Looking for Pamela...

I made it to Boston!  I'm sitting here in my sister Saydi's house after a great dinner and some fun with her cute kids. I was smacked with waves of nostalgia as I got off the plane - I've arrived at the Boston Airport scores of times in the years I was a student and working here and was coming back from visits to family. In so many ways, Boston will always be a home to me.

I read a book for like 3 hours on the plane - heaven!  (The book was Whistling in the Dark - very good so far - wow, childhood is a crazy, tough thing for so many people...)  But sitting in a middle seat between two very large people on a fully packed plane wasn't my favorite thing - especially when our already-long flight was made longer by a one hour sitting-in-the-stuffy-plane-at-the-gate delay. At least I wasn't trying to keep a baby happy on my lap all that time. There are many things I'll always miss about my babies - but taking them on planes isn't something I miss.

Anyway, I announced the Retreat Giveaway winners in my last post - and sure wished I could get everyone who commented to these Retreats!  There's one comment that especially stood out to me and even though this particular commenter didn't win the giveaway, I wanted to reach out to her and invite her to come to the Chicago Retreat for free.  But she didn't leave her email address.  Here's the comment I'm talking about:
Pamela said...

Only a few short weeks ago we lost our baby boy, Bowen (stillbirth). He would have been #5. While looking for a little encouragement today, I stumbled across your the Power of Moms website. I read about the Chicago retreat and called a friend who I thought would love to attend with me and she said yes. I just love when God unfolds certain things right before our eyes.

1:54 PM 

Pamela  - I hope you'll read my blog and see this - I can't think of any other way to reach you.  Please email me at saren(at)powerofmoms(dot)come and let's get you to the Chicago Retreat!

Retreat Giveaway Winners

And the winners of the Chicago Retreat registration (a $65 value) and 1/2 price New England Retreat registration (a $110 value since full price is $220) are.....

For New Hampshire:
Erin L said...
I'd love to attend the NH one! It's only a few hours away. These retreats sound so awesome! Put my name in.

For Chicago:
Nancy said...
Chicago! nancykules@hotmail.com :)

(I promise I selected them totally randomly - just FYI)

If you didn't win but still want to come, we've got room for just a few more people at each Retreat. We can take registrations through Wednesday the 19th for the New England Retreat and through Saturday the 22nd for the Chicago Retreat. Then we've got to cut it off so we have time to shop for yummy food and put the right number of copies together and all that. As always, if you have financial issues, I can work with you (email me directly at saren(at)powerofmoms(dot)com). Our goal with these Retreats is always to do what we can do to make sure those who really need to be there can be there - while covering our costs so we don't go broke ourselves!

Retreat Giveaway

I head out on Wednesday morning to do our Power of Moms Retreat in New Hampshire and then I get to do a Retreat in Chicago on the way home. There's a ton to do between now and when I leave - Retreat agendas and logistics to finalize, projects to finish, laundry to be done, groceries to be stocked for Jared and the kids, issues with our St George renters to be taken care of, etc.  Luckily Jared's back from the farm for a few days to be with the kids and then he'll take them up to the farm while I'm gone (they've got fall break - how did I manage to schedule these Retreats over fall break when I'd like to be with the kids???).  So there's a fair amount of stress running through my head right now and I really haven't left the kids for a whole week before so that makes me a little sad. But once I get on that plane (by myself - wow) on Wednesday morning, things will seem much better.

I'm excited to have a few days with one of my favorite people in the whole world - my fabulous sister Saydi (she's doing the New Hampshire Retreat with me). I'm excited to enjoy New England in the fall and visit some favorite people and places (after living in Boston for about 10 years, a part of my heart will always be there). I'm so looking forward to great discussions with fabulous women at both of these Retreats (we've been doing large Retreats lately and I'm so glad these two Retreats will be smaller and more intimate - my favorite kind). I'm excited to meet two great new ladies who are helping me with the Chicago Retreat and who have a lot to bring to the table at Power of Moms. (Beth Aldrich, the Retreat host, is a fabulous speaker, author and healthy lifestyle coach and Lori Radun, one of our speakers, runs a great website called Momnificent and is also a wonderful author and speaker).

Anyway, since we still have a few spaces at these two Retreats and since I love my blog readers, I thought I'd go ahead and do a little giveaway. Comment on this post to enter a drawing for a FREE registration to our October 25th Half Day Retreat in Chicago or a 1/2 price registration to our October 21-22 New England Retreat (if you win but can't make it, you can give the registration or 1/2 price registration to someone else in the area - sorry, this giveaway is just for these two particular Retreats). Indicate which Retreat you're most interested in when you make your comment - and if you want to make sure I can reach you, leave your email address in your comment. I'll pick one winner for each Retreat Tuesday night before I head out on my trip and the winners will be announced here on Wednesday morning (Wednesday, October 19th).  Feel free to forward this post to those you know in the Chicago or New England areas so they can enter!

One Year Later...

I just found this post from just over a year ago - it's the post from when we first visited this house with our realtor:  http://looslifamily.blogspot.com/2010/09/house-hunt-in-ogden.html

A flood of memories of that first visit came back as I looked at the photos and read the words of the post. I knew this was our house - but I didn't want to fully admit it at the time - in case I was wrong.

And now, here we are a year later feeling a sense of belonging and "rightness" that we've never fully felt in a home or a place before.

It's sort of funny to think about how this neighborhood felt like suck a wild card when we first visited this house.  We now see it as by far the best, most fun and most cohesive neighborhood we've ever been part of.  We've loved getting to know the wonderful people who were here when we got here plus several other great families have moved in. It's a wonderful eclectic mix of people here.  I love diversity.

The kids play outside every day with neighbors - they work on the fort they're building in the backyard or ride their scooters and bikes up and down the sidewalks shaded by big beautiful trees - looks like something out of a movie.

 

 

Our backyard has become a gathering place for a bunch of kids who love our basketball hoop and make-shift weedy soccer field in the backyard (there's a new crop of kids this fall - but most of these same kids are still around).

Liza and her friend Olivia call out to each other from their 3rd floor bedrooms at night - separated by just a few feet.

Liza and Olivia's bedroom windows face each other across the driveway

We walk down to the Farmer's Market most every Saturday mornings and get tasty samples and fresh bread and wonderful produce (and Ashton been taking his guitar and collecting some pretty good tips - money tips plus nice people who take the time to give him guitar-playing tips and even take the time to teach him some new chords and play duets with him for a bit).

We walk a block to the library a couple times a week and enjoy all the great books and games there.

Every month, we visit a new, beautiful art exhibit at the art center in this old mansion nearby.

This is a very good place.  This is where we're meant to be.

P.S. As luck would have it, I just saw an old post I wrote about the meaning of home that's been re-posted today on the main page at Power of Moms.  Interesting timing that I should be finishing this post about how this really feels like home now and then come across this post from a year or so ago about the feeling of home we had in St George and the feeling of home in the house where I grew up - check it out if you want:
http://powerofmoms.com/2011/10/the-meaning-of-home/

Sweet Potatoes

So although I love cooking healthy stuff, this'll never be a recipe blog because there are already plenty of wonderful bloggers out there blogging up excellent recipe and food ideas.  But every so often, I just have to share some favorite food tidbits.

Lately I'm into orange foods. Maybe it has something to do with the season. I crave pumpkin and sweet potatoes and squash. A few posts back, I shared my favorite pumpkin cookie recipe (I'll have to do pumpkin bread and pumpkin curry soup one of these days...).  I've been really into sweet potatoes the last couple weeks and wow, they're good (and way better for you than regular potatoes - and my kids love them).  I've enjoyed  sweet potato chips and fries, sweet potato curry - and my new favorite - sweet potato and black bean chili - sort of perfect for Halloween with the black and orange involved...  Here's the recipe I got from a neighbor after loving the dish she brought to a pot-luck (original is here but I changed a few things to make it better - to me at least):

Looking for a delicious and healthy chili recipe for Super Bowl Sunday? When the winds turn blustery and the dark draws in, we need zesty, spicy flavors to wake us up, and good solid nourishment to see us through the winter months. This richly-colored, flavorful chili is the perfect answer.

Immune-boosting garlic and onion, along with red pepper and lime, combine with black beans and nourishing sweet potatoes to make one very satisfying autumn one-pot meal. You can serve it on rice, or with Pumpkin Biscuits, taco chips, or corn bread. Either way, it makes a whole-foods, healthful answer to the perennial question, “What’s for dinner?” Here’s the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons sea salt
2 large sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (or 3 sweet potatoes - I like more)
Zest and juice of 1 lime (can just do lime juice if you don't want to mess with the zesting)
1 28-can diced tomatoes
4 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained (or 6 cups freshly cooked)
1 jalapeno chile pepper, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1 lime, cut into wedges
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves, washed and dried

1. Warm the oil in a large pan over medium heat and add the onion, red pepper, garlic, and salt. Saute until soft, about 4 minutes.

2. Add the sweet potato and lime zest, and cook 10 to 15 minutes more, continuing to stir occasionally.

3. Add the tomatoes, black beans, jalapeno, lime juice, cumin, chili powder, and cocoa, bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.

4. Serve over brown rice, if desired, with lime wedges and cilantro, or with corn bread, biscuits, or taco chips alongside. (I just serve with chopped cilantro and lots of fresh-squeezed lime juice)

Serves 6.

photo credit: flyzipper via Flckr

Pleasant Ordinary Days

So Jared came home for the weekend and stayed through yesterday morning.  The rain stalled potato harvest so as work ground to a halt at the farm, he was able to be here with us for a few days.  Absence does make the heart grow fonder.

Over the weekend, it rained and rained and we enjoyed working on projects around the house and just being together. Isaac, Eliza and I painted some shelves and had some good talks while doing that. Jared and Ashton scoured and sealed the grout in a bathroom that needed some help. The twins and I went shopping for new shoes and had a great lunch together (they were due for a mommy date).  I swear, kids' shoes are so poorly made lately!  The kids can barely get a couple months out of their shoes - and the more expensive shoes seem just as bad as the basic Target and Payless ones.  When we were in France when Ashton was a toddler, I bought him some little shoes at a children's shop with a great sale going on.  I debated whether to get a second pair but decided against it. You know how you you regret certain decisions for a long long time?  When I saw those lovely little shoes make it through ALL of our children, I sure wished I'd bought a whole lot more!

Sorry, I'm tired - I'm totally digressing.

It was wonderful to have Jared here to coach Ashton and Isaac's last flag football game on Monday. He was sad to have to miss a couple of their games last week.  Jared's been a great coach and the team has come a long, long way. I, on the other hand, still can't figure out the rules - but maybe that's partially because I've got Oliver and Silas jumping all over me and asking me things for a good part of each game. My parents came up to watch the last game and the kids were in heaven to have a couple of their favorite people in the whole world with them for a few hours.

Before the game, my mom and I had a wonderful lunch together - even though we live just an hour from each other now, we're still going separate ways the vast majority of the time and I cherish time with my great mother.  While we lunched, the twins were overjoyed to go with my dad to visit sweet Grandma Great in Logan and ended up being part of a radio show that my dad sort of forgot about and had to do over the phone on the way back to Ogden.  He had them sing a song for the whole radio audience. I'm not sure what it had to do with the radio show topic but I'm sure it was very cute.  When my dad used to bring me with him to give speeches when I was a little girl, he'd always have me come up and sing something.  I guess some things never change.

Again, I digress.

Here's one last tidbit:
Oliver and Silas had their first "Itty Bitty Jazz" basketball practice last night.  They were so serious about it - and so excited. I had to go teach scouts so Ashton stayed with them and reported that they listened to the coach and did everything "perfectly." All three boys were so excited to tell me all about everything after the game - and the twins insisted on wearing their new jerseys to bed (Ashton took cute photos but I can't figure out how to get them off his phone and onto this blog).  Ashton pulled out his old jersey from last year's basketball season and Oliver and Ashton did a little happy dance together when they realized their jerseys both had the number 24 on them.

Anyway, this is a snippet from Oliver's prayer tonight:
"Please help us so that we can play really really well at our game on Saturday and that we can not use both hands at the same time when we dribble the ball.  Please help us to win and if we don't win, please help me not to get all sad and cry a lot about it like I sometimes do because I know I'm supposed to be a good sport and all that stuff - but you know how it really is so sad when I lose.  But help me to be nice about it."

I wish I had that prayer (and a lot of Oliver's prayers) recorded.  Oliver really does have an issue with losing.  But I didn't know it was something he thought about and was working on.  Nice when your kids recognize and want to work on their own issues!

And one totally final tidbit:
As I tucked Silas in, he gave me the compliment of a lifetime.  "Mommy, I love you so so much.  I think I even love you more than Hobbs." (Hobbs is our neighbor's dog.)

Serious Excitement about Jobs and Earning Money

So Oliver and Silas have been working for the past month on earning money for the deepest desire of their hearts - new transformers. They've seriously begged me for jobs to do every day and they finally met their goal. We ordered their beloved transformers from Amazon and they counted down the days until that box would arrive. Here's a 3-minute video Ashton helped me make for our Deliberate Mothering Tips video series at Power of Moms.  The joy at the end is pretty darn cute.



*I've had people ask me what sorts of truly helpful and meaningful jobs little kids can do around the house. Here's a list of what my kids have been able to do at different ages.  I'd love your thoughts on other jobs I can add to these lists so I can post them on Power of Moms.  I hear there are more comprehensive lists in Marilee Boyack's excellent book, The Parenting Breakthrough - a book on my list to ready when I get a chance!

3-6 year-old jobs (some younger kids can do these, also good for older kids):

• put away clean silverware from dishwasher (younger kids love the sorting)
• put away all the dishes in the dishwasher (younger kids stack up the different things, older kids put them away in higher places - or you can be like my friend and store all your dishes in low places so little kids can do the whole thing)
• wipe down baseboards and ledges on doors with a damp cloth (little kids can get really good at this if you show them how to get the cloth wrapped around their little fingers and get into the corners - it's quite satisfying seeing how much dirt and dust they can extract - they just need help rinsing and out and wringing out the rag every so often)
• load up rinsed dishes into the dishwasher
• bring laundry to laundry room and sort it into dark and light
• be a "human vacuum" and clean up all the little bits on the floor (see who can pick up the most for a contest)
• clean the floor (they love using a damp cloth and a spray bottle with a very safe solution of water with a little vinegar in it - the floor may not get an even cleaning - but it'll get cleaner!)
• sort all the socks

Hint: they always do jobs better and faster when a contest or a timer is involved!

6-10 year-old jobs:
Some of these may seem too hard for this age group but I've found that my kids do a very good job if I show them all the steps involved and do it with them a few times, then always check their work and help with final details once they become quite adept.  I got the idea from my sister Shawni to have my kids "certify" in certain jobs - I spend time with them making sure they understand exactly how a job is to be done and point out how wonderful it looks and how great we feel when the job is well done.  They they become "certified" in that job and after having done it very well for a while, they get to teach a younger sibling how to do that job so he or she can become "certified" as well.  Having a list of the specific steps involved in the jobs below (you could laminate the list and keep it with your cleaning supplies) can help ensure things are done well on an ongoing basis.

• toilet scrubbing 
• sink cleaning and faucet polishing
• shower/bathtub scrubbing
• bathroom floor cleaning (nice to break up the bathroom jobs into different chunks so it doesn't feel overwhelming)
• vacuuming
• dusting (show them how to move everything off the dusty area, dust the corners, dust the items from the area, then put everything back)
• kitchen sink detailing (once a week)
• kitchen counter detailing (once a week)
• wood polishing (they love spraying the Endust or Pledge or whatever and bringing out the shine)
• laundry folding
• weeding flowerbeds 
• gathering all the trash from around the house and getting it out in the big bins for trash day

10-12 year old jobs (all of the above plus these other older-kid things)  I don't have any older kids than this so this is as high as I can go right now!

• mowing the lawn
• doing the laundry (younger kids can do this but I prefer the older kids do it to get the settings right and put in the right amount of detergent, etc.)
• detail vacuuming (moving small furniture to get under and behind things on a monthly basis)
• putting out the trash bins for trash day

What am I missing?  I'm sure you've got other great stuff I could add to these lists.

Today's Totals

You do the math:

1 sick kid home from school (aches and pains - nothing specific - he might have just needed some extra TLC from me - so I tried to give it to him.  Nice to have him around all day.  We had a nice lunch together and we watched a beautiful storm and saw a bright rainbow together - he and I are special fans of rainbows so it was extra wonderful to see this one together.

+ 2 super excited twins when they came home from school and found the UPS truck had delivered the transformers they've been working hard to earn over the past month.  It was seriously better than Christmas morning around here!  Definitely a high point of the day for all of us.

+ 3 new Power of Moms website pages created including two new Retreat pages (along with plenty of phone calls and emails to firm up details)

+ 4 crazy cub scouts performing wild antics while we were supposed to be learning about different instruments and about developing talents from kind members of the high school marking band - there were fart noises, a new kid using some swear words and pulling down his pants for the sheer fun of it, kids running up and down the bleachers, kids needing to go to the bathroom and get drinks... (I've had plenty of big-deal roles in church and community organizations and have taught groups of homeless kids, inner city kids, spoiled rich kids, you name it - but I have to say this small group of scouts that I agreed to lead gives me a run for my money like nothing else has - wow!)

+ 5 kids with mutually exclusive needs during after-school crunch time and scout-reminder phone calls.  One child needed help with homework - while another one desperately wanted me to watch the dance she and the neighbor girls made up - while one was in tears over a tricky part of transforming his new transformer - while one wanted me to make everyone else be totally quiet because he kept losing count of the tickets from the school carnival that he promised to count so we could figure out what revenue different booths brought in - while one needed me to come see if his room was sufficiently clean and check whether the proposal he'd written for how he was going to KEEP his room clean(er) was good enough to win him the right to sleep in his own room again (it wasn't).  This dear child has been sleeping in the scary basement for the past few nights to follow through on a threat that if he couldn't keep his room at least pretty decent and be a better influence on his little brother that he shares a room with, he'd have to sleep in the basement...

+ 6 times that the other kids got out of bed while I went on a tour of a newly clean room and helped finalize the room cleanliness proposal.  He passed.  He's sleeping in his own bed tonight.

+ 7 kids I had to pick up at school in different areas - the elementary school has this crazy new pick-up procedure where all the kids line up with their teachers after school and you have to go to each class to gather up all the different kids you need to drive home. After gathering 5 kids at the elementary school, I get to fish around the big boys' school until I can spot them.  Somehow it's a challenge for them to wait in the same place each day...

+ 8 hugs as I tucked in my sweet, cute kids (Some kids wanted more than one hug during the first tuck-in - that's why the 8. The hugs dried up when they kept getting out of bed!)

+ 9 times (at least) that I counted my blessings that my wonderful husband is usually around to help with some of the madness.  We're all missing daddy/Jared a lot around here!

+ 10 times I woke up last night with my throat hurting or with a worry about something or other - one of those weird nights...

+ 78 emails I received and fielded (lots archived, lots filed away, many replied to, a couple really nice ones about how much POM means to them - those always make me happy...)

= ONE TIRED BUT GRATEFUL MOM!

No road trip this fall...

Thanks for the resounding encouragement and ideas and support for our road trip idea. You are all so kind and helpful and it was starting to seem like a reality. But then things got more complicated.

Jared needs to help his brother run the Loosli farm for a while. It's potato harvest time and some hard circumstances have made it obvious that Jared should be using his flexible schedule to help at the farm rather than doing a road trip.

I was really getting excited about this trip.  But it's amazing how dreams like a road trip can quickly be dwarfed and quite painlessly tucked away when obvious higher priorities come into view.

We'll do the road trip another time!

Should we do it?

We've always had this family dream of traveling across the country together. Jared and I want to share our favorite places in Boston and NYC with our kids. We want to experience new places together. We're pretty good at road trips and love the adventure and together-time they offer - and the kids are really good in the car.

I've got to be out in New Hampshire to conduct a Power of Moms Retreat Oct 21-22.  Jared has a flexible schedule as he looks for the right new job. We both can do our work just about anywhere as long as we have our laptops and the internet. So I got this idea that maybe we should ALL head out to New England in October and Jared agreed that if he didn't have a job by the time I would need to buy a plane ticket for the Retreat to get a good fare, we should hop in the car and make the trek across the country.

Well, I'd need to buy a ticket in the next few days if I'm going to fly out for the Retreat so now's the time to make the decision.  Should we drive that 35 hours each way?  

The kids would have to miss some school but they have a few days off for fall break during the time we'd be gone and I've always embraced my parents' philosophy - "never let schooling get in the way of your education."  And we'd have plenty of car time to do the kids' school work that their teachers could give us.

We don't really have extra money right now but when we do have money, Jared's generally working at a pretty non-flexible job and wouldn't be available to go with us. Plus this would be a business trip so we could expense a lot of things and we're very good at keeping things cheap on road trips - we eat from a cooler in the car and just need a basic motel room or a corner of someone's living room where we can roll out our sleeping bags for the night. Plus we've had requests to do a Retreat in Chicago so we could do that on the way or on the way back and that would generate more revenue.  Maybe we could even do a mini-Retreat in NYC...

We might have to miss some basketball games for Eliza and the twins - we just signed them up to play starting in mid October.

It might be hard sometimes trying to get work done on the road while helping kids with homework and keeping everyone happy in the car. I do have quite a few big projects I'm in the middle of for Power of Moms.  But I got tons of work done during our last road trip all over the Pacific Northwest (love that you can create a "hot spot" with your phone and use the internet almost anywhere now) and Jared and I could trade off driving and working and doing stuff with the kids (plus they like time to read or watch a movie and don't need attention from one of us all the time).

The kids are at great ages for a road trip. They are all old enough to be good in the car and really get and remember what we'd be visiting. They are young enough to think trips like this are super cool - they don't yet worry about missing friends and they still think family time is a treat.

So, what do you think?  What would you do if you were us?