Quilting and Camping - not at the same time

Last Sunday we were sitting on the sidewalk eating popsicles.  We were on the sidewalk because grass here in Texas can be a little pokey.  I thought, "what we really need is a picnic blanket."  And then I got a wonderful idea.

For years I've had a dream to make a quilt out of old pairs of jeans.  I've never done it, because . . . you know . . . I want it to look AMAZING.  But I'm not an amazing quilter, in fact I'm not even much of a quilter.  So I always save my old jeans and then end up throwing them away in frustration when I dejunk my projects.  

My wonderful idea was to make a picnic blanket out of old jeans.  A picnic blanket doesn't need to be amazing.  In fact the less work that goes into it the better because then I wont feel bad laying it down in the dirt/mud/grass/other things I don't want to sit on.

And so with that happy thought I went to work cutting up the pairs of old jeans that I'd been hording.  

[I've moved the description of how I made the quilt over to a more detailed post about the quilt. Click here to go to that post.]

I'm so glad I finally made a jean quilt.  And I'm equally glad that it only took 26 seams to do it. 

I was motivated to get the quilt done so fast so we could take it with on a little camping trip we planned for the weekend.  

Brandon had the day off on Friday so we packed up the camping stuff and drove to Lake Georgetown which is not even an hour away from our house.  I picked this campground because it had shade and there was a swim beach at the lake.  The swim beach turned out to be closed which was okay because we happened to pick a really cold weekend to go camping.  

The first thing we did was set up the tent.  The kids were so excited to see it and play in it.  Derrick immediately started picking up handfuls of dirt and putting them into the tent.  (He's at the put-stuff-inside-of-things stage.) 

The picnic blanket ended up becoming the "save the tent floor from being ripped up by little rocks blanket."

Once the novelty of the tent wore off the kids started playing with the toys that we brought along for the trip.  Everyone played with the tractors I bought at DI for Christmas presents - good thing I bought three.

Brandon started making dinner and discovered these really big, scary looking daddy long leg spiders.  They looked like baby versions of the ones from the movie Jamangi.  We brushed them away, but Lydia and Charlotte kept spotting more throughout the rest of the trip.

We had stew and bread bowls for dinner.  We like to eat this because it's easy to make.  Camping with toddlers is not the time to try to make time consuming camping meals.

Here is a picture of our whole camp site.  I loved how shady it was.  I also loved the pavilion for our picnic table.  I can't believe this site was only $12.00.  There wasn't even an online reservation fee.

After dinner the kids spent a lot of time playing by themselves.  Charlotte filled up this bus with dirt and drove it around.

Lydia collected rocks and put them on the table.  She didn't stop until the line of rocks spanned the whole table.  And then she moved on to filling up the tent pockets with rocks.

Derrick spent most of the trip pushing this tractor around.  He would mostly push it around on the cement, but occasionally he'd get off the pad and crawl through the dirt, rocks, and pokey grass.  He basically had the time of his life playing in all the dirt.

We lit a camp fire before it got too dark.  The kids loved looking at the fire, but they listened to our warnings about staying a safe distance from it.

Brandon had a lot of fun building the fire.  He's slept outside a lot during the past several months, but he hasn't been "real camping" in a long time.  He was so excited to go chop down dead wood with his hatchet.

For safety's sake we didn't let the kids roast marshmallows.  Instead Brandon roasted them all for us.  All the firewood was from cedar trees so the smoke smelled really good.  It was kind of fun to eat cedar smoked marshmallows.  The kids sort of liked them.

Mostly they just enjoyed watching the fire.

They thought camping was the coolest thing ever.

Soon it was time for bed.  The weather forecast said the night would get as cold as 38 degrees so we planned accordingly.  Each girl slept in two sleepers.  We brought the cushion from the window seat for the girls to sleep on.  The girls also laid on top of a heavy quilt.  They each had their special pillows and blankets that they sleep with each night (plus their bears and babies). I folded the rest of the quilt over them and put a sleeping bag on to top it all off.  They were very warm.

Derrick likes soft plushy blankets so I brought my Korean Mink Spiderman blanket for him to lay on.  Then I covered him up with a blanket, a child sized sleeping bag, and another blanket.  He was also in two sleepers.  

I worried that Derrick would have a hard time falling asleep outside of his crib, but he actually fell asleep right away.  I liked watching him drift off to sleep while his little fingers stroked his teddy bear.  

His sisters were another story.  They wouldn't stay laying in their beds long enough to drift off to sleep.  Eventually they each ended up with their heads on my knees.  I sang them primary songs and told them stories of when Mommy and Lindsey were little.  Lydia fell asleep and I put her in bed.  Charlotte stayed awake so finally I just put her in bed and let her play with my phone until she fell asleep.  

Brandon and I went out by the fire.  We talked and roasted a few skittles.  Then we came back in the tent and blew up the air mattress.  We'd left it deflated while the kids were awake because we are pretty certain they contributed to the leak in our last one.  We had three sleeping bags, double socks, and thick pajamas.  I also had my black fleece blanket that I love to take camping.  We were toasty warm.

Charlotte worked her way out of her blankets and woke up cold in the middle of the night.  So I brought her into bed with us to warm her back up.  She wasn't annoying so I let her stay the rest of the night.

In the morning Derrick and Lydia joined us.  We could have all stayed in bed for a while, but I really really really needed to go to the bathroom.  The girls insisted on coming with me so all three of us went on a walk.  They kept up pretty well and we made it to the bathroom in time.  On the way back to our campsite we moved at much leisurely pace.  I wish I had brought the camera.  The girls looked so cute walking down the road in their pink sleepers.

Derrick had wet through both his sleepers so despite the morning chill I changed him into his clothes for the day.  He cried the whole time I changed him.  But once he was in dry clothes I wrapped him up in my black blanket and held him.  Only his face was showing and he had the most content and peaceful look on his face.  It was like he was thinking, "I'm warm, and mommy is holding me, I'm warm and mommy is holding me."  He laid perfectly still in my arms for a long time.

Brandon made hot chocolate and got a fire going again.  We all sat by the fire and got warm.  We were sitting a lot closer than we had the night before.  A small ember popped into Lydia's lap.  Before I knew what had happened Lydia said, "pretty fire" and touched the ember.  She started crying and I brushed it out of her lap pretty quick.  After that we moved the chairs back a foot or two.

Brandon made fire while I wrangled the kids.  We had eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns.  The kids only ate the eggs.

The kids seemed to be getting a little "camped out" and I was craving a shower so we started packing everything up.  Lydia was crying a lot so we ended up putting her in her seat in the car with the windows down.  She fell asleep almost instantly.  Derrick and Charlotte played around while Brandon cleaned up every thing outside the tent and I cleaned the inside.  Then we took the tent down.

After everything was packed up we said goodbye to the campground and drove down to the lake.  It was a pretty lake.  I hope the swim beach opens up soon, I'd like to come back and play at it.

Then we went home.  We spent the rest of the day doing laundry and doing pretty much nothing.  I was sore from the hour or so spent on my knees rolling up sleeping bags and blankets in the tent.  So I took it easy the rest of the day.

By Sunday afternoon though we were ready to get out of the house again.  We drove out to a near by reservoir called Stillhouse Hollow Lake.  This is the view of the lake from the dam.

We were out there to check out the model airplane park.  Brandon is hoping to fly his model airplane there one day.

We had a little picnic snack while we were there.  Here are all the kids crowding around me waiting for their turn.  I felt like a mother bird.

Charlotte and Lydia found some chairs and had fun with those.

Derrick had more fun with his tractor.

The grass was really pokey so Derrick bear-crawled his way through it.  He would also stand.  I kept waiting for him to walk, but he never did.

Earlier in the week I'd filmed him crawling.  I realized I hadn't filmed it yet.  He learned how to crawl right around the time I went to Georgia.  He's become very very fast.  So here is a video of him crawling.  Keep watching for some video of the kids playing around in the field at the model airplane park.   

So those were our great adventures from the week.  The rest of the week was not so great or adventurous.  I've noticed that if the girls take naps after 3:00 they are up until 10:00 or 11:00.  Monday night Charlotte was up with me until 12:00 - not cool!  I came to the conclusion that I would rather have ornery kids all afternoon than have them staying up late.  So nap time is pretty much over for the girls.  That's led to some "interesting" situations, but they usually fall (literally) asleep around 6:00 and stay asleep all night.  Some days they still sneak in a nap, but for the most part I have control of my evenings again.

There were some cute pictures amid all the changes to sleep patterns.  Here are the girls playing together on the upside down lego table.  They pretend it is a bed, or a car, or whatever else they need it to be.  

Charlotte LOVES to vacuum.  Which has it's pluses and minuses.  Here is an example (that also happens to be the craziest 5 minutes of the week and possibly of the month).  Lydia spilled a box of crackers on the office floor.  I told her to pick them up and instead she started stepping on them.  (Lack of nap defiance).   This earned her an immediate spanking and she started bawling.  I told her we needed to vacuum the crumbs up before the ants came.   Charlotte immediately yelled, "I do it!"  And ran to get the vacuum.

All the commotion woke Derrick up who started crying.  I got him up and then found Lydia in the hall with a gallon of milk.  She asked me for some cheerios. (Lack of nap munchies )To keep her from doing anything dumb with the milk I took her into the kitchen and gave her a bowl of cheerios.

Derrick was still crying and so I went into the hall to change his diaper.  By this time Charlotte had wrestled the vacuum out of the front closet and was trying to bring it past me while I changed Derrick.  Finally Derrick was changed and Charlotte could take the vacuum into the office to vacuum the floor.  She did a great job and got up every crumb.

Both girls love to build castles with all our mega blocks.  Charlotte also loves to build with the cans of food that I keep at her level for this very purpose.  Here is her latest castle.

Thursday was a nap day.  After the girls woke up they stayed up late playing dress up in the front room.  Charlotte loves to put on her Halloween tutu and say "I Princess Fiona!, Lil-la Shrek, Dewick Donkey."  And Lydia will say, "I Shrek!"  with a happy little smile.  Shrek has basically passed up the Hulk as Lydia's favorite green person.  She wants to watch Shrek every day.  But she still has a special place for the Hulk and watches the Avengers a lot too.

One last thing for this post.  I had a doctors appointment today.  The baby is doing fine.  And I lost two pounds!  Yeah it's been a great week.  

This business of being a mom

One of my favorite things to do at the doctor's office is to read the baby and parenting magazines.  They are always good for a laugh.  I'm convinced they aren't written by real parents of real children.  Maybe the writers have one or two children and most likely a nanny; but I highly doubt they have any idea what it's like to juggle three young children day in and day out.

The most recent bit of humor was in the form of advise about pacifiers.  The article said that in order to make sure pacifiers were sanitary, parents should throw them away and get new ones every two weeks.  All I could think was, "What kind of crazy person would actually throw away a binky after only two weeks?"  Binkies are like gold in our house.  I spend most of my waking hours and sanity keeping track of where the various binkies are located and which twin prefers which one.  I don't even bother sanitising binkies after they fall on the floor of the grocery store.  There is no way on earth I could ever throw away a perfectly good binky after only two weeks of use.    

The sad thing is that there is probably more than one harried mama out there who has now added "rotate pacifiers" to her ever expanding to do list.

As you can tell I don't put a lot of stock in "parenting advise."  Especially when it comes from "official sources." I still haven't read a single parenting book since the girls were born.  Occasionally I'll read links to parenting blogs and websites that my friends post on facebook - but usually I just skim and read the bullet points that back up what I already do as a Mom.

Pretty much everything I've learned about how to raise my kids I'm received from one of three sources.  1. Observing other Moms - either in real life or on their blogs/facebook pages.   2. Inspiration - Awesome ideas that come into my mind.  3. Prior Experience - Taking things I learned before I was a mom and using them in my current situation.

Today I want to talk source number Three.  I want to tell you how some of the things from my work experience help me as a mom.   This post is dedicated to my dear friend Melissa.  Melissa and I worked for the same billing company for 2 1/2 years.  She recently left that company after working there for over 6 years to become a stay at home mom.  It's been a transition to say the least.  I can relate.  It's been over 2 1/2 years since I left that place, and there are times I still think I work there.

One thing that helped me with the change from full time worker to stay at home mom was to incorporate the company's core values into my way of thinking as a mom.  The values are: Accountability, No Surprises, Continuous Improvement, and Exceed Expectations.  Here are some ways I've put them to use in my daily life.

Accountability - Accountability used to mean (among other things) that I was billing with at least 99% accuracy and 99% timeliness.  If I had errors or late bills I had to explain why.  Now a days it's a lot harder to define.  For one, I'm accountable for EVERYTHING that goes on in this house.  Do we have enough food, are there enough clean clothes, how many diapers do we have left, is the house clean enough, are the kids all happy, the list goes on and on and on.  And at the end of the day the responsibility for it all rests on my shoulders.  I would go crazy if I tried to put a number or percent or even an emoticon on each of these things.

So instead I focus on the flip side of accountability.  Recognition! I'm accountable for all the GOOD things that happen in our family just as much as I'm accountable for the bazillion other things.

Early in my days as a stay at home mom I realized that I needed praise from Brandon.  I missed getting recognition from co-workers, points for doing good work, and most of all I missed a paycheck for heaven's sake.  I told Brandon that I needed him to tell me that I was doing a good job.  And he did, and still does.

Yesterday Derrick inexplicably woke up screaming at 3:00 in the morning.  Before I could quiet him down Charlotte woke up.  She in turn woke up Lydia, who eventually found her way into my bed and kept incessantly patting my face while I tried to sleep.  (It sounds cute until it happens to you at 4:30 in the morning.)  Brandon later sent me this text message:

Beautiful, thank you so much for loving me enough and loving the kids enough to deal with the stress of being Mom.  I know it drives you crazy a lot and it is frustrating but thank you so much for always being there.  For me and for them.  It means a lot.  

Yeah, it's not a pay check, but it's a lot more meaningful.

No Surprises - Communication was a big thing at my previous job.  It's also super important here at home.  I've found that if I explain things to the kids ahead of time then they are so much better behaved when it comes time to do it.

When it was time to move to Texas I was worried how the girls would handle the change.  I told the girls, "we are going to leave our house and drive drive drive to a new home so we can be with Daddy more."  They seemed to totally get the concept that everything was changing, but it was so we could be together as a family.  

A recent example is how we said "bye bye bottles."  I want to do a whole post on this later, but basically around the end of February I started telling the girls that on Derrick's birthday the bottles would go "bye bye."  They started saying, "Dewick's birthday - one candle - bye bye bottles"  all the time.  When his birthday came and it was time for bed I was worried they would cry for their bottles - especially when Derrick still got one.  They did ask for their bottles and I said, "no bottles went bye bye remember."  And they said, "Dewick's birthday - bye bye bottles."  And they were just fine.  (The M&M's I gave them might have helped a little bit too)

Continuous Improvement - I think a lot of us moms (me included) forget that we don't have to be perfect yet.  I love the concept of continuous improvement because it lets me admit things like, "okay today totally sucked!  What can I change so tomorrow doesn't suck as much?"  I'm constantly trying out new modifications to our daily "routine" to see if I can find something that works better.

Yesterday I decided that we would go to the park right after breakfast.  Usually I tell myself that we'll go later in the day, but then it gets hot, Derrick falls asleep, or we get sucked into a Toy Story marathon and we never make it to the park.  Going right after breakfast insured that we enjoyed some time outside and that we were all dressed for the day before noon.

Another tweek to the routine was to start doing all my major cleaning on Thursday.  I had been doing it earlier in the week, but by the weekend everything was a mess again.  Cleaning on Thursday means there is less for us to do when we straighten up the whole house on Saturday morning.

Pandora is another new addition to our lives.  Thanks to Pandora radio I can play Disney songs for the kids whenever the house seems a little too quiet (or angry).  They love hearing songs that they recognize from the movies they've seen.

Exceed Manage Expectations - this is the only one that I had to modify.  It's possible to exceed expectations in the work force.  A job is only 8 hours a day and you can leave everything at your desk, go home, and forget about it all.  Not so much as a mom.  You're mom ALL the time.  There is a never ending list of expectations about what you should be doing and how your kids should be acting.  (See earlier story about throwing away pacifiers)

In order to survive as a mom you have to manage expectations.  Sometimes this means giving clear directions about what you will and wont do.  Here are some examples (that for some reason all have to do with church callings):

When I was pregnant with Derrick I was serving in the RS Presidency.  I made it very clear to the other presidency members that I couldn't do much with the calling the last month before his birth.  And that I would not be doing anything at all for 6 weeks after.  I knew it would take all my energy to just take care of my family's needs during that time.  (I ended up getting released right after Derrick was born anyway.)

When Brandon went to basic training I was assigned to visit teach four women.  I told the RS President that I could only handle teaching two at the most.  At first she told me that everyone was assigned four people.  I was like, "well you can keep me assigned to four, but I'm only going to visit two."  She changed my assignment so I only had two.

I could probably come up with several more examples of me saying "No."  I'm pretty good at it.  But here is an example of me saying yes.  I was called to be the Adult Gospel Doctrine teacher right before Brandon went to basic training.  This was basically my dream calling so I said yes right away.  Some people wondered if I could handle such a demanding calling on top of the kids.  However, I knew that as long as someone took care of Derrick I could teach the class.  And I was able to teach it every single week.   Did I have handouts, treats, cool activities - no, but I did what I was called to do.    

These four values Accountability, No Surprises, Continuous Improvement, and Manage Expectations aren't the only things I use as a mom.  But thinking about them often helps me feel a little bit like I am still a professional person and not a person desperately trying to be the type of mom that the parenting magazines think I should be.

It's good to be here

The other night Brandon and I talked about how smart we were to follow our instincts and move the family to Fort Hood right after Christmas.  If Brandon had come back here alone after Christmas the kids and I might not have moved here until about now. The month at NTC followed by news of the deployment and the unexpected pregnancy probably would have convinced us that I should stay in Utah.  And then once we found out the deployment was postponed/cancelled (hallelujah!) we would have been stuck trying to figure out how to get together and be a family again.  Instead we've been able to have two awesome months enjoying family time.  So rather than planning a move this week, we enjoyed just a regular week.   

Derrick had fun on his birthday.  He showed off that he knows how to wave "bye bye" on his birthday.  Here he is being a big kid and helping Daddy make cookies for Family Home Evening.  He had a WIC appointment this week and he weighs 26 lbs and 14 oz.  He's in the 97th percentile for height and weight.  I cannot tell you enough how much I am looking forward to when he can walk.  

All the on post housing had to do a "spring clean up" this week.  I didn't find out about it until 2 days before the inspections.  Unfortunately, Brandon happened to be doing overnight field exercises during the same time.  So he wasn't around to help me get the yard ready.  I wasn't too worried though.  He'd moved the lawn about two weeks ago and it still looked pretty good. So the girls and I just took care of the weeds in the front flower garden.  

We brought brooms outside to sweep up the dirt and the girls had fun playing with those.

Brandon was supposed to be gone from Tuesday until Thursday, but due to inclement weather on Wednesday they all came home early.  Brandon scared me half to death when he walked into our room at 4:00 am on Wednesday.   I was happy to have him home though.

Recently we had a "conversation" where we both admitted that we weren't very happy with each other.  We eventually decided that the problem is that we haven't been connecting as friends lately.  I told him, "You're a really good parent to the kids and an awesome roommate, but I don't feel like you are my best friend anymore."

Part of the problem is that we both have new computers that are fun to play with after the kids go to bed.  We have been paying more attention to the computers and not enough to each other.  The novelty is wearing off so they are starting to be less and less distracting. The main part of the problem is that we spent 5 of the last 7 months away from each other.  We had to learn to live separate from each other and now we have to learn to live with each other again.

So lately we've been trying to be better friends.  One thing that has helped is to play chess together each night.  We add an extra layer of fun to the game by putting marshmallows or other treats on the empty squares.  Then as we move out pieces onto the squares we get to eat the treat.  The day after our first game of chess I already felt like Brandon was my friend again.

Derrick is such a good sleeper.  I had to take this picture of my little angel boy.  He sleeps through the night every night now.  Sometimes he wakes up crying, but he always falls back asleep once he's changed position.  He likes his Teddy Bear a lot.  He always gives it a big hug when I hand it to him when it is nap time.

Charlotte is still my helper girl.  On Saturday we let her vacuum the living room all by her self for the first time.  I wish I had a video of the moment.  She had the biggest smile and she kept saying, "Lalalalalalalalalalalala" over and over again in such an excited voice.  Here she is vacuuming the toy room.

And here is the toy room a few minutes later - already getting messed up.  Oh well that's what its for.  There was a post wide yard sale and I went out to see what I could find. I ended up buying more mega-blocks with the money that some of Derrick's grandmas sent for his birthday.  (Thanks!)  Mega blocks are the kids' favorite toys.  I also scored a table for the kids to build on.  

The main reason I went to the yard sales was to see if I could get some chairs for our dining room.  And I was not disappointed.  The first house I went to had three chairs and I got them for $15 total.  The chairs are perfect for the kids' high chair/booster seats.  So now we all can sit on real chairs at meal times.

Lydia discovered our box of band aids. She would not stop climbing up to get to the box on the top cupboard until she had a bandaid on each of her fingers and most of her toes.  Here I am obliging her.  I figure, "you're only two years old once."

Brandon took the kids on a long walk on Thursday so I could bust out the sewing machine and finish the last project for the kids' room.  Two hours later the window finally had good looking curtains hanging in it.

This picture is from the facebook page for Brandon's unit.  The expression on his face cracks me up.  We'll just say he's hoping he's flying helicopters soon and leave it at that.

These last few pictures are from Brandon's phone and so they are a few weeks old.  We took the kids to the park and discovered that not only can Charlotte and Lydia climb up the slide, but so can Derrick!

He climbed this high all by himself!  Pretty impressive for a kid who has yet to walk on his own.

 This is from when Lindsey was here.  People always ask us if we have two sets of twins.

 This is from another visit to the park.  The neighborhood kids all love my kids.  We showed up and one little girl came over, took the girls by the hand, and played with them the whole time we were there.

Anyway, that's us lately.  Like I said, I'm so glad we are already here and not in the process of moving here.

A Dreamer of Dreams

Brandon gives me a book from the Anne of Green Gables Series for Christmas each year.  This year it was the fifth one in the series, "Anne's House of Dreams".  With all the craziness of moving to my latest house of dreams I haven't had a chance to read it until this week.  

For those of you who only know Anne from the PBS movies I just have to say, "YOU ARE MISSING OUT."  The first movie, "Anne of Green Gables," is very faithful to the books, but "Anne of Avonlea" has some variances.  (In the movie she is just a teacher at the school, while in the book she is the principal.) And don't even get me started on the atrocity known as "Anne the Continuing Story."  The real continuing story is told in the books and it is much more beautiful. 

Anne's House of Dreams is the story of her and Gilbert's first few years together as a married couple.  This was the second time I've read this book and I think I loved it even more this time through.  

One part in particular struck me more poignantly than it did when I read it four years ago.  Anne's is referred to as a "dreamer of dreams" rather than "pregnant." I think that is such a beautiful way to describe the time before a baby is born.  

I've become a dreamer of dreams lately.  I'm finally excited about the birth of Baby D.  We still don't know for sure if it is a girl, but I'm pretty convinced it is.  Supporting this hunch is the fact that Brandon and I haven't been able to come up with a single boy name that we even remotely like.  On the other hand, we are pretty set on the name Veronica for a girl.  We have plans to call her Vin.   The other day I caught myself thinking about baby Vin and wondering if she will have curly hair like her sisters or straight hair like me.  

Here is a sideways picture from the ultrasound I had a few weeks ago.  (See I'm finally excited enough to post pictures.)  The baby's foot is at the top of the picture and her head is at the bottom. 

And here is a picture of her feet, legs, and stomach.  The doctor mentioned that the baby has really long legs.

I didn't realize how excited I was for the birth of Baby D until I read about Anne's first baby.  Spoiler alert - Anne's baby dies.  And I cried all through the chapter.  I thought about how hard it must be to loss a child - especially only a few hours after childbirth.  I may not have wanted Baby D much when I first found out about her, but you can bet I sure do want her now.  I would be heart broken to loose her.

I found myself crying just as hard when Anne had her second baby and it lived.  Reading that chapter got me all excited to meet my baby.

Unfortunately, I'm only halfway through this pregnancy.  I'm not excited about the actual experience of being pregnant.  I remember when I was pregnant with Derrick it felt like taking a really easy version of a class after taking the graduate level class with the twins.  This time around I wish there was a way I could just "clep" out of everything.  You know, be able to skip over things like stretch marks, the glucose test, incessant kicking, heartburn, tooth aches from the heartburn, sleepless nights, and all around uncomfortableness; and just get to hold my newborn.

But alas, I still have a whole hot, humid Texas Summer to get through.  I guess I'll have to spend the time dreaming dreams about this little baby.

Letters on the wall

When it comes to crafting I am my own worst enemy.  I have these ideas of things to do.  But then I start imagining how to make the ideas even better.  You know, like what you see on Pinterest.  And then I get all discouraged because I either don't have the time, energy, desire, talent, or money to make the project come out perfectly.  So then I don't do the project at all.  

Recently I decided to quit worrying about whether or not my projects turned out perfectly.  Most of the projects I'm thinking about right now are for my own enjoyment anyway.  Who cares what the pinners on Pinterest think?

So with my new crafty philosophy I finally did a project that I've had the idea for since we moved.  No, not since we moved to Texas.  Since we moved downstairs in out Bountiful apartment.  You know, last year - before Derrick was born.  

The project was actually really simple. I made this cute little alphabet to go above the girls' beds.  (Ideally I would have liked to put it lower, but I have some determined little climbers in this house who would love to get a hold of the letters.)

My friend Casandra gave me some scrapbook paper when I helped her de-junk her apartment last year. So that is what I used to make the letters.  I drew each letter freehand onto paper with a pencil.  Then I cut it out.  In a stroke of genius I colored a thin, dark border around each letter.  I was kind of worried that the letters wouldn't look "good" enough.  But then I remembered this was for the girls.  They don't care about fonts or line weight or whatever.  They just like letters.

The girls loved helping me put the letters up on the wall with sticky tack stuff.  They know the names of all the letters, but they don't know the order.  They sing the ABC's like this, "A B C P R S T W (pronounced double) X Y Z."  I'm hoping having an alphabet to look at each night will help them learn the correct order - or at least fill in some of the gaps. 

I was so encouraged by how good the letters looked that I went ahead and made numbers for Derrick's side of the room.  The girls are really good at counting.  They can go from 1 to 10 with hardly any help.  They can also recognize all the numbers.  For some reason they especially love the number 8.  

I made the letters while the girls were awake and Derrick was sleeping.  I gave the girls colored pencils and let them color on scratch paper while I worked on the letters. They love when we "do" projects like this together.  I love that they are old enough now where I can actually get some projects done with them around.

We put the letters up when Derrick woke up.  When I put him in bed tonight he giggled and pointed to the letters.  He likes them a lot.

And yes, I have pinned these pictures to my "stuff I've done" board on Pinterest.  I figure someone needs to represent the non-perfectionist, non-DSLR-camera owning crowd.

My Version of "Home" Economics

Almost 3 years ago a random lady initiated a conversation with me while I tried to pack the jeep for our move to Salt Lake.  Out of the blue she asked me, "Why are you moving?"

"Oh my husband finally graduated from college." I answered proudly.

"Do you have a degree?"

"Yeah I graduated 2 and a half years ago with a degree in Economics."  I answered even more proudly.

"Well hopefully you can get a job cooking something."

I had no idea what she meant and I stared blankly at her as she walked away. 

Brandon came out of the house and I told him what the lady had said.  He started laughing and explained, "Val, she thought you meant you had a degree in home economics."

I was mortified.  I almost chased the lady down and explained that my degree was in Economics as is business and math and really hard stuff.  Not cooking and sewing like she thought.  (Which are also really hard, but not in the same way.)

On the surface the things I learned in school don't really apply to my life right now.  But that doesn't mean the things I learned are worthless.  In fact there are several economic principles that translate quite well into raising kids - especially multiple kids.  

I want to share some of these Home Economics Principles with you.  Keep in mind this is what works for me.  You can totally do whatever you want with your family.

Incentives Matter
An incentive is defined as something that motivates an individual to preform an action.  With kids incentives can be as simple as the enjoyment they get out of helping or a reward they get for behaving well.

I'm not talking about bribing kids.  In my opinion, a bribe is when you give something way out of proportion to what your are asking your kid to do.  Such as, "If you get dressed you can have this pony."  A bribe can be an incentive, but an incentive is not a bribe.  It is a motivator.  Think of it this way, would you go to work if you didn't get paid?

One of the major secrets to my success as a quasi single mom was to reward my kids with fruit snacks once they were all buckled into their car seats.  The kids knew that if they were good, got in the car quickly, and let me buckle them up, then they would get a small package of fruit snacks.

I am also using incentives in my very casual attempt at potty training the girls.  When I change their diapers they have the option to go sit on the potty.  If they sit on the potty, wipe, flush, and let me put a diaper back on them then they get a few gold fish crackers.  Derrick gets gold fish crackers if he stays out of the bathroom.

Property Rights
Sharing is over-rated. In our family we protect property rights.  Lydia and Charlotte each have their own baby dolls, teddy bears, and other animals.  We all know which ones belong to each child.  If Charlotte tries to play with one of Lydia's toys it's easy to say, "hey Char, that's Lyds' baby.  Go find yours."  And more often than not Charlotte drops the toy and does go find hers.  Sure it's kind of a pain to keep track of who owns what, but overall it prevents a lot of fighting.

Now that Derrick is older we have started giving him his own toys.  He has a little teddy bear, a ball, and a phone that are his toys.  The girls know that he has claim on them.  

Of course there are toys that the kids own jointly.  These "common property" toys are policed with the good old, "who had it first rule."  If that doesn't work we move on to Coase Theorem strategies.

Coase Theorem is one of those really boring sounding things that I actually became fascinated with during college.  I even wrote a paper about how Coase Theorem could be applied to airplane approach procedures at the Salt Lake Airport.  I wont go into the boring details of the theorem, but if you want to know more click here.

Basically Coase Theorem states that if two people have a dispute over something you start by deciding who has the property right.  It really doesn't matter who is given the property right, you just have to assign it to someone.  So if Charlotte and Lydia are fighting over a book I can step in and assign the property right by saying something like, "hey Charlotte had that book first."  Then I apply Coase Theorem by telling Lydia, "Lydia do you want to trade Charlotte something for that book?" Lydia can try to trade with Charlotte for the book, but Charlotte has the right to refuse anything Lydia offers.  If Charlotte likes what Lydia offers then she can take the new toy and Lydia gets the book.

I kid you not, most of the time this actually works.  The girls are getting especially good at trading with Derrick.  They know that if he has a toy they better find him something else to play with before trying to take it away from him.

Of course my kids are still kids so fights do break out.  But for the most part they totally get the idea of property rights, trading, and taking turns.  Though I should let you know that there have been two infamous toys that the girls were not able to share.  The little guitar (that sounded like it swore) and the little doll stroller.  These toys magically disappeared one day and everyone got along a lot better once they were gone.

Operate where Marginal Revenue = Marginal Cost
I was able to major in Economics because I had an awesome high school econ teacher.  I seriously spent the whole first semester with every concept going WAY over my head.  But Mr Miller didn't make me feel dumb.  He just kept explaining things to the class over and over and over again.  Then in the first few weeks of the second semester everything suddenly clicked.  I got it!

One of the things that finally clicked was the concept of Marginal Cost and Marginal Revenue.  Marginal means one more.  So Marginal Revenue (MR) is the revenue you get from selling one more item.  And Marginal Cost (MC) is the cost of making one more item.  Mr Miller drew graph after graph illustrating that companies should operate where their marginal cost and marginal revenue are equal.

Mr Miller told us that we didn't need to worry about why - we just needed to know that it was an important economic principle.  Later, when I took applied Calculus in college (from an even more awesome teacher named Mrs Erickson), I learned why MC needs to equal MR.  I was so excited to finally see the math behind the principle.  I was even more excited that I actually understood it.

Anyway, enough exposing of my inner nerd. What does that have to do with home life?  Well it relates to having balance in my life.  Balance between how much energy (cost) I'm willing to spend for things I need/use/enjoy (benefit).  For example there comes a point when I clean my kitchen where it is clean enough for me to enjoy.  I could continue cleaning, but the question becomes would each additional minute of cleaning yield enough benefits to justify the time ignoring my kids or other projects?

Well thanks for reading my version of home economics.  I hope that wasn't too boring.  For some reason I really enjoyed majoring in economics.  I often said that it was the only degree that interested me enough to do the homework, but was complicated enough that I had to go to class to understand the concepts.  There is no way on earth I could have made it through a "Home Economics" type of degree.