Feeling Connected

I love that no matter where we move to, we know we will have a "church" family waiting for us & we've made such great friends that way. But recently I've also been so grateful to have a business that gives me the opportunity & motivation to reach out beyond church. When we left Maryland I left behind a ton of great friends that I had met through my business . . . customers, hosts, and my team of demonstrators. I really enjoy that I've been able to stay connected with a lot of them through facebook!

Now that we're in a new place once again, I have been thrilled to find so many warm & welcoming people who want to help us get adjusted. There's a woman that runs a home-based spa who is just wonderful & is working with me on business but I enjoyed just visiting and getting to know her a bit as well. And just this last week, I was introduced to a mom who lives in our town. We haven't met in person yet, but we've communicated through e-mail & facebook. She has a 2 year old, just like me and is part of a playgroup that we plan to start attending (if Chase will ever get over this cold!). I just feel like I've met so many great people already and even though we've only been here a short time, I feel like its home.

I dont' know, I guess feeling connected to people just makes such a big difference for me so that even when I am bogged down inside with just me & the kids, I feel like there's more to life than just diapers & feedings and it helps me get through each day.

Future Singer!

Looks like we have a future singer on our hands! This is how Evie spends a lot of her awake time these days. We thought Chase was a happy baby but Evie is even happier!

Settling in & making the most of it!

Now that Evie is 3 months old, we are definitely settling in to our new lifestyle and trying to make the most of every day. I'll admit that there are still days when I feel overwhelmed & wonder how I'm going to just make it through the day, but those days are fewer now & most of the time I am enjoying my life. I've been tackling lots of projects & those things are making life more fulfilling than just diapers & feedings! Here's some of the things I've been up to:

• leading a facebook group for weight loss (we're trying to lose a total of 1,000 pounds as a group by the end of the year)
• We're eating healthier & exercising more (thank goodness for some warmer weather) and I've lost all of my baby weight plus an extra 1 1/2 pounds & still losing!
• A friend from church taught me how to do couponing & we got our first newspaper yesterday. I am already saving money!!!
• We're having regular family home evenings with Chase & enjoying teaching him everything that we can! He loves saying the blessing on the food at mealtime and is having such fun with the file folder games I've been putting together. He loves the one with pictures of his grandparents & calls everyone "papa milius".
• I am building my business, getting to know lots of people here in Colorado & attending meetings & networking groups and even have a couple of parties & vendor events lined up. I'm also leading meetings with demonstrators in the area & continue working & enjoying my team that I left back in Maryland.
• We're enjoying the beautiful weather that is allowing us to get out & about. I try to take the kids for a walk several times a week (Evie strapped to the front of me & Chase in the stroller). We've gone to library story time & stop for lunch on the way home or to the park to play during the week, and on family outings whenever possible on the weekend.

Life is just plain good! I am truly enjoying my precious children . . . well, like I said . . . most days!

Family Home Evening Fun!

Now that we have a 2 year old, we're becoming focused on our mission to hold weekly family home evenings & its been a lot of fun! (I'd love too hear your ideas for us!!!) It was tough when it was just the two of us for so long because we were together every night, so we were never very good about having a special family home evening. I posted on sugardoodle's facebook page what we were doing for family home evening tonight & had someone ask some questions about it, so I typed up a long e-mail to send back with the ideas that we've used so far & thought I'd share them here as well. My post on sugardoodle said that we were going to tell a simple version of Noah's Ark tonight & then do a Noah's Ark file folder game. So, here's my response to her:



We've just started a few weeks ago as well & are having fun with it! I typed in "free file folder games" for a google search & found a few that way, though most were secular instead of religious (numbers, etc.).

But I also found some through sugardoodle.net listed under "file folder games". I wish I had saved the websites where I found each one, but I didn't :(

A couple other fun things we've done that our son has really liked:
1. I laminated a picture of Jesus and he got to hold it while we talked about when Jesus was born. We then put it up on the wall in his bedroom & he loves to point out Jesus!
2. I laminated a picture of the temple & we talked in very simple terms about the temple (just a couple of sentences really) and then sang "I love to see the temple". Again, we put this picture up on his bedroom wall next to the picture of Christ.
3. On one site I found a "family tree". Its a picture of a tree and has labels for places to put pictures of "me", mom, dad, and each set of grandparents. I laminated it all along with pictures of all the family members mentioned to make a file folder type game. This is his favorite thing & is especially great since we don't live near family.
4. I recently got a subscription to the Friend and I've been tearing out the pages that are good for the younger age and putting them in sheet protectors. So, we've read a couple of the Joseph Smith stories from there . . . very few words, lots of pictures! Also, the picture pages from both the Friend & Ensign are great to add.
5. I grew up with what we called "Talent Night" for family home evening, where each of the kids had to perform a talent. One night we did a similar thing & video taped Chase doing all the fun things he's doing at this age!

Aha, I found it! Thought I'd do a quick search to see if I could find any of the ones I've used again:

Noah's Ark:
http://www.mormonchic.com/crafty/filefolders.asp

Family Tree:
http://s466.photobucket.com/albums/rr29/Telsee/?action=view&current=familytreecopy.jpg

Also, after our VERY short lesson, we spend a while singing action songs like Popcorn Popping, Once there was a snowman, ring around the rosies, London Bridges, etc. My son loves to do that!

Newest Pictures of Evie

Evie is 12 weeks old now. These pictures are from a couple weeks ago. She's gotten to that coo-ing and smiling phase & its so much fun! We just love our little girl!

Christmas in Arizona

We got to make the drive to Arizona for Christmas this year since Evie was born earlier than expected! It was a LONG drive, but nice that we could have our own car & not have to deal with airports or an airplane. Chase was so much fun since he "got" the whole idea of presents this year. He loved tearing off the wrapping paper & declared each present to be a "ball" as soon as he started opening it -- his first 2 gifts from Santa had a ball of some sort so he thought every gift should!

New Year's Day Traditions

Today, we're still in our pajamas, all sick (except Elesiv) and Jeff & I are just trying to keep it together while we take care of the kids! Chase was up most of the night, screaming at times & we couldn't calm him down. He is happy one minute & a nightmare the next. So, we're exhausted & sick today, and not doing anything, but I was thinking about those traditions that I've loved from past years.

When I was a teenager, I spent New Year's Eve at my friend's house. She had several single young adult siblings at the time and her parents would have all of her siblings friends over for breakfast at midnight. It was so much fun! Her parents also re-filled their Christmas stockings on New Year's Eve so that on New Year's morning they had some small gifts to open from the New Year's baby. I just loved these traditions & would love to do them in our house when the kids get older.

My family established a tradition, when I was a teenager, of going out to breakfast on New Year's morning every year. We would usually go to Perkins and just enjoy a nice breakfast out. As kids, we loved the tradition of a sleepover at grandma's house with all of our cousins and a Swedish pancake breakfast in the morning.

What are your New Year's Day traditions?