Mother's Day 2013

Yesterday morning, I woke up to the cutest bunch of scraggly-haired PJ-clad kids jumping on my bed to cuddle with me and give me cards (after they'd let me sleep in - hallelujah!). Trailing close behind them was my wonderful husband with tray full of lovel flowers and a nice breakfast. Then as I ate, Ashton played a song he's learned recently on the guitar for me while the rest of the kids sang the words. It was a bit off-key. The guitar part was rough in a few spots. But it was pretty much the most beautiful performance I've ever seen.

They sang/played "Time of your Life" by Green Day. This was "our song" when Jared and I were dating and the lyrics have proven to be true of our family's story as it's unfolded. 

We've had so many forks in the road, so many times we've been grabbed and directed towards things we didn't anticipate. We've learned so many lessons. So little about our family's life has really turned out in a predictable way (I never would have guessed we'd end up with 5 kids in 5 years, that we'd live in St George, that Jared would run a trucking company or a tire software company or be Bishop of our ward, that we'd live in St George and or Ogden, that I'd be running this website that now reaches over a million moms....). In many ways, things have turned out unpredictably hard and scary and grueling. But wow, so many things have sure turned out right in so many beautiful ways, I've got thousands of lovely still-frames and photographs in my mind, pretty much all the hard stuff has ended up adding up to great stuff, and when I stop stressing out long enough to think about it, I am having the time of my life.

Here are the lyrics to "Time of your Life"

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life. 

After breakfast, we went on a little hike/walk that I love up in the mountains and enjoyed a perfect blue sky and lots of beautiful wildflowers. The kids were great about staying by me and not getting way behind or scaling crazy-scary cliffs as is their norm (I pulled the Mother's Day card and asked them to PLEASE hike along nicely by me and not complain...). 

 

Church was good - beautiful talks, beautiful singing by all the primary kids. 

Then Oliver and Silas made me my favorite cookies - all by themselves. They've become the best bakers in the family.

The kids and Jared made me a delicious dinner and a smorgesborg of delicious desserts (including the cookies). 


Then Isaac played with my hair (my favorite), Eliza gave me a back massage (it only lasted about 2 minutes but it was great while it lasted!), and we all sat around just talking and reminiscing and enjoying each other until it was way too late - but it was just so nice that none of us could quite get ourselves to bed any earlier.

I am blessed beyond my dreams with these kids of mine. They sure give me a run for my money and I don't know what in the heck I'm doing as a mom sometimes. But I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. I'll take that "dead skin on trial" (not sure what that means but it works for "hard times" in my mind - so much skin in the game, so many trials as a mom) if it means I get those "tattoos of memories" that I love so much.

Here's a shot of these wild and precious children of mine singing a song on Skype for their grandmas:

Park City Retreat

Best Retreat Ever.

Having done more than 25 Power of Moms Retreats now, we've got our systems down, we've know what to say, we know how to organize things, we know what to feed people. Retreats have become much less stressful and more joyful for me and I think more meaningful and wonderful for participants. So this past weekend, our Retreat at my parents' house in Park City was really really great for me and seemed to be really great for everyone who came.

There's just nothing like getting together in person with other moms and sharing our "best practices" and seeing that we're not alone in our struggles. I always come away so empowered and excited, with renewed love for my family and joy in my mothering.

Here are a few pictures:

Board dinner/meeting the night before the Retreat. We've got almost 40 volunteer moms who help run our website and it was so fun to be together with about half of them who were able to make it in person to this dinner and meeting! We brainstormed lots of great ideas and had a fun slumber party together. Oh how I love and appreciate these amazing ladies who selflessly give their time and talents to the cause of Power of Moms!

All the Board members who were able to attend - showing off a little "power"

Shots from Saturday's Retreat - such light and goodness and beauty filled the day!

I don't know what I'd do without these two ladies. My mom is the most amazing supporter and helper with Power of Moms and is always ready with a beautiful keynote speech for an event. April is as most hard-working, smart and dedicated as they come and having her as my Power of Moms partner is a HUGE blessing to me on so many levels.

It's so fun to meet people in person that you've been corresponding with via email/blogs/etc. There's so much synergy to be had in the blogosphere as we combine efforts to strengthen moms and families. Here's me and April with our friends Kiersten and Brooke from the Crafting Chicks blog.

And here's a 20-minute podcast/radio show April and I recorded that offers a glimpse into what we learned and experienced last weekend (I've been listening to podcasts while I clean or exercise - makes it so much more pleasant!):

Radio Show about Retreat: You Know More Than You Think You Know

*** We just opened registration for FOUR exciting Power of Moms events that will be part of my family's epic road trip next month. I'd love to meet some people who read this blog at one of these events - and please spread the word to anyone you think would be interested. We've got a new mini-Retreat model ready to roll out - we pack a ton into a 2-3-hour window and make the event much cheaper than our full-day Retreats. The overall topic for each event is bringing more peace, purpose, order and joy into our lives as moms and there will be tons of discussion plus I'll be speaking along with stellar speakers who are local to each area.

Chicago: Monday, June 3rd from 9:30am-12:30pm

Boston: Saturday, June 8th from 7-10pm

New York City (Near Columbus Circle): Tuesday, June 11th from 7-10pm

Washington DC Area (Potomac, MD): Saturday, June 15th from 9:30am – noon

Shoes for South Africa

My friend Emily is heading to South Africa with her family and they'd like to provide shoes for children who have to walk miles w/o shoes to get to school. If you'd like to get your kids involved in a very tangible service opportunity where 100% of what you give goes directly and personally to a child in need, check this out! $20 will buy a child a pair of shoes and change their life.

They leave in just a couple weeks and need a LOT more shoes!

Your kids can help pick out the shoes and personally deliver them to the Ballard family if you live nearby (Ogden area) or you can simply make a donation via PayPal. Click on this link to go to Emily's blog where all the details are laid out for you.

(Just FYI, Emily and her husband adopted a boy from South Africa after living there many years ago. They're excited to help kids like their son get the shoes they so desperately need.)

Back to the Blog

OK. I'm back.

Screen free week turned out great. I was in front of my computer quite a bit preparing for the Retreat last weekend (next post on that) but with the temptation of screens off the table during the afterschool and evening hours, I felt like there was lots more time for other, more important things. The kids and I talked more and went on some nice walks. The kids built a new fort in the backyard and dug a tunnel through our dirt hill out there - exciting stuff. We played more games. We read a lot more (helped that the school book fair with buy one, get one free was going on last week and all the kids got new books they were really excited about). Jared and I talked a lot every evening - nice since we've been letting a bit too much TV sneak into the precious hours we have together these days.

Little things that happened last week:

I spent Wednesday afternoon taking Eliza and her friends to a big dance rehearsal in Salt Lake and had so much fun just listening to their conversations on the way there and back. One of them brought this book full of questions and they had so much fun just asking each other questions and learning about each other. They were really cute to ask me a bunch of questions too and were very impressed with some of my answers. (I've ridden an elephant and a camel. I've traveled to more countries than I can count on my fingers and toes. I've had surgery - a c-section. I've lived in about 20 different houses....). They also played "would you rather" and came up some very interesting choices for each other. Would you rather walk around the world slowly and stop as much as you wanted  but you had to walk the whole time or take an airplane around the world but you could never spend more than an hour in any one place? Would you rather be Medusa or a homeless person? Would you rather live in a see-through glass dome and be naked and everyone could always see you or live in a metal dome and wear a suit made of Cheetos and have to share the dome with a really annoying weird guy who was obsessed with Cheetos?

Girls are a whole different ball of wax than boys, I tell you. I'm so glad I got at least one girl.

Spring sprang. All the trees have leaves. All the flowers are out. The strip of grass they had to dig up in the front yard to put in the new water main is actually turning green and blending in. The new tree we planted in the front yard has lovely little leaves on it. The peas we planted in the back aren't doing well - probably because I just can't remember to water them. Tulips are blazing everywhere. The air is softly pleasantly warm. And someday I'll get around to changing out my blog banner to reflect that it's not winter anymore!

The twins gleefully finished the last few pages in their big fat homework book they've been bringing home every week all year.

I went on a couple wonderful hikes with friends - haven't been hiking in too long.

I've started listening to NPR's Radio West podcasts on my runs and I've found I can run further and longer when I've got thought-provoking stuff to listen to. Other great ideas for podcasts? (other than Power of Moms podcasts - listened to them all or helped make them!)

I finally found great teachers for Eliza for violin and Ashton for guitar. After this post, I've had music on my mind a ton and decided to get on the ball with this whole music thing. The kids are old enough to practice w/o my 100% attention now and old enough to progress along at a pretty good clip plus we've got the budget to handle some lessons now. Now Oliver and Silas want to get a drum set and start taking drums thanks to this video. We'll see about that... Isaac remains undecided on musical instrument pursuits but likes to sing somewhat tuneless songs a lot of the time (much to some of his siblings great annoyance).

My house is very dusty and dirty and I'm feeling like I'm nagging the kids way too much about getting their housework done. The windows are so dirty that we really don't need to worry about privacy one bit.

Jared's a really wonderful Bishop. He looks so handsome and kind sitting up there on the stand each week. He's learning and growing so much as he helps others learn and grow. He's got lots of great things going in our ward - the YM program is more solid than ever, new callings are enlivening things, quite a few people have been able to be weened off church welfare, the whole ward has this sense of newness and excitement, our whole family is learning a ton. But it's hard that Jared's gone so much...

I finished reading The Mother in Me - some really great insights. I started reading Choosing Motherhood and  loved that Shawni posted my favorite chapter from that book here.

My hair is driving me crazy. I'm trying to grow it out but it's at this annoying in-between stage and pony tails seems to be the only option a lot of days.

I've been trying to be super positive with a certain child who's been extra hard for me lately and it's definitely improving my feelings towards this child and seems to be helping their behavior at least a little. Raise the Praise, Minimize the Criticize.

I've got a lot of the details figured out for this EPIC ROAD TRIP that I've wanted to do forever. The kids are perfect ages. I've been saving up. The time is right. We're going to leave the day after school ends - June 1st - and drive out to Chicago, Boston, NYC, DC and other places, seeing favorite places, favorite people, and church history sites while doing Power of Moms Retreats along the way. The itinerary is shaping up. The budget is set. The Retreats are coming together nicely. It's been a whole lot of work and there's a lot more to do but we're getting so excited!

Screen Free Week

You won't be seeing any more new post on this blog this week. It's "Screen-Free Week" (check out great resources and ideas here). Since I'm getting ready for our big Power of Moms Retreat this weekend at my parents' house in Park City, I'll be restricting my screen time to what needs to be done to get ready for that event plus a few other necessary Power of Moms tasks.

I'm so excited for the Retreat! Many of our fabulous Power of Moms Board members will be there, I get to present with April and with my wonderful parents (something that just doesn't happen often enough), and I'll get to feel that beautiful electric feeling of love and learning and support that comes with every Retreat.

And I'm excited to be screen-free with the kids this week. We've had a little too much screen time sneaking into our afternoons and evenings and this week's "cleanse" of screen time will be a very good thing. We've got a long list of fun activities kids can choose from when they finish their homework rather than having the 1/2 hour of computer time they're usually allowed each day and we'll be playing some fun board games and reading together in the evenings when we have a little free time. I'll let you know how the week goes when it's over!

At Power of Moms, we're posting a podcast every day instead of our usual daily written posts. This way, we can support moms in being as screen-free as possible while still offering great resources that don't require a screen. Check out some of the great podcasts on our homepage this week! I've loved listening to podcasts while running, cleaning, doing laundry, driving, etc.

Signing off until Sunday!

The Saga of our Plumbing Problems

You heard about the beginning of our plumbing saga back here when our pipes initially froze last winter.

It's been almost non-stop fun since then. 

The frozen pipe turned into a broken water main which led to a temporary water main that had to go across the lawn and last until spring when the ground would thaw enough to dig down and install a new water main. We had to take out one of our newly-installed basement windows to install the temporary line and rig up a temporary window there. 

A guy walking down the street in front of our house tripped over the 1/2 inch temporary water main that had to go across the sidewalk (someone had removed the wood we had over the pipe to prevent such things). Luckily the guy didn't get hurt. But later, he decided he did get hurt and that his cell phone had been broken when he fell and he wanted us to pay for it and threatened to sue us and we referred him to our insurance guy eventually (still not sure how that will pan out). 

Then the temporary would freeze on occasion and we had to go out there in the early freezing mornings with heat guns and hairdryers to get it going again so we could take showers. Great way to start your day.

We went back and forth with insurance to try to get installation of a new water main covered and had to get several bids on the installation of a new water main and the digging up the front lawn with heavy equipment. Not exactly cheap stuff. Stressful trying to decide which contractors would work out best. 

We finally got contractors lined up and went through a couple crazy days during spring break when Jared was super crazy busy at work and I was trying to oversee the excavator while coordinating the right time for the plumber to come while trying to make spring break really fun for the kids. I just don't like having to oversee things I really don't understand very well and having people ask me a lot of questions I don't know the answer to and feeling like I'm not really secure on how much everything is going to cost in the end as unexpected things pop up.

But ultimately we got the new water main in. The water pressure isn't quite what it used to be but we have a proper underground unbroken pipe again and someday maybe the front lawn will recover. . .

While the plumber was here, he installed a cap over our sewer clean-out which has always been just an open pipe in our driveway. He said we could get stuff down in there that could be a real problem and he and Jared cleared out some sticks and stones down there before he installed a new cap which sort of stuck up and looked odd but he assured us it was the best option. Turns out that cap somehow came apart and about the same time we noticed that part of the cap was missing, we noticed some nasty stuff coming out of the that pipe. Seems the part that came off fell down into the sewer line, causing back-up.

I called the plumber about the problem and he said it wasn't his fault and I said it wasn't our fault and after a rather long and unpleasant conversation, we left things unresolved. I wasn't trying to point fingers. I was just trying to get his help in resolving a serious issue that was pretty clearly connected to a problematic part he had installed but he kept insisting that we must have driven over the cap or this wouldn't have happened (even though the cap was not in a place where anyone would drive and it was sticking way up so it would be dangerous to your car to drive over it).

Then last night, the plumber showed up and fixed the problem. It didn't take him that long and we were so glad to have things taken care of! No more sewage coming out on the driveway. No further payment necessary. And I was happy that the plumber and I were able to leave things on good terms. Yeah!

We're crossing our fingers that we're done with issues on our house for a while but hardly dare hope that this saga is really at an end. We're so grateful for our home - but sometimes good old Ida gives us a run for our money! (Ida is the name of our house, FYI.)

Happy Birthday Mom

My amazing mom just had a birthday. She's the kindest, toughest, most accepting and understanding, most interested, most selfless, most hard-working, most faithful, and most beautiful woman I know and I'm so blessed to be her daughter.

Here's a glimpse at my mom as we celebrate all that she's brought to the world in the past 66 years:

engagement photo

my blessing day

mom with me

at our house in Virginia

who cares if you've got baby spit-up all over your dress or your husband is wearing PJ bottoms?

with her dad and newborn Saydi

at our SLC house with baby Saydi

my 6th birthday

Saydi's first birthday

with Saydi and Jonah

with Josh and Shawni

with baby Jonah (#5)

with newborn Talmadge - baby #6

visiting Egypt

Visiting Jerusalem (pregnant with Noah - #7)

With baby Noah (blessing day above, sleeping below)

With Noah (baby #7). Yep, he's a boy but we loved dressing him up like a girl, wanted a little sister so bad!

With me when I was 11 years old.

With baby Eli (#8)

Teton Nat'l Park with Shawni, me, Jonah and Saydi

Colonial Mexico with 8 kids

determined to learn Spanish in Mexico - she carried that book with her everywhere

With Eli:

newborn Charity - #9

 

 

Appearing on Oprah (This interview helped take the book she wrote with my dad, Teaching Your Children Values, to the #1 spot on the NYTimes Bestseller List. Shawni and I were on our missions so we weren't on the show.)

With me and Saydi when they came to pick me up on my mission to Bulgaria (meeting some of my dear friends - Maria, Lubka and Rosa) 

Picking up Saydi from her mission in Spain.

The day the twins were born:

A Grammie visit - yeah!

Grammie Camp kids (she takes the kids off in small groups to teach them about their ancestors and have a great time together every summer)

An "MFME" gathering in Park City, UT

Another MFME gathering at Bear Lake

MFME 2013

Eyre Family 2007

Eyre Family 2009

Eyre Family 2010

With all her grandkids in 2011



Eyre family 2012

With her nine children - 2012

Hosting the first big Power of Moms Retreat at her house and serving as keynote speaker (best supporter and helper ever!). So fun to have Saydi, Shawni and Charity there to help speak as well. (another similar retreat coming up May 4th - details HERE.)

Making podcasts for Power of Moms with me, Shawni and Charity.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!