Fall Activities

This fall I only have two in sports. Carissa is playing soccer with her friend Bailee and Daniel is playing T-ball with his friend Trent. In the Spring I am going to have to let the other two do something. I figured with not being able to rely on Keith to help get kids places (being so busy with work and school) I had better not over schedule myself. Although I do have 3 of the four learning how to play the piano. We have a morning routine with each of them getting in a 1/2 hour practice. Which I might add is not always done pleasantly, but is getting done. My kids really enjoy school. Ariana was especially excited to go to kindergarten. Just recently all three got awards this first quarter and were so pleased that Keith was able to make it to the assembly to see them get their awards. We are so proud of them!

Halloween Pics

Before it gets too far away I am going to post the kids' Halloween pictures. Trick-or-treating was a highly anticipated event. However Austin fell asleep (like he did last year) and I had to wake him up as Keith had to work that night so I could take my other children. Austin was not very happy about it. Putting on the costume took quite an effort and there was no way he was walking. In fact the whole trek he sat in his stroller, even while at the door gathering treats. We did manage to get some "trick-or-treat"s out of him and "thank you".
Carissa dressed up as a veterinarian

Daniel was a mummy ( as if you couldn't tell)
Ariana, the cheerleader
And Austin the irritable ol' pirate
I do have to tell a cute story about Austin. Originally Daniel wanted to be a pirate so Austin wanted to be a pirate too. Well, Daniel decided later he wanted to be a mummy. Needing to pinch pennies I thought I could put the costume together with a torn up sheet. So a couple of days before we did a trial dress up to see if I could make it work. As I was wrapping Daniel up and the other children were oohing and awing about Daniel being a mummy. Austin then announces he wants to be a daddy for halloween. The kids say to him "you mean a daddy mummy" and he says "no, I want to be a daddy." So I say "well lets wrap you up like a daddy." I no sooner get started than he says, "Take it off, take it off!" I unwrap him as he is helping to get out as fast as he can. I then ask him if he wants to be a pirate instead and he says "no, I just want to be a kid" and runs away.

Explaining difficult things

Isn't it a sad world we live in when we have to explain to our children about homosexuality and abortions. It makes me so grateful to have the church in my life and that I know about Christ's teachings and the purpose of life and families. Tonight I overheard my children having a conversation about how Barack Obama thinks it's okay for girls to marry girls and boys to marry boys. Then I heard one of them say that it is because girls marry girls that babies are killed in the mommy's tummy. I had to correct their ideas and explain things that I never imagined having to teach to my children especially being so young. We talked about how Heavenly Father wants babies to grow up with mommies and daddies and how life is special and every baby deserves a chance to get a body and have a family. We also talked about how it is important to vote for good leaders, who believe the same as us about right and wrong. I am glad that my children feel they can talk to me and ask questions but it also makes me sad that I have teach my children about such things. I can see now, more than ever why it is important to have Family Home Evening and build good relationships with your children. The family is truly under attack and it is up to us to strengthen our families individually and teach our children the importance and sanctity of families. I am so grateful for living prophets who teach about the importance of families and how to strengthen them. How blessed I feel to have such knowledge in times like these.

It's November already?

I can't believe how fast October flew by. There is much to say and so little time. So I'll just share a little bit at a time. My precious angels don't afford me much alone time for posting without some sort of disaster lurking or a fight on the horizon. Although, I have come up with a pretty effective solution to fighting in our household. I told my children I did not like the sound of fighting and bickering or whining so if they found it necessary they were going to have to sing because I only wanted to hear pleasant sounds. This is now the Mair House Musical. (I am forever making up songs to my kids about all kinds of silly things especially in the morning when I wake them up, so they are used to hearing singing in our house on a daily basis). So now when I hear them fighting, I say, "Wait, stop, I need to hear singing. Now, go!" Which is then followed by silence and a lot of smiling. I try to help them out by giving them an example of what I want to hear, by singing to them whatever they were fighting about for instance, "I want the lego, give me the lego." Not one of them has sang yet. I told them that if the fighting was so important then they could sing about it, I guess none of their fights have ranked high in importance. As I said is has been pretty effective because the fighting immediately stops.

Now on to the recap for October. Austin turned three on the 2nd, which was celebrated with the immediate family. He absolutely loves Lightning McQueen. And had to have a Lighting McQueen birthday cake. Be it known, I do not have any cake decorating skills or training so this was quite a feat for me. In the process I learned you cannot make red icing with liquid food coloring. You have to use paste which I did not have. This knowledge came after several attempts with food coloring and a phone call to McCormick. So Lighting Mcqueen was dark pink with lots of red sprinkles. At least my little boy was able to recognize him when I was finished. We, then had a Cars birthday party the following Saturday. Including my kids and cousins we had 21 little ones running around. We started out by making a license plate to wear and then divided up into groups to play a few games. We played musical cars, pin the winner on the race track, tractor tipping (bowling with tractor pics taped to the bowling pins), and red light/green light (which did not fair so well, the little guys would run even when I held up the red light and said red light-- oh well, what can you expect of two and three year olds) and finished off with the piston cup race. We then took a pit stop and had some tires (cupcakes) and motor oil (root beer) or gasoline (apple juice). It was a good time.
A continuation of the recap for the month gone by, to come later.

A failed promise with a resolve to keep moving forward

So I didn't keep my goal to post on Sunday as planned, but I did help my kids write in their journals. I have been trying to get in the habit of helping my kids learn to keep a journal (at least a weekly one.) This has been our Sunday activity for the last month. I am hoping that it will be a lasting activity. So often I have all these grandiose ideas that end up falling by the wayside or never get implemented. However, I am trying to simplify and enact or at least follow through on some of these grand ambitions in perhaps a not so grand fashion. My sister, Linett, once told me (while we were in college together) that it was far better to do something simply than to have great intentions that never get done. So here is my simple post.
I took my son, Austin, and the two children I babysit to the library for story time. Today they got to dress up, so we had a pirate, a fairy princess, and a witch. They listened to a Halloween story, sang a song about a spider, made a paper jack-o-lantern and finally paraded in their costume to trick or treat for some stickers.
Of course, we didn't make it back to the car with all of the costumes intact, that would be too much to expect from a three year old. Needless to say our pirate will not have his eye patch for Halloween. Although it was very unlikely that he would have worn it anyway.

It's been a while

Well, it's been a little while since I last posted and this Sunday I am going to give the low down on the Mairs. I thought I would just take a minute and get into the fall spirit and revamp my blogs look. To be honest I've been down in the dumps and and am now pulling myself out and getting things organized and setting small goals. So posting this Sunday is one of my goals. I have missed the blogging scene. Looking forward to sharing thoughts and experiences.