January has not always been my favorite month.  When we lived in Wisconsin and I had one, two, and then three little boys, it was a long, cold month.  We did enjoy skating on the frozen lakes that we lived by, but only if it wasn't so cold that your toes froze. The other problem with January is illness.  With Camille in our family, January is notorious for illness.  The worst one was a few years ago when she got her tonsils out followed by RSV which turned into pneumonia.  She was EXTREMELY miserable for weeks.  She watched movies basically non-stop and missed a lot of preschool. I can't complain much about the weather this year because it's been mild.  However, it has had some illness.  Currently Camille is suffering with a cold and constant cough.  But here are some reasons why I'm learning to enjoy January: 1.  No more Christmas shopping!  Maybe some people enjoy this.  I'm not one of them.  Actually I did have to...

The original post was written in January of 2015. I wrote an update at the bottom of this post in March 2021. A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about something she was doing in her family to help her family function better.  Her teenage autistic son had been struggling a lot so they had been working with behavior therapists to help him and this "Do Dots Family System" had been recommended.  As she described it, I was greatly intrigued since it sounded like something I wanted to implement at my own house. I looked into it and decided to purchase it right after Thanksgiving.  Here is my review of how it has worked for us over the last six weeks or so. The basic idea of the chart is that children need to take care of their responsibilities before they get any privileges.  It strongly reinforces the concept of "Work Before Play" .  The chart helps children see in a very visual way that, until they have completed their responsibilities, they are on Le...

On Thursday, my second son turned 22!  He was gone on his mission to Latvia for the last two birthdays but this year we got to have him over for his birthday dinner.  He wanted beef stroganoff and "Too Much Chocolate" cake for dessert.  He blew all his candles out in one blow.  The picture is a bit hazy thanks to all that smoke. He just finished a semester at BYU and is majoring in computer engineering.  We actually didn't have his birthday dinner on Thursday because he went "trumpet caroling" on that night.  They rang our doorbell about 8pm and 10 trumpet players stood on our lawn and played a couple of Christmas carols.  It was pretty cool.  I wish I could share a picture of that but it was too dark outside and the picture doesn't show anything. We gave him his birthday presents back in August--it's just so much easier on me when we do birthday presents at a different time than Christmas--and he likes his presents being a little more spr...

My third son (and third child) had his 20th birthday yesterday but we didn't get to talk to him or see him.  That's okay because he is doing what he's supposed to be doing.  He's far away in Eastern Europe serving a mission for our church.  He's in a war-torn country trying to bring some hope and love to people that must be feeling at least a little bit discouraged. He's the one with the pink, red and purple striped tie. He has been so cheerful and optimistic in his letters despite the challenges that he has.  It's been fun to read them.  We look forward to talking to him on Christmas! Here he is doing a service project.

This is a great video to watch or listen and get in the Christmas spirit.  I need to do that more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrLoWt2tfqg How is my Christmas season going?  It's going pretty well but next year, I'm going to do more shopping in November so I can enjoy more fun activities in December.  My new resolution:  All packages that need to be mailed to my children need to be ready to go on December 1st.  And I need to use my book  more.

I have been wanting to change how we celebrate Christmas for a long time.  I frankly dread the holiday because of the pressure I feel in meeting lots of expectations on a deadline.  As a committed Christian, it should be one of my favorite days of the year but so far, it's not.  I've tried to think of ways to make it a happier time of year for me but I'm definitely not there yet. However, yesterday I made a little progress in making it a more religious holiday--more about celebrating Christ's birth and less about buying the perfect gifts. The first thing I did was buy this book: I have to admit that I have not yet read the book.  (Remember this is December and time is at a premium--and I just got it yesterday.)  However, at the back of the book, in the Appendix, he has a list of devotionals to do each day in December leading up to Christmas.  So we tried it last night after dinner.  The suggestion for December 4th was to read Psalm 24:9-10, si...

We had a big Thanksgiving this year at our house:  36 people, all related to me.  I woke up early this morning worried that I wouldn't have enough turkey.  I thought maybe I should rush to the store and get another turkey breast.  But my husband convinced me that we had enough and we should try the experiment of possibly running out.  So I cooked a 19 lb. turkey and a 7 lb. turkey breast and we had plenty with some leftovers. We had lots of other food, of course:  raw vegetables, roasted sweet potatoes and asparagus, a green bean casserole, a squash casserole, fruit salad, a green salad, mashed potatoes, rolls, cornbread dressing, stuffing, olives and gravy.  Then for dessert we had several different kinds of pie:  pumpkin, sour cream apple, berry, key lime, lemon meringue, banana cream, and German chocolate.  It was all yummy and the amount was just about right.  I should have taken pictures of the food! Some of the older ...