My Precious Katia

Katia is another one of my princesses. She always is so girlie and loves to dress up. She dances and twirls in her dresses. She can sit for hours and listen to books. So, why was it her, and not the rowdy children, who broke her arm? I don't get it.
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10 Things That Make Me Happy

Wow!! Thank You so much to Jordan @ MeanMommyAcademy for this awesome award! I am so grateful! I love her blog, so I feel so honored.
So here's the rules for accepting this award . . .

1. Copy and Paste the award on your blog.

2. Tell who gave you the award and link to that person's blog.

3. List 10 things that make you happy.

4. Pass the award on to other bloggers and visit their blog to let them know about the award.


So...It was hard to narrow it down, but...
10 Things that Make Me Happy
1) My Family
2) My Religion
3) Being with my Husband
4) Crafts
5) When the Sun Shines
6) Being Outdoors
7) Home-improvement Projects
8) A Clean House
9) Seeing My Children Shine
10) Chocolate

Now for the really hard part. There are so many blogs that I LOVE. Here are a few of them:


JK Made
Little Family Fun
We Talk of Christ
Serenity Now
Pitterle Postings
Chasing Cheerios
Pink Little Notebook
Play Explore, and Learn
Serene is my name, Not my life!
Hands full and loving it...mostly

There are so many more blogs I would love to share, but the kids are fighting and I really should go get a shower, after I solve the other problems.

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Ruffled Toddler Skirt-a tutorial

Emma is one of my princesses. And she loves to dress like one. She loves dresses and crowns and head bows. I had made her a simple skirt a while back, and since she loved it so much, have been wanting to make her another one. I finally got around to it, and here is the result:

To make this skirt I used:
1 pair of jeans that still fit her around, but were too short
1/3 yard of fabric (lavender with flowers)
scissors (of course)
matching thread
a cutting mat and rotary cutter
pins would be helpful, but I didn't use them

To start out with, take the jeans and cut the legs off just above the crotch, folding the first cut-off leg over to match up with the next.
Next cut the fabric lengthwise in 7.5 and 4.5 inch strips, which will form the ruffles.

Then match the salvage ends of each strip and sew it so it formed a circle.

Then make a narrow hem (about 1/4 inch) on each strip.


Place the shorter strip/circle inside the wider (matching the seams) and baste them together. (You may want to pin them together before sewing.)


Then baste again, 1/8 inch in, so you can gather the ruffles. (I did this twice in case a thread broke.)


With right sides together and matching the back seam on the jeans with the seams on the ruffles, adjust the gathers to match and sew them together, just in from the gathered threads. (This is one place where you may want to pin the fabric to the jeans.)



Then either serge or zigzag on the outer edge to make it more secure and neat.

If you have any questions, let me know.
Happy sewing!


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What are the roles of a Mother?

According to "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", "Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children."
So, what does this entail?

Dictionary.com says:

–verb (used with object)

1. to feed and protect: to nurture one's offspring.

2. to support and encourage, as during the period of training or development; foster: to nurture promising musicians.

3. to bring up; train; educate.

Listening to conference last week end, there is something I need to focus on more. This is to educate. We need to teach them so much. Thankfully we have several years. But at times this is overwhelming.

Elder Ballard's talk "Mothers and Daughters" mentioned many things we need to teach them. We need to teach them to avoid gossip and judging others, to find joy in nurturing children, to be chaste in this society (including dressing modestly), "to recognize the presence and the voice of the Spirit", and "that keeping covenants is the safest road to eternal happiness".

How do we teach them these things? The first, of course, is by talking to them. Then, more importantly, by example. If we gossip, then our children will also. If we complain about having to be home and take care of the kids all day long, then it will be viewed as a horrible thing to endure. And when they are young and they feel the spirit, tell them. Then as they are older, share spiritual experiences with them. I love to go to the General Young Women meeting. I love the spirit there, and I am able to hear what Heavenly Father wants our daughters to know.

We must teach them of Jesus Christ. In the talk "Tell Me the Stories of Jesus" by Elder Neil L. Andersen he says, "The stories of Jesus can be like a rushing wind across the embers of faith in the hearts of our children." I tell them the Book of Mormon stories, and we read it together as a family. But I don't always tell them about Christ's ministry and miracles. How else can they know Him, and about Him, than if we tell them? Which means that we need to get to know Him and what He did while on the Earth. We need to teach them that He is there for them when they have a need, whether it is for comfort or for help. "Do our children know about His perfect life, His selfless ministry, His betrayal and cruel Crucifixion? Have we testified to them of the certainty of His Resurrection, of His visit to the Nephites in the Americas, of His appearance to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove?" If not, then we must teach them.

Elder L. Tom Perry, in "Mothers Teaching Children in the Home", says that we need to teach our children secular lessons. How often do we help with school work? How much do we make sure they know how we feel about their schooling? Communicate with their teachers. Let them know that you want them to get a good education. That it is important to you. One way of doing this is to go to parent/teacher conference. Our schools have the grades on line so that we can check them daily and know if our children need some extra help in a subject. Also, help them if they need it. One thing I did a few years ago, when we had a "work station" in the kitchen, I would balance the checkbook, or clip coupons, or do other desk work while they were doing their homework. I was able to help with anything and also keep them moving forward. Having a central location was very helpful. Right now it isn't very helpful, as the little ones are running around disturbing the older ones. Not a very good place to study. They now do homework in their rooms.
We also have several books in our house and encourage reading everyday. We read a lot ourselves, and we have them read for at least 20 minutes a day. We read to them, in fact we love to read large books out loud to the family. For example: the Harry Potter series. We love science and will talk about, or do science experiments, so they will be interested in such things. We encourage our children to explore the world and to observe what is happening around them.


The best way to teach our children, is to love them. In this way, we will have a more vested interest in their education. In the talk "Our Duty to God: The Mission of Parents and Leaders to the Rising Generation" Elder Robert D. Hales says, "When we have a family home evening, a family council, or a meaningful gospel conversation with our children, we have the opportunity to look into their eyes and tell them that we love them and that Heavenly Father loves them." One of our children has decided to not go to church. She has been taught and had a testimony, but her choice right now is to not be apart of the church right now. This was very hard for me. I want to make her go. I want to drag her kicking and screaming. But I love her and will keep loving her, so that by my love for her, she will feel the love that Heavenly Father and Jesus have for her. Then she will want to return. It will be her decision. By my not forcing her to go, hopefully later she will choose to go on her own, because she wants to feel of this love again. (fingers crossed)


Here's to Mothers! Our job is a big one, but also the most rewarding. And the greatest reward is to live eternally with our families. Pin It

Organizing the Medicine Cabinet

Our medicine cabinet was quite a sight!! It was hard to find most things. The only thing we could find, was the cough drops, ibuprofen, and the vitamins. So as I have been going through, de-cluttering, and organizing closets and cupboards, I attacked the medicine cupboard.
So, following the idea of my sweet sister-in-law, I purchased some small, handy white plastic baskets for organizing. Now, she sorted the meds according to the person it was intended. But with 9 people, I decided to sort according to what the med was for. So I put the pain relievers/fever reducers in one. Stomach stuff in another. And cold and allergy in another. Then the vitamins are all together, the cough drops, and the first aide supplies (which go on the top shelf, so that band-aides are out of reach of the climbers!)
The other side of the cupboard is the candy/craft-stay-out-of/juice container/stuff cupboard. I used the longer plastic bins for candy, craft things (like glitter glue), and seed packets. Then there is a long skinny one for scissors. And a small one for household repair stuff.



So thanks to JK for the great idea. This has helped make my medicine cabinet less of an avalanche zone. And since then, I've been able to find what I need quite quickly. Pin It

Water Play

Kids love water. And letting them play in water is so important. They learn social skills, as well as fine and gross motor skills during water play.
I let the kids "do" the dishes. "Wash" their hands in bathroom. They shower with who ever will let them. And they use to love bath time.
Lately bathing has been a fight. They want to get in, but then want to get out right away. I love to use this time to clean the bathroom, read, visit with them, or something like that.
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April Fool's

I have been going in super fast mode for the past few weeks trying to get everything in order so we can put our house on the market. So this morning I decided to take it easy and sat down to catch up on some reading. As I've been reading, and sitting, and just taking it easy, I can't believe how tired I am.
But I wanted to make this April Fool's Day a treat for J who is 6 and loves to play/tell jokes.
So here is what I did:
I put pink food coloring in the bottom of his cereal bowl. When he started eating it, the milk turned pink. He was surprised. Then when I said, "April Fools," he was excited.
For lunch I told him we would be having cupcakes. He thinks that was a joke. And it is, sorta. We are having meatloaf in the shape of cupcakes, with colorful mash potatoes on top.


After school snack will be the gelled juice.
I watched all this yesterday on Studio 5, then went to Familyfun.go.com for the ideas.

And to add to all the fun, the weather didn't want to be left out, so we woke up to about 6 inches of snow. DD 16 was NOT happy!

And for those of you like to know why we celebrate this silly day, here is what I found on a quick search. Kinda strange, but fun all the same. Pin It