My New House!

So I wanted my house all painted and updated and decorated before I posted any pictures. (All of you home owners out there are laughing at that comment I am sure.)  I have quickly learned that this is just not possible, or at least with an older home.  And especially one this big (over 2000 square feet! I am use to small apartments!) So slowly and little by little this house will become what I envision it to be, but this is what it is at the moment.

Painting the entry way.  The tan was the original color and was EVERYWHERE

Entry way "after!"

We picked a very bold blue to accent.  I can't wait to do what I am thinking to that wall (it will help tone down the blue too)

Upstairs Living Room

Our bedroom... only painted it gray.  We haven't done anything else to it.  It actually is quite a decent size (picture doesn't really show it... there's a pack n play to the left not even in the picture)

Boys room.  This hasn't really been touched.  The wallpaper on the top kinda stopped us as we didn't know the best way to get it off.

Main level bathroom

Our LOVELY mural in the dining room 

Our LOVELY yellow kitchen (can you hear all of my sarcasm?  It's not BAD, but certainly not my taste.)

Our huge deck.  We are crossing fingers that massive hot tub still works!

Shed and some yard (Our backyard is small since we are on a corner lot.  The biggest part of our yard is on the side.)

Downstairs Bathroom (I think the previous occupants loved yellow...  Just a hunch though.)

Currently the playroom.  Definitely an older style yet again.

The fourth bedroom, which is filled with unpacked boxes :)  Go us!

My pantry under the stairs :)

Laundry room with more storage

Not the prettiest laundry room, but I am grateful just to have my own laundry room!

Downstairs living room.  Another MASSIVE mural with deer!

My food storage room!  It's awesome to have SO much storage! (One of the biggest reasons I loved this house when we first walked through.)

Our 72 hour kits by the back door.

It's definitely not the newest or prettiest (at the moment) but I am excited to make it our own, even though it probably will take longer than we live in the house for.  But hey, every upgrade means we increase the worth of the house!  And that's hard to do with a brand new house.  So in the end it really is worth it. :) (Sometimes I just have to tell myself that when I think how much easier it would have been to just buy a new house instead, already painted and updated.)

1 in 4

I had a friend post this on facebook and I thought "How brave to say that so loudly!"  And it kinda gave me strength, like I am not alone.  And so then I thought if this gave me strength, maybe me sharing it will possibly help or encourage someone else.
So today (October 15) is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, and I wear this badge in honor of the 3 babies I have lost and never gotten to hold in my arms.  I am grateful for what I have learned through these experiences as I know my healthy pregnancies and babies are things I NEVER take for granted.  I know that life is so precious and such a miracle and the babies I do get to hold become more precious each time I go through a loss.  And each time I get a little stronger.  And gain a little more understanding of a higher plan for me that is not my own.  And leaning a little more on my Father in Heaven who I know loves me more than I can ever comprehend.

My Two Favorite Little Boys

And here again is my routine catch up on our little family.  

Derrick is back in school and is off track again Thanksgiving. (It's so weird to have all of these breaks!)  We are starting back into a routine, but the entire month we were just so "off."

We had foster care training for 4 hours twice a week the entire month of September.  Finding a sitter and planning for this was really hectic.  But it was kinda nice to be with just my husband during these times (although I still never counted it as a date).  We actually found a couple in our ward on the first day!  Neither of us had a clue the other was thinking about foster care, so it was fun to have someone we know not only in the classes but going through the whole, same process.

Aaron doesn't even have tantrums anymore.  I think partly because we ignored them, and partly due to what we have now been doing since what we learned in our classes.  So that is way nice.  I wish we could figure something out for how Aaron treats Trae... He mostly is nice and can be the SWEETEST big brother, but other times he looks to see if I am watching and pushes or kicks.  If I leave the room and Trae starts crying, I immediately run back to see if Aaron is near him.  One really nice thing about Aarons age right now is he doesn't lie.  I'll ask, "What happened?"  and Aaron will immediately tell me.  "Bonk head," "Aaron push," "Aaron bite."  So I don't have to worry about missing a punishment for a crime.  I thank him for being honest hoping that will help him encourage continuing this, but I am sure he will learn one day.  But for now, I am very grateful!

Aaron LOVES music espcially right now.  When I play the piano (yeah!  I have a piano!!) Aaron will either lay down on the couch and just watch/listen or he'll jump on the seat with me and watch/listen.  I put tape on the keys so I can tell him what key to play and he plays along.  Sometimes I let him choose and I follow, but it usually ends in him trying to go as fast as he can and giggling.  It's been fun to share something that I love so much with him.  I would LOVE if one of my children has the same interest.  But one can only hope. :)

Aaron also loves to sing.  His favorites at the momtn are the ABC's (he says about every other letter except for "elemeno" and "WXY & Z" and he ends with a big AMEN), Itsy Bitsy Spider, 5 Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (especially the NO NO NO part), & 5 Monkeys Swinging in the Trees.  He would sing these all day if I would do it with him.  To finally end the bedtime routine, I tell him he can sing by himself.  And sometimes he does!  It's so cute to listen to since he says only the main words and parts.

Trae is 8 months old!!  Where the heck did the time go??  I can't believe he is so big, and he really is my mover.  I figured he would have this exact personality just with how he acted when I was pregnant with him. He learns something everyday I swear and I REALLY have to watch him.  He is crawling, pulling up on things, walking along furniture, crawls over things that hit his waist, tries to climb over things higher (so it's only a matter of time), walks around his crib and tries to climb out of that (I am glad we moved it to the lowest setting the first time.  We never got to this level of lowness with Aaron, but Aaron was the opposite personality!), has learned where TWO garbage cans are kept and tries to get in them every time he is near them (And has more than once!  Tipped over our big kitchen one today!), eats EVERYTHING in sight (talk about gross... I gag every time I am fishing stuff out, and more than once this has caused him to puke all over me with the gag reflux...blech), and started today opening cupboards and drawers and getting in them. Our pantry has shelves from the floor and he was trying to climb those!  So as of today, he is not allowed in the kitchen.  I found him eating the bottom of our broom (a new favorite), climbing the pantry, pulling out appliances (Thank goodness nothing fell!  I was in the kitchen the whole time so I was already close!), and tipping garbage cans.  My goodness this kiddo keeps me on my toes.

Trae LOVES food.  He eats all day long.  (I fed him before we dropped him off at the sitter tonight and he still ate a whole jar with rice cereal added & 9 ounces of rice cereal in 2 hours.  Talk about a tank!)  I swear he sees it a mile away.  And waits for the EXACT moment you are not looking to pounce.  Even when I am holding it, I swear he comes out of nowhere and grabs it.  We have had many spills.  And I am learning to not feed him as much "adult" food... this also usually ends in throwing up.  It's just hard to say no to that cute face that's staring at you eating and smacking his lips!  But I will resist because the throw up is NOT fun.  Yuck.

Trae LOVES toilet paper.  This will be REALLY bad once he can reach the roll in the bathroom.  He has now learned that there is toilet paper in the bathroom garbage can.  And I can even be watching him and he's fast enough to get to it and put it in his mouth before I can grab him.  And this paper falls apart in his mouth quite quickly.  Yuck again.  Bathroom door will have to be shut too I guess from now on.  Hopefully Aaron is still good about going potty...

Trae has been teething this week, which was already a really rough week on me.  So hopefully we get over that soon so that I can get some sleep again. (But at least it's the weekend so either way I have a hubby around to help!  Yeah!)

And I think that pretty much catches us up!

Here are the pictures!  And I realize that there is a mess in the background of like every picture...it's how we live our life surrounded by toys all day long... but what counts is that the mess changes, right? ha ha

Tipped some boxes over... and oddly enough, he more just played in it instead of eating.  Go figure this time he doesn't eat when he eats everything else in sight that's NOT food.

We found Aaron's baby doll in a box and Aaron has been playing baby.  He was so concerned that the baby was hungry and needed a bottle, so I grabbed one we don't use out of another box.  Whenever Trae finds it, he sucks away like a crazy man.  It's pretty funny.

Trae likes the doll as well.

Going crazy on the baby bottle.

7 months!

Look at that cute face!  LOVE him!

Aaron LOVES to play with this purse.  I keep it on my door and he usually hangs it around his neck and goes through the house.

Playing the piano!

Trae when he first was pulling himself up to things

I have NO idea where that hair comes from... still doesn't stay down if I try.  Stops people all the time to compliment on it as it sure is interesting and does it's own thing.  I love it!  Even though Derrick is trying to convince me to cut it...

Climbing up me

And pretty happy about it!

Aaron loves climbing up the bean bag to hang out.

Standing and chewing on the crib.

I couldn't find his binky and was surprised that Trae went to sleep easy.  Checked on him and he was sucking on his blanket!

I have NO idea what happened... Aaron went in the bathroom to go potty, and came back out crying like this!  I laughed SO hard and had to take a picture before I helped him out.  He wasn't too happy about it.

Walking on furniture!

Eating real corn!  (As in not blended kind.)  And feeding himself pretty good!

We got LOTS of clapping during this session of eating.

I don't understand this face... but he makes it a lot and usually blows raspberries at the same time.  Sometimes spits out food using this method.  Too funny.  I am glad I finally got it on camera!

And back to clapping.

8 months!  And ready for church!  We put gel in his hair so it would stay down.  And he looks SO weird with his hair down!  It's just so straight up all the time!  And by the end of church, it was back to normal as if we didn't put gel in it to begin with!

He wasn't so happy about the tie, but I thought it was cute!

And here are some videos....

Aaron singing some of his favorite songs 

(sorry about the light behind him... he refused to sit anywhere else!)

Trae pulling up and walking along furniture

Trae walking with a walker!

Foster Care Training

So I started this entry WEEKS ago, and then there was a problem with the save and I lost it all!  And everyone that has had that happened after they wrote something long, you're not so eager to just jump back and do it all over again!  So alas, it's been almost a month.  But our foster classes are now over with and I wanted to share some things that I learned!  It definitely had its ups and downs (and I was hormonal already anyways, so that just adds to the mix) but I learned a lot that will help in just my own life whether we do foster care or not.

Mostly I am going to share from the class on discipline.  The other classes were heartbreaking or more relevant to just foster care, but the night on discipline was amazing.  And enlightening.  And seriously could be the sole reason we have felt to do foster care at all (even though we are still going forward with everything).

I don't really know how to share this information in an organized fashion (and I don't remember at all how I did it last time), so maybe I'll just do bullet points?  That's more how my notes are written...  So here goes.  I am sure some of these you already know, as many of them I already knew, but I almost guarantee there is SOMETHING in here anyone could learn from.  I know I still learned a lot.

• Give attention to the behavior you WANT to see.  So many people forget and just get mad or talk to their children when they see the bad behavior.  Give high-fives, praise, and hugs when they are nice to siblings, put their cup in the sink, sit in the car quietly, etc.  Whatever behavior is reinforced/gains attention will continue more.
• If you want to change a behavior, instead of taking something away for doing that behavior (no t.v. if you pee your pants) give an incentive for doing what you want instead (15 extra min of tv if you pee in the potty... can you tell we are in this phase?? ha ha).  This allows the child to make the choice for themselves, and has them WANT to make the right choice.  This also puts your attention on the good behavior and is a positive way to treat the situation.
• Whatever behavior is LOOKED for will be FOUND.  If you are looking for your child to do something bad, you will find it.  If you are looking for your child to be good, you will also find it.  What do you want your focus to be on?
• A human being is more important than their history or choices. This is a great reminder not only as parents, but just of people.  Look at them as children of God as that is who they are.  Definitely helps with judging.
• ***Your relationship with your child should always be your number one priority.***  This was the main idea of everything said.  If you are always thinking about this, you will not react in a negative way towards your child.  You can still discipline and have a good relationship.  If you ever feel you are hurting that relationship, stop what you are doing.  (yelling, being rough, talking down to your child, etc)  Stopping immediately in the middle of a sentence or punishment will not hurt the relationship more.  If you need to take a breather before you come back, do so.  Never feel like you have to react immediately to a situation to where you can't handle it unemotionally.  If you have to take a whole day before you can talk about it, do so.  The relationship with that child should always be more important than discipline/teaching.  3 questions to always ask about any interaction with your child that helps you stay in check:
• How are you feeling about interaction?
• How is child feeling about  interaction?
• How is this impacting the relationship?
• Compliant parenting (not giving child a choice/they are forced to comply) is appropriate in health/life situations (walking in a busy street) and only that.  It shouldn't be a regular parenting technique.
• Consistancy is CRITICAL.  The moment you break or give in tells them how far to push.
• Don't set expectations for kids (You will not swear in this house no matter what) as it only sets up a challenge for them and you can't force them to do anything.  You can have rules with consequences (If you swear, then you get soap in the mouth) but don't say it in a way that makes the child feel they don't have a choice.  Because in fact, they do.  They always have the choice.  This ties with...
• You only have control over yourself.  Absolutely zero control over anyone else, including children.  You have influence, but no control.  So don't act like you have control or can make them do anything (and trying to do this will most definitely hurt the relationship).
• Just teach and help your children to make right choices that benefit them.  They learn this by having the free opportunity (free as in you won't give a negative consequence if they don't choose what YOU want) to make those choices. And here I am not talking about you should let your children hit each other and a natural consequence will follow eventually.  You can still have a consequence that is TIED to the choice.  But not letting your teen drive because they don't want to go to church is a consequence not really tied to the choice.  Let your kids MAKE choices and teach about the consequence, whether it be a good or bad consequences.  Let you two year old be able to choose to brush their teeth every night.  If they choose not to, the dentist will be a HUGE learning experience for them that you didn't have to hurt your relationship by FORCING them to brush against their will.
• Let children make their own choices, and ultimately mistakes.  Then teach about the connection between them.  The sooner you let them make their own choices (even if you disagree), the sooner they will learn about how making good choices benefits them and what those good choices are.  This will help teach them to learn down the road at the consequences and then choose the choice with the consequence they want.
• Have children feel like a part of the solution instead of feeling like they are the problem.
• Always think as to why the child is modeling a certain behavior.  If you can find out why, you can help to eliminate that problem.  If your child is old enough, ask them calmly.  Understanding the why not only helps solve the problem from happening again but helps you to not jump to conclusions that may be wrong.
• Understand where a child is at developmentally.  For example, two year olds don't understand time.  So don't get frustrated when they keep asking, "Is it time yet now?  Is it time yet now?  Are we there yet?  Can we finish our project?"  It helps keep you calm when you don't expect something that the child is incapable of knowing/doing.
• Present yourselves, as parents, as a unified front.  Never say something with "Don't tell your dad" or not knowing what your spouse would say.  Always say "Let's go talk to your mom/dad" even  if it's inconvenient. Showing this unified front will tell your kids that you respect one another and work together.  It puts the "who has the power" to both of you.  And it helps your marriage as no one will be finding out things that the other said "Don't tell."
• Every interaction is a teaching interaction:  Bad or good, you are teaching.  So act the way you want your child to act.  And interact with your child when they are being good!  This teaches them that you will give attention when they act that way as well!
• When you mess up, say sorry.  No one is perfect, and especially parents (believe me, I know best of all...) Saying sorry is the best thing you can do for your kids.  It no only repairs the relationship that you just ripped down, but it models the behavior to your kids of what you want them to do when they behave wrongly.
• Here are few more things in an acronym, TEACH
• Timing matters: be aware of what you and your child's better time is.  For example, I am NOT a morning person and therefore, I am not the best at being calm and teaching in the best way early in the morning.  So I don't do it!  It won't be better than whatever Aaron is doing if I start yelling.  I also try to not "set Aaron up" during this time.  He has a hard tim sharing with Trae, so I don't have them play together until I am awake.  Does that make sense?  Also remember the child's time... Aaron is not the best when he is tired.  So trying to calmly teach him to react differently when he's crying over everything doesn't help either.  Teaching moments work best when timing is right.
• Every bad behavior is purposeful: If you find out the "why" it will help you and the child to stop the behavior.
• Appropriate consequences: Appropriate means consequences that make sense to your child.  Aaron loves playing the ipad, so he plays this when he has a successful potty day.  Our next child may love finger painting.  Do negative and positive consequences that work for that individual child, which therefore will usually mean different consequences per child.
• Control yourself: You can't do anything positive if you are not in control with yourself (more on this in just a second!!)
• Hands on parenting:  Be there!  Don't just tell your kids what to do while you watch tv.  Play with them!  Get on their level to play with and talk to.

And one last thing that we actually learned on another day was probably the BEST information I got.  Not only has it helped in how to parent my two year old, but it's helped me keep myself in check.  It's helped more with myself  but it's how to help keep yourself in check.  You can only activate one part of your thinking brain at a time... and two of those parts are your logical and emotional side.  So if you are thinking logically (and we hope to always be here), we won't be acting on emotions.  And vice versa.  So if you are emotional, you CANNOT think logically.  So the tip for ourselves, if you are emotional, take a breather until you are thinking logically.  And a good trick to switch is to first admit you are thinking emotionally.  Feel that emotion and embrace it and admit you are feeling it.  Then start asking questions of why, and answering questions takes our logical side and therefore will help us switch.

This same technique helps with kids.  If kids are acting on emotion (fell down and are crying), they CAN'T think logically.  So if we say "you're fine, get back up" they don't know this.  They don't listen to this.  They are feeling emotions, not thinking "Oh ya, I am just fine."  So, as a parent, first talk about the emotional side.  "Are you sad?  Are you feeling hurt?" and just asking questions will help the child to start thinking logically again.  We have pretty much stopped tantrums with Aaron with this technique.  We warn him of time up with the ipad (but remember he doesn't understand time?) but he still gets upset when we take it away.  Instead of saying "We told you one more minute" like we use to, we now say "Are you sad?  Did taking the ipad away make you sad?" When Aaron responds through his tears, we know he's starting to move his thinking.  So then we can talk logically and say, "It's time for the ipad to go bye bye.  We can play the ipad again later, ok?  Right now we can play trains though.  Do you want to play trains?"  And this usually ends his sadness before a tantrum even starts.  Its AWESOME.  And this works with MANY situations; I just gave this one as an example.

Knowing this information of logical and emotional, I've helped to stay much more logical.  Now I am aware of when I am starting to lean to the side of emotional, and I can jump back to the logical side quickly.  And not that I stopped being emotional completely, (Since I have been married, I have always been either pregnant, have a newborn-4 month old baby, or going through a miscarriage.  Talk about hormones going crazy ALL THE TIME.) but I stopped giving excuses.  I use to just say "Well, I'm pregnant" or "I don't get sleep" or something along those lines to just validate what emotional outbreak I had.  And after three years, (sadly it took so long) I am learning that this phase of having extra emotions is not going away anytime soon.  It probably won't end until I am completely done having kids, and even then I will still need to control myself.  Recently I learned that ANYONE can control themselves at ANY moment.  There just is no excuse out there that this does not apply to.  And so I started to control my emotions, despite the heavy odds against me, and this tip (among others) have helped SO MUCH!  I just start to feel myself going to the emotional side, and can readjust my thinking quickly.  I can take a break when I am emotional, and wait until I am logical again.  Last night I was heavily emotional, and a topic of discussion came up with my husband.  I told him I knew I was emotional and so this conversation should happen at a different time when I knew I could think it through (and my responses) with logic. (Remember the tip of knowing your good timing??)

Anywho, that last bit was me rambling a little bit.  But what I learned has seriously helped me SO much!  I almost want to take the class again just to more solidify everything as it was just so good.  I hope you learned something too!  If you have any questions (like if something didn't make sense, as I am writing this super late as my children are screaming in the other room...) let me know!