine a gas explosion happening any minute. To be extra safe, we woke up the kids, got them out side and called 911. Thankfully, no gas fire expulsion happened and it was decided that the smoke was the furnace's last hurrah.
around 4 am in the morning we call crawled back in bed, (everyone in Papa and my bed), turned on some nature documentary and fell asleep. James had brought in the two space heaters we kept in the attic so we could stay warm. James took the day off to sleep in, and call the furnace repair guy.
Friday was another homeschool day, with James at home we also played some board games.
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