Australia Part I: Gold Coast Retreat and Rainforest

We're in Australia! It felt mostly like we're in a surreal dreamworld thanks to jet lag the first couple days. But now we're really having fun. We've become accustomed to the accents and new words. Some favorites: candies = lollies (people have given us all this wonderful new Australian candy to try), worn out = flat out, whining = winsing (kids' whining is a topic of discussion at EVERY Retreat!), exit = way out, yield sign = give way. April and I have learned to drive on the left side of the road and have found that we're constantly turning on the windshield wipers when trying to turn on the turn signal (we have to concentrate really really hard and we're pleased to announce we've had no head-on collisions yet!!). It's so green and beautiful here and it feels like a wonderful combination of England (with the accents and the green) and Hawaii (with the beautiful jungle-like plants and heat and humidity). We've met wonderful people who've welcomed us with open arms and made the Gold Coast Retreat run beautifully and we're staying with a kind, fun family who took us into their home without even knowing us.

We've spent most of our time here so far preparing for and presenting the Gold Coast Retreat. We found out that Australian moms (or mums I should say - we're getting used to that) have the same loves, concerns, and needs as American moms. It's great to see that everything is so universal. They laugh at the same things. They have the same hard issues. They love and cherish the same things about motherhood. It's great seeing how universal motherhood is.

Here's a glimpse of the Gold Coast Retreat (SUCH a fabulous group of women!) but you can see most of it on April's blog HERE:

Then yesterday (Sunday), we enjoyed church presented with beautiful Australian accents and were treated to two talks by people we actually knew (our hostess, Sharon, and one of our new friends from the Retreat, Hannah). The topic was families and it was so great to hear beautiful talks that totally built on what we'd been discussing at the Retreat. I got a bunch more great ideas. The kids loved going to Sunday School with Australian kids and seeing what the youth program here is like - a lot like in the United States!

After church, we headed off on a gorgeous drive through the rainforest - tiny zig zagging one-laned road through amazing views and vines and ancient huge trees. We were pretty excited when we spotted this on the side of the road - our first kangaroo!

We ended the drive at O'Reilly's Rain Forest where we got to explore beautiful botanical gardens and go on a "tree top walk" through the canopy of the rain forest.

More photos coming soon (slow internet connection here and I just spent an hour trying to put up photos that didn't load - so more later!)

Why I'm Going to Australia on Tuesday

Ashton and I along with my Power of Moms partner, April, and her daughter Alia leave on Tuesday for Australia where we'll be conducting two Retreats - one near Gold Coast and one in Sydney.

Here's where we get to hold our Gold Coast Retreat. Nice huh?

And here's where we'll be spending a little down time:

I can't believe this is really happening!

Here's the story:

Back in August of 2009, I this email from a "mum" in Australia:

Hi Saren,

I'd love to get some Learning Circles or Retreats going here. I was so excited when I read your email [about what Power of Moms offers], I almost cancelled my booking at the gym to start organising immediately. But as I sat at the computer my 18-month-old started stomping on the keys and I knew it would have to wait :)

I feel SO excited about this! I'm sure I ran WAY faster at the gym today as I thought about implementing things and how great it could be!

Thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you!

Best Regards, Felicity Aston  

Power of Moms was in its infancy in 2009 and I was so excited to see that we had people in all the way in Australian who were excited about The Power of Moms - I forwarded Felicity's email to April and we were both thrilled about it.

Felicity kept doing what she could do to support the mums around her and thinking about how to bring more of what The Power of Moms offers to Australia. She entered some beautiful photos in our photo contest, spread the word about The Power of Moms on her blog (Felicity's Bits and Pieces) and wrote a great article for us (Find You, Be You). She mentioned the idea of doing a Retreat in Australia in emails a few times - and then she got serious about the idea.

In January 2011, we got this email:


Saren and April:
I have been wanting to send you another email for a while about holding a Retreat here in Australia, but I always think you must be SO busy then I decide to put it off for a bit longer :) 

I mentioned previously that Naomi (from www.sevencherubs.com ) and I have been talking about the possibility of putting a retreat together over here.We would love to get information on 'where to start', how you run the retreats and what classes you offer so we can do something similar. Of course we'd really love it if you just flew on over here for it, but we realise that may not be possible and we would love to organise one for sometime this year if we can do that with your help from afar. 

Any advise and or training(?) would be wonderful. 

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Love Felicity

I replied with:

Felicity:

If you could get a large group of moms together for a Retreat and/or conference, it would be financially feasible to do a Retreat in Australia and we'd be over there in a heartbeat!  It's just so darn expensive and time-consuming to get there that we'd need a lot of moms' participation to get enough funding together.  Maybe if we could do a couple big one-day conferences in different areas there plus a 2-day traditional weekend Retreat, we could make it financially feasible.

If you don't think you could get a largish group together for Retreats and/or conferences quite yet, we can do an online training via our Trainer Manual and emails to get you up and running as a trainer so you can set up great workshops and Retreats in Australia.  It's SO much better for everyone when you can experience one of our Retreats in person - but the best case scenario is not always possible.

Let me know your further thoughts and let's get some great stuff going in Australia!

Saren

Then Felicity replied with:

Hi Saren:

Oh the thought of you coming over is VERY exciting :) We feel really confident that we could absolutely get a 'large' group of women together for conferences and retreats......what kind of numbers would we need? Also what kind of costs would be involved? Even just approximate amounts would be great so we could start generating interest and getting an idea of just how many people are interested. We would LOVE it if Power of Moms were able to come and present it personally here :) that's a whole lot cheaper than us flying to the states to attend :)

Let us know the numbers and we'll get back to you asap!!

Felicity

And that was the beginning of about 1000 emails back and forth with Felicity over the past year. Felicity and other great mums, true to their word, have gathered about 120 mums to attend two Retreats in Australia. Felicity has found generous families who've agreed to host the Retreats in their gorgeous large homes,  arranged all the catering, chair rental and countless other details, set up our flights, helped us figure out what site seeing we should cram in on our non-Retreat days, etc. And in a few days, I finally get to meet this wonderful friend I feel like I've known forever thanks to all the emails!

I'm so glad that April and I decided to bring our 12-year-olds with us. They both do a lot of data entry and behind-the-scenes work for Power of Moms and this will be a great chance for them to see the more exciting parts of Power of Moms while hopefully having some bonding experiences with their moms that they'll never forget. Plus they'll be able to work together on the Power of Kids blog that they've been running with their younger siblings for a while now. Ashton's worked really hard to raise the $500 he had to put towards the trip plus his spending money.

We've got our Retreat agenda all squared away and have coordinated with Felicity on countless details but we haven't had much time to think about what sights we should try to see on our days off. Anyone have suggestions of must-see's near Gold Coast/Brisbane or in Sydney? We won't have long but we'd love to pack in what we can. Mostly, though, I'm so excited to meet so many great Australian mums and learn from each other.

***There are a few spots left if you know anyone in Australia that should know about this! And while we're on Retreats, we just launched Retreats in April in Vegas and Palo Alto. For details on all upcoming events, click HERE.

Q and A: Tricky Questions

Question: I'm curious to know what you think about this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Amelia/when-your-7-year-old-son-announces-im-gay_b_1277910.html

Answer:
My first thought on reading the article was that I really do not think that most 7-year-olds have enough understanding of themselves or the world around them to know for sure whether or not they are gay - or to know a lot of other things about what sort of lives they might want to lead down the road. I've got two very bright 7-year-old boys and I've worked with kids of all ages all my life and in my experience, kids go through phases and have different passions and interests that come and go. I don't think it's wise to "pigeon-hole" any child into any particular thing they identify with at a young age. I think it's good to accept our children's interests and tendencies and talk about them openly. But I think it's good to encourage them to enjoy childhood and not worry much about their present or future identity right now.

My daughter has been telling me she wants to be a doctor when she grows up since she was 2. She's now 9 and is still saying she wants to be a doctor and while I totally support her in watching medical documentaries and researching medical things on the internet and getting books about the body at the library, I don't feel like it's a done deal that she's going to be a doctor. She might change her mind. We talk about what might be great about being a doctor and what might be hard about it. I tell her that we'll love her and support her in whatever she wants to pursue. But I also tell her that she really doesn't need to make decisions about her future career right now.

Can't we accept and support possibilities but defer a final answer when it comes to our children's identities?

So I guess my main first thoughts spurred about this article were focused on our children's identity and these were my conclusions:

• Accepting our children for who they really are is a beautiful and important thing.
• Understanding who our children really are is a real challenge. I'm always trying to figure out what is part of the fabric of who my kids are and what I can and should help them tweak or change or enhance. How do you decide what to keep pushing on and what to give up on? (See this post on how I gave up on a particularly clean room for one particular child...)How do you decide what to encourage and what to discourage?

But then, the more I thought about this article and saw what others were saying about it (there were quite a few comments made when we shared the article in our Power of Moms forum HERE - plus there are tons of comments on the article itself), I realized this article brings up a whole other topic that's really important to me.

• Teaching our children the values and norms that are centered upon beliefs that are dear to us is an important parental duty. But how do we simultaneously help our children learn to to understand and respect the opinions and choices of others?  

In my family growing up, my parents really focused on teaching me and my 8 siblings the values they held dear (and went on to write a book about the methods that worked that become a #1 NYTimes Bestseller - Teaching Your Children Values). We had clearly explained and enforced family laws that echoed values of respect, kindness, and hard work. We did awards around the dinner table (for more on that, click here). We watched movies together and analyzed what people had done and why and what we'd have done in those situations. We made "decisions in advance" (when we were 12, we wrote down in our journals a list of things we wanted to commit to always or never do in our lives and signed the list like a contract with ourselves).**

But at the same time, my parents really focused on teaching us about other cultures, other ways of thinking, and other ways people choose to live. We were reminded again and again that "different is good" through dinner table discussions and excursions around the world. We were taught to be friends with everyone and to seek to understand and love all those around us while holding true to what we feel is right in our own practices and beliefs.

In my own family, as my kids get older, there are more and more questions that come up. I want to do what my parents did for me. I want to help my kids develop their own strong sense of right and wrong (and of course, I'd like it if that sense was pretty close to my own) but I also want them to be empathetic and understanding and respectful.  We do a lot of discussing and talking in our home  - it helps that we know a lot of people who have made very different choices in their lives. I think that welcoming questions and  talking and discussing is a big key to the understanding part - as well as the "forming their own opinions" and "solidifying values" part. But we're still figuring all this out.

I want to help my kids have a clear moral compass and a strong sense of right and wrong but I also want them to be open-minded, empathetic and loving.

So I guess my question back to you is this: How do you teach your kids the values you hold dear while helping them develop their own opinions and teaching them to be understanding and respectful of others' choices? 

I'd love to hear your ideas on this topic and I just put up a new topic in our Power of Moms forums on this. Please add your comments and ideas here:
http://powerofmoms.com/forums/topic/teaching-values-while-teaching-understanding-and-respect/

**Just FYI, any of these ideas are laid out in detail in my parents' books (Teaching Your Children Values and The Entitlement Trap).

Eliza's Birthday and Tea Party Tradition

Better late than never, right?



Eliza's birthday is Feburary 13th. She was best Valentine's Day gift ever - our little pink bundle who's grown up to give us love notes right and left all year long. She's everything anyone could want in a little girl - sweet, smart, pretty, dramatic, determined, emotional, artistic, and athletic with a love for beauty and adventure.


Hard to believe that sweet pink bundle is now NINE years old.


Seems like yesterday she looked like this - and talked my ear off in her cute little voice every waking minute.

first day of preschool

preschool graduation

Starting Kindergarten

Here are a couple quick stories stories about Eliza this past year:

Eliza really wanted to learn to ski. But it was way harder than she thought it would be. Her skis were going every which way and she was so frustrated. As she tearfully fell for about the 20th time on the bunny hill, I told her she really could quit if she wanted to. For Eliza, saying she can quit is pretty much like triple dog daring her not to. She wiped her eyes and said "Nope. I can do this." She got her mind around what was going on, really looked at what other people were doing, made some great observations about what seemed to be working, and resolved to be a skiier for real. Within an hour, she was riding up the big lift and making it down the easy run, unhappy with any suggestions Jared or I might give her but excited to tell us about tips she received from kind strangers who helped her up when she fell and wasn't near us (and she preferred us to keep our distance). But the end of the day, she was triumphantly skiing down that hill with very few falls and pretty decent form. Eliza is one determined little girl.

Eliza's a good reader but usually picks pretty simple books. When we saw part of Anne of Green Gables at a party earlier this year, I challenged Eliza to read that whole book and told her I'd take her out for a special book club date to discuss the book and we'd watch the movie together once she finished the whole unabridged book. It was a bit of a challenge for her, but she finished it and we had so much fun at our first "Mother-Daughter Book Club Meeting." We went to a favorite restaurant and Eliza had a whole list of great questions ready for us to discuss about the book - plus she showed me how she'd written out her favorite things about the book inside the front cover so she could give it to her daughter some day. It was so fun to have a real discussion on a somewhat deep level with my own little daughter. We're excited to read another book together and do this again soon!

Every year since her 4th birthday, Eliza has had a tea party for her birthday. Sure, it started off with a little influence from me since I grew up going to tea parties in England and thought they were pretty cool - but she's taken tea parties to many new levels with her ideas. Sometimes they are princess tea parties. One time it was a pajama tea party. Often she insists on dancing at the close of the tea party. Sometimes young men are invited to the tea party. Last year she didn't want boys there so one of her brothers dressed up as a girl so he could come (check out her 8th birthday tea party photos and see if you can find the imposter). Always her brothers eat as many cucumber sandwiches as they can get their hands on whether they're invited or not. Always there are heart-shaped cookies to be decorated by one and all before the end of the party.

4th birthday tea party

Eliza insisted that all the boys dance with all the girls at the close of this tea party -
and everyone thought that was a great idea - they were so cute!

5th birthday tea party

6th birthday tea party (she wanted a pajama tea party...)

7 years old - teeth lost, favorite doll Tasha

7th birthday tea party

8th birthday tea party (can you find the imposter?)

dancing at 8th birthday - Eliza insisted on dancing after tea

This year, we started off Eliza's birthday with her favorite breakfast - yogurt with granola and berries. Then I snatched her from school for a special lunch date and kept her home so we could make the heart shaped sugar cookies we always make and decorate for her birthday.



Then after school, she had her traditional tea party. She only invited a few friends since it's her off year for birthday parties (we just do bigger parties every other year). It was such a perfect sized group and these little girls were so fun to listen to when they somehow instinctively started speaking with British accents as they very politely asked each other about their lives and passed the little tea sandwiches around. The other girls all called her "Princess Eliza" and she called them all "my lady" and it was all very cute. I love seeing little girls be little girls acting like little ladies rather than seeing little girls trying to act like teenagers.

Ready to welcome her tea party guests in her new birthday dress

decorating heart-shaped cookies

and another cookie-decorating time and candle-blowing time with her brothers before bedtime

What would you learn if you watched your life on video?

First of all, thanks with all my heart for the kind, kind comments and emails I received on that last post. I've got some pretty wonderful readers.

In church today, we were discussing how important - and how hard - real progression can be. Someone made a comment that struck me. He shared a story about about a runner who was trying to shave off a minute or two of his time as he prepared for a big race. He kept trying to just run faster but was quite stuck as far as his time. He decided to have someone film him running so that he could watch himself, analyze his own form and his stride, and figure out how he could run faster. It's so important to our progression to step back and try to get a real "read" on the effectiveness of what we're doing. Short of setting up a camera to video all that we do and then watching to see where we could improve, it's hard to figure out how to really see what we're doing wrong or what we're doing fine but could do better. Honest and real feedback is a hard thing to find in this world - but when we can get it, it's such a valuable thing.

Thanks for the honest feedback on my blog and on what you see of me through my blog. Thanks for keeping it to positive feedback given my somewhat fragile ego when I wrote that post. Even though purely positive feedback doesn't give you all the info you need to really progress, it can sure help you realize the great things about where you are and give you the energy to move forward further.

This week I'm going to pretend I've got a camera on me and really think about what I'd be seeing if I watched that footage. It's worth a try.

Thanks again for your kind words.

Jealous Pity Party

Someone made a comment a while back asking if there's jealousy between me and my siblings. Initially I thought the answer was no. We're all different. We all love each other deeply. We're happy for each other when things go well. We're always praying for each other and thinking of each other. I wrote this big blog post about my sisters, our history together, and how much I love them.

But that question stuck with me as questions you're not quite sure about usually do. And tonight I realized that yes, sometimes I'm jealous.

I just read my sister Saydi's blog. It's not just that she's living her dream (and mine) of spending a chunk of time in London with her family (we both grew up there for several years). It's that she's such a good writer and photographer. Her posts make me FEEL. I wish I were better at photography and that I could express things in writing the way she does.

Then I read my mom's blog. She and my dad are in Hawaii having great adventures with my brother Jonah and his family. Jonah and Aja are gypsies who live life on their own terms and never seem to care what anyone else thinks or what anyone else has. I love that about them. I want to be more like that. I'm feeling so encumbered and fettered lately.

Then I read my sister Shawni's blog, glanced at a photo of her and wished, for the umpteen millionth time, that I were as beautiful and thin as my dear sister. When we were growing up, she was the beauty in the family and I was the writer. Now she gets to be both. Then I felt bad for being jealous of Shawni when she's got plenty of hard stuff to deal with and I shouldn't let dumb thoughts like this sneak in. But sometimes I do.

Then I started to think about Noah, Tal and Eli's recent trip together to Puerto Rico and the cool jobs they have, about Charity's freedom and great life in Palo Alto, about Josh's amazing teaching abilities. Then I thought about how hard I work on so many things that don't seem to amount to as much as they seem like they should... I thought about how some things seem to come so much more easily to other people...

But I snapped out of it and started counting my blessings and had the words to a random song come into my mind "I'm one of a kind. I'm as unique as can be. I'm alright I'm OK and I'm glad I'm me." Sort of a dumb song. But it made me feel better somehow. And it made me picture my sisters and I singing that song in the group we sang in as kids. And then I felt tons of love for my siblings and gratitude that we all have different strengths and different challenges.

Then I decided to write this little post because I think we all deal with these sorts of feelings sometimes as we read other people's blogs or look at other people's lives (not sure if it's better or worse if the blogs are family members' blogs...).

My life has it's great parts. My life has it's hard parts. Pretty much everyone's dealing with hard stuff - most of which they don't blog about or flaunt around at church on Sundays. We generally see the happy stuff, the pretty pictures, not the heartaches or the messes. We can catch glimpses here and there of other people's hard stuff if we look below the surface a bit - and sometimes, people do put their hard stuff out there for all to see but sometimes we still stay fixated on what we admire and covet about them and don't figure in the hard stuff we'd have to take on if we were to trade places with them...

I admire and even feel a little jealous of many things about many people. I yearn for so many things I really can't have. But ultimately, when I can get over myself enough to see what's true, I recognize my blessings in all their abundance. I realize that there are plenty of people who read this blog and wish for things that I have - and that if I read their blogs, I'd wish for some things they have. That's just how it is. We can't have it all. But we can love and make the most of what we've got. And we can learn to admire and appreciate rather than envy and covet.

Enough. Pity Party over. Time for bed.

Kid Entrepeneurs

So Jared and I decided that Ashton gets to go to Australia with me in a couple weeks for the Power of Moms Retreats over there. We've always talked about taking each of our kids on a special trip when they turn 12 and I feel much better about being on the other side of the world for 10 days when I can combine a special bonding experience with Ashton with this chance to provide some great stuff for Australian mums. My trip is covered by the registrations for the two Retreats we're doing over there (if you know anyone in Australia, send them this link please!). Jared and I are covering a chunk of Ashton's expenses but he's been diligently working on earning his portion of the cost. He's been babysitting a couple times a week for neighbors. He's taken care of a bunch of data entry and helped edit videos for Power of Moms. He's saved up his birthday and Christmas money. And this past weekend he earned a nice chunk of money by doing this:

counting up the money (with our friend Grayce)

It was the Parade of Homes last weekend in St George, and as usual, there was a home in the Parade in the development where our house is. So we decided to head down there and hold an open house to get some good traffic through our house. Ashton decided to capitalize on the situation and do a little selling of his own while Jared and I worked on selling the house. So we bought a bunch of stuff at Costco (which Ashton paid for with his own money) and Ashton made some spreadsheets to figure out how much to charge and how much profit he could make. Then the kids, headed by Ashton, set up a refreshment stand in front of the house. Armed with granola bars, oranges,and bottles of water, Ashton and his various "employees" (siblings who stuck by him all day and were paid real money as well as neighbors who helped for a while and were paid in granola bars) sat out there all day on Saturday and most of the day on Monday. They made nice signs for their stand and experimented with different marketing strategies. They smiled and waved at every car going past to attract customers - and tried putting the cutest small neighbors on "waving" duty.  Liza and her friend tried dancing around to attract customers. They were very polite to customers (we practiced on this). Sure, there were squabbles about who'd earned a granola bar and who got to make decisions about how the various goods should be displayed. But all in all, the refreshment stand was a great success. After paying for supplies and paying his employees (Isaac and Eliza) at a rate that felt fair to all, Ashton walked away with $124 and is now very close to what he needs for Australia.

It was hard to stand back and not micromanage the project (I am a recovering control freak, after all). But after offering a few pointers on pricing and ideal cost/profit ratios and insisting there be total politeness to customers and respect and appreciation for"employees," Jared and I backed off and let Ashton run the show. And it was great to see him really step up and come away feeling so proud of his accomplishment while helping the other kids feel proud and happy about the whole thing as well.

I was generally supposed to stay clear of the stand (Ashton: "No offense, but we have a lot better business when you're not here..."). But as I did a little yard work nearby, I could here some of the conversation between those working at the stand and between the kids and customers. I loved hearing the kids speak so nicely to customers and explain their pricing and purpose so well. I loved seeing how many kind people stopped by and were so sweet and encouraging to our kids. There are a lot of nice, nice people in this world.

We got to go on a beautiful hike out behind the house and had a bunch of our old friends visit including "Grandma Sae" (in the photo below). This lady is one of my heroes and the kids love her like a grandma (plus they think it's pretty cool that she's shorter than most of them now). She lives right up the street. She has amazing stories of growing up poor in Hawaii and having the bombs on Pearl Harbor shake her house. She had to work from the time she could walk. And now that she's 84, she keeps young and spry by helping everyone in need. She insisted on scrubbing out closets in our house when we moved and she was late coming to visit us yesterday because she'd needed to help a lady in the hospital and help another lady move. She keeps her mind active by taking Spanish lessons and learning about everything she can and she keeps her body healthy by going on daily walks and attending Tae Chi, Yoga and Zumba classes regularly. I want to be just like Sae when I'm 84!



And we got great traffic through the house. Scores of people came through and asked lots of questions and expressed lots of admiration. We fell in love with our house all over again as we explained the materials we'd so carefully chosen and admired the amazing views alongside the people who walked through the house. The kids have been praying every day for "nice people to buy our house who will love it as much as we do." That would sure be nice. We'll see what offers materialize. Oh how much we'd love to pass our beautiful home along to someone else who'll love it and reduce our financial stress! It's time. It's really time. But it's been such a blessing to be able to go back and enjoy it a little more before it sells. Good old Krawnchie Boo will always have a big place in our hearts. If you want a virtual tour or know someone who wants a great house in St George at a great price, check in out here.

view from our back porch

view I used to wake up to every morning - from my old bedroom

Great room and kitchen

Downstairs rec room/wet bar (sort of empty now that we've moved)

Friday Q and A - Awards

OK, I've been meaning to do this forever but you know how things go...

I get so many great questions in emails and blog comments and I've just been saving them all in a folder and waiting for when I'll have a minute to start responding. That minute has arrived (sort of - if I really wait for a "spare" minute, it'll never happen).

Each Friday (taking the lead from my dear sister, Shawni), I'll start responding to a question or two that I've received. Feel free to add your questions in the comment sections of these posts and I'll add them to my list of questions and get to them when I can.

Question:
Saren...just a really quick question for you. I saw on a Channel 5 interview that you did that you had little awards for your kids for the week. I have 6 kids under 10 and I would love to do this with them. i am curious just the awards that you used. I saw self starter...but I was wondering what the others are. I just want to do more positive reinforcement and less threats! :) Thank you! I KNOW you are busy and I appreciate it!"

Answer:
Here is the video segment she's talking about

I think awards are one of the most helpful, positive ways I've found to really encourage the behaviors you want in your home. Initially, my husband and I brainstormed a list of behaviors we really wanted to encourage in our kids and then we worked with our kids to come up with a list of awards. Then the kids made these cute awards (just a simple paper designed and colored by the kids and/or parents and put in a sheet protector to keep it nice):

At the close of Sunday dinner, Jared and I ask “who's in the running for the ____ award” and kids can nominate themselves or someone else by sharing a story about something they did that week that would make them eligible for the award. Then we quickly decide who should get which award for that week (it works great if there are the same number of awards as there are kids and if you track who's won which award when with a little note on the back of the award so we can help ensure most kids get a chance to receive most awards at some point). The "winner" of each award gets to put the award on their bedroom door for a week and then brings it back to the dinner table the next Sunday.

The kids LOVE this and it's really so simple. We aren't all that consistent about doing it. Sometimes we'll do it regularly every Sunday for a couple months. Then we'll sort of forget for a while. Then one of the kids asks if we can get going on awards again, so we do. I don't think it matters if you do it EVERY week. It makes a big difference, though, to do it quite a bit. We switch up the awards we offer from time to time - adding in new ones as we see the need to reinforce a new behavior.

EXAMPLE AWARDS:

• Super Friend Award: For someone who was extra friendly to someone, helped someone in need, made a new friend
• OK (Obedient Kid) Award: For someone who did what parents asked quickly, happily and well quite a lot that week
• Self Starter Award: For someone who has shown real initiative to get tasks done (jobs around the house, homework, helping a sibling or parent, etc) or who's noticed something that needed to be done and done it w/o anyone even asking.
• Neat as a Pin Award: For someone who's done a great job keeping their room really clean and keeping the area of the house they're in charge of (their "zone") nice and neat.
• Leader for the Right Award: For someone who did the right thing even when it was hard and set a good example for others.

Girls' Weekend

What a weekend I had last weekend! I got the chance to head to sunny Arizona for my sweet niece Claire's baptism and had the chance after the baptism to enjoy a brief but super-fun get-away with my mom and sisters at a hotel nearby. We laughed. We cried. We got bugged with each other. We remembered how much we love each other. Oh, how I love to be with my mom and sisters! (Here's a whole post about my sisters if you're interested - and here's a post about our get-together last year)

And as always, it was so fun to be with my nieces and nephews. I love how when I don't have my own kids with me, I can focus more on my sibling's kids for a bit. Shawni's got great kids and this little Claire is such a dear friend for my Eliza as well as being quite a remarkable little girl in so many ways. I loved being there to see her glow with joy at being the center of attention and following Christ's example with her baptism. She really understood what her baptism meant and was so happy and sweet about everything.

Here's me and Claire after her baptism (somehow didn't get a shot of her in her baptism dress, oh well)

After working together to prep and clean up all the food for the post-baptism luncheon at Shawni's house, my mom, sisters and I headed over to a hotel nearby to have a little time to ourselves.

Our sister, Saydi, is currently living in London so we spent about 2 hours
talking and laughing with her on Skype in our hotel room. Gotta love technology.

We were laughing so hard we were crying.

Here we are headed out for a nice dinner together.


Before we had to go our separate ways on Sunday evening, we made this podcast about how love is the ultimate answer to so many things. We were sitting right near this sign in Shawni's house as we made the podcast - very appropriate.

Love is the answer. Love is always the answer.

Workshop Giveaway

My friend and neighbor Janelle has become one of our Power of Moms Trainers and she's doing a wonderful workshop entitled "Mommy is a Person: Taking Care of the 'Me' in the 'Mom'" next Thursday evening, February 23th in Farmington, UT.

She invited me to offer one lucky reader a FREE registration to her workshop. If you want a chance to win the free registration, just leave a comment on this post.  If you want TWO entries in the giveaway, leave your comment, then share the link to Janelle's workshop on Facebook and come back and leave another comment saying you linked on Facebook.  Check back here before noon on Friday (the 17th) to see if you're the winner.

Here's a link to all the info on the workshop:
Workshop February 23rd in Farmington UT: Mommy is a Person: Taking Care of the "Me" in the "Mom"

This is going to be a great workshop on some of my favorite Power of Moms topics!