Responsible Living

Back in the summer I was attempting to get the boys to do a quick clean up of their toys with me.  I was trying to make it fun, light hearted and encouraging.  I said, “Let’s go Hayden!  Help Mommy pick up the trains!” 

He just looked at me and said, “No.  Mommy cleans up toys.”  He didn’t say it in some spoiled tone, or meanly.  Just in a very matter of fact way.  Still, I rankled.

“No, Mommy doesn’t-!”  But then I stopped.  Yes, Mommy actually did.  She cleaned up toys, took care of clothes, made beds, cooked dinner, did dishes.  The list is rather endless when I think about it.  So, being the nerdy, need-to-research-everything type of Mama that I am, I started reading books on today’s children and entitlement. 

Oh, it may seem silly that not cleaning up toys made me take the leap to entitled kids, but really isn’t that the attitude behind it?  I don’t want to raise my boys to think that someone else will do the cleaning and cooking for them.  I want them to know how to do it, to be proud of themselves and feel confident in the fact that they can take care of themselves (eventually).

I read a couple of books on the subject, some better than others.  But I liked several ideas in the book, “Cleaning House: A Mom’s Twelve-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement” by Kay Wills Wyma.  The book itself is decent.  It seemed to me that she took excerpts from her blog about the 12 months and then tried to form her book around those, which made it less cohesive to me, but again, I took away some good things from the book.

One of those things is picking one thing per month to focus on.  Since starting the idea in July, we’ve focused on making beds, cleaning up toys, taking care of clothing (PJ’s in the morning and day wear at bedtime) and taking care of one’s dishes after each meal.  As they get older I plan to build on their responsibilities and have them learn to do laundry and even cook.  Although they cook a lot with me already, its mainly playing.

The main thing we do differently from the author above is we don’t pay our children for their responsibilities.  Kay Will Wilma and her husband pay their children $30 each at the beginning of the month (and with five kids that’s no small feat.) And if their responsibilities/chores aren’t taken care of then she docks them one dollar per day.  Her children were older when she started the Entitlement Project and I understand why starting with an allowance of sorts was appealing.

But I’m a firm believer that for our home, there are things that we do because we’re part of a family.  We pick up after ourselves, take care of plates, and so much more because we’re a unit and that’s how we work together.  At least that’s how it is in my mind.  Until recently I was, obviously, not living up to that ideal.  I do understand paying for bigger jobs, and I hope that will encourage the boys to take on larger roles as they get older, but for now the small everyday jobs are enough.

So far its been a great experience and the boys, specifically Hayden, have met the new activities with excitement.  The only challenge we’ve had was the bed making.  For some reason he fought me tooth and nail about it for the longest time.  I certainly didn’t expect perfection, I just want him to try and I always help him.  So why wouldn’t he make the bed?!  It was awful and I was ready to resort to a reward chart of some kind.  But my in-laws were in town for a week and made it a HUGE deal every time he made his bed.  Its seemed the extra recognition (aside from Mama) was all he needed.  Now occasionally he whines a bit, but almost always we get the bed made.

I have so much to add but this is turning into a long post.  We’ll be keeping it up next year and focusing on one item per month. I also focus on something personal for me.  Usually health related, such as getting to bed earlier or cooking more at home or something along those lines. 

We decided to combine November and December and focus our time on giving.  Both Arnie and I feel it’s important to be aware of needs around us and help where we can, even if it means making a personal sacrifice in order to do so. 

It has been wonderful to see Hayden respond to people and tomorrow I’ll share with you how we’ve tried to focus on giving to family, community and world. 

Christmas Photography 2012

Taking pictures is a bit of an obsession for me.  It’s all my Grandpa’s fault.  I swear.  I don’t remember a holiday, vacation or visit where he wasn’t taking pictures.  The still camera was in one hand, the video camera in his left.  

I don’t do a whole lot in the way of home videos.  But photography?  Yeah.  I do some of that.  Ahem. Understatement.  I wouldn’t call myself a photographer.  (Although I’m dreaming a bit in that direction.)  But I do love to take pictures.  Thanks to my hubby’s awesome gift of a DSLR last year and a basic photography class, I shoot in manual and have been experimenting with all kinds of pictures.

Last year I did some indoor shots using natural lighting and basic manual mode.  You can see them here.  Though looking back I’m not sure I want to link up to those.  Haha.  Anyway, this year I wanted something outside and this is what I came up with.  I hung a few ornaments in the tree, borrowed the awesome red chair from a friend and used the wreath that I put over my mantel for the set.  And viola!  I give you Christmas Photo Shoot 2012. 

Arnie helped me out and held the reflector which resulted in some good catch lights.  I think they’re good enough for a Christmas card and I might have a few prints done for the grandparents.  It was a lot of fun even though the boys cooperated for not quite 30 minutes.

My kids will certainly have tons of memories of the crazy things Mommy did to get the shot. 

Life's Been Busy

Life has been busy. Whose hasn’t?  But with the kids and gardening and writing and vacations and everything that filled our days throughout the summer, I thought that maybe blogging was just a temporary fixation for me.  I let Love, Laughter and Laundry sit on the sidelines.  I found myself thinking about it again when September came and life grew a bit more predictable, but we’ve been playing home pre-school with my oldest, so I decided to focus on that and let the blog lay low a little while longer.  Finally the fall hit and our family traditions began in earnest and I couldn’t resist.

At first I just updated the blog title and pretended that I couldn’t make time for it again.  But after writing in my journal for several weeks in a row and thinking, I want to post this.  I decided to start things back up.

So here I am with the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season about to begin, we’ll be even busier than usual but I’m posting again anyways.  I can’t help but smile at my craziness.

Over the next few weeks I plan to post Christmas pictures I took of the boys, crafting projects I’m working on for the holidays and all the little fun things we’re doing to celebrate the season, along with our December homeschooling goodness.

I hope you find inspiration for you and your family over the holiday season, and think of Love, Laughter and Laundry as a daily reminder to cherish the everyday moments.

How Does Your Garden Grow- Food Garden

Everything is green and the days are getting longer.  And although that creates a bit of havoc on bedtime, it is so nice to feel the warm sun on our faces as we play outside or to open the windows and let the breezes and fresh air into a house that now seems closed up for too long.

We built our garden bed on Saturday and planted on Sunday.  Our backyard consists of clay and rocks, so a raised garden bed is definitely the better choice.  We put it all together using 4x4x6’s and 6 inch wood screws.  Then Arnie proceeded to move 5 yards of dirt into the garden, while I raked it through and evened it out.  The boys played in the dirt- digging in it, moving it, crawling all over it.  We had a wonderfully exhausting day outside.  Sunday we planted.  We managed to get quite a bit in a 12x12 space.  We planted 3 kinds of tomatoes, squash, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, green beans, beets, jalapeños and green peppers along with basil and oregano.  The beets, green beans and cantaloupe we are starting from seed, while the rest are organic transplants from a local nursery.

Hayden is thrilled with it.  His face lights up when he talks about our vegetables, as if the plants are his friends.  And since we’ve been reading Peter Rabbit, he of course talks about how Asia might have to keep the bunnies away so they don’t steal our vegetables.  Yesterday he asked if our seeds had come up yet.  I wish I’d planted something that sprouted a bit sooner so he would be rewarded earlier, but everything is 10-21 days, so he will have to wait.  We had a much smaller garden in Memphis, but he was too young to really take part in it.  This year it will be wonderful to watch him make the connection between the earth and our food.  I, like Hayden, do hope our visiting bunny friends from last year don’t take too much a liking to our garden.

Spring has sprung and while I’m very behind in my house cleaning, it has been wonderful to just let go and spend time outside with the boys.  This Saturday will be a different story, as I’m planning to try out some freezer cooking.  I plan to cook or put together 14 meals for the freezer.  It’s a bit intimidating, but the benefits if it works will be completely worth it.

The rest of the week will be filled with coloring eggs, making an Easter tree and focusing on why we celebrate the holiday.

Happy Spring!

So again, I’ve been a bad blogger and haven’t written in quite a while.  In fact, I didn’t blog on my baby’s first birthday and all other manner of occasions.  I tried a work from home job for about six weeks that took up all my computer time, in fact it took up every moment of free time that I had.  But also, we’ve been spending lots and lots of time outside.

Yesterday was the first day of Spring!  While its been wonderfully warm here for several weeks, its now official, the vernal equinox was yesterday.  We have been enjoying so much time outside, playing every afternoon until its time to come in and cook dinner and then reluctantly dragging ourselves in.

I’ve tried several times to take a book and bask in the sun reading, but Mason is much too active to let me read more than a few lines at a time.  We played in leaves yet to be raked up from fall and its even been warm enough that the boys have played in the water table.  Occasionally I wonder how hot the summer is going to be if the spring is already this warm, but then I decide to worry about it later and just enjoy the sunshine and occasional rainstorm.  We’ve seen lots of wasps though.  Does anyone know a natural way to get rid of wasps?  They’re buzzing all around the house and yard and I’m a bit nervous about the boys getting stung.

I have hopes of getting the raised garden beds up this weekend, so planting can start soon.  I’m excited to have a garden this year; I missed not digging my fingers into the soil last year.  I’ll have to figure out a way to keep the bunnies out though... and Mason. 

I hope wherever you are that Spring is shinning down on you.

Happy Spring!

Beloved Times & Realizations

Tonight as Hayden is falling asleep I sit at the foot of his bed, with my arms on the mattress and my head resting there.  He cuddles his stuffed monkey, covered with his cozy and his little socked feet stick out from under the covers.  The socks are black and white striped and they remind me of the way Hayden imitates the referees while Arnie’s watching football.  I hear Mason’s soft snoring from his spot across the room, right in time with the sound machine that’s supposed to help them settle deeper into dream land.  Suddenly the simple contentment and peacefulness of that moment crashes into me like a wave.

I realize that for the past few months I’ve just been so caught up in the everyday busyness that we haven’t had any of those moments.  Well, the moments have been there, but I’ve missed them.  The time passed and I let it slip right by without grabbing hold and cherishing.  A part of me aches at the realization.   Isn’t that part of my goals and dreams for my family… that we hold on to the simplest but still so important things in our lives?  It is, and yet we haven’t.

This insight has come at a perfect time.  I’m about to start a work from home position that I plan to do while the boys are sleeping, but that means more time cleaning, preparing meals, etc while they’re awake.  So it will mean new things for us, finding a way to take the time and still notice the joys of life that have slipped by for the past few months, but at the same time watch my schedule get busier.  I see that I need to prepare for it, to be ready to contend with the hectic and demanding so we can preserve the calm and beloved.

Beloved times like tonight, staring as striped socks and listening to baby’s breathing in the sweet night.

This Moment {Fun with Family}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by Soulemama

Baking Up Traditions

We have been doing our activity advent calendar since December 1^st.  I have to say that its been a big hit so far.  But today was definitely the best day yet.  Today we made Christmas cookies.  Its my great grandma’s recipe, and she told me that she used to make them when she was a little girl.  There’s something incredibly sweet in Hayden making the same cookies that his great-great grandma used to make.  I took a bunch of pictures and am going to take them to her when we head up to Michigan for the holidays.  (Yes, my wonderful Gram is still alive- 92 years young!)

We make Christmas cookies every year.  But this year was extra fun.  For the first time Hayden could actually cut out the cookies, shake the shaped dough into his palm and hand it to me to put on the cookie sheet.  He helped me cut all 4 ½ dozen cookies.  Then we took a break for lunch and rest time.

The break in the activity was great, after that though, he was ready to get back at it.  I frosted while Hayden decorated.  He did a great job and actually decorated them all!  I couldn’t believe it, I thought that he’d get bored and I’d end up doing most of the decorating.  Nope.  He had a blast and told his Daddy every detail about it.  He even remembered decorating cookies last year in our Memphis home.  That time he only decorated four cookies, this year…over four dozen!

Mason was great too.  He sat contentedly in his high chair squishing up banana (occasionally eating some too.)  When he started to fuss I just cleaned him up and set him on the floor and he happily played at our feet and crawled all over the living room.   The afternoon followed the same pattern.

It was so wonderful to see something that I did with my Mom, and that I’ve done every year since moving out of the house become a family tradition that my own sweet boys can be part of.

Rolled dough, baked cookies, frosting, and a sprinkling of colored sugar equals a joyful day to be cherished forever.

I even set the camera up and took some pictures of myself with the boys.
The lighting leaves a lot to be desired, but I still love all the moments...

Mason loved exploring while we baked.

The finished product.  Yummy!

Happy Craftmas!

So yesterday I looked at my project list and suddenly grasped that, um, tomorrow (now today) is December 1^st and I had yet to finish Hayden’s Activity Advent Calendar!  YIKES!  So I worked on it until one am, realized that I had about three hours of work to go, wrote his first day’s activity down, put it in the incomplete calendar and went to bed.

Today Hayden happily pulled open the first box and didn’t seem to mind a bit that most of the rest were unfinished and (if he’d opened them up) empty.  But the partial advent calendar (and the date!) made me realize how much there is to do.

For Christmas I have several projects going.  Felt balls for Mason, a satchel (just like in Tangled) for Hayden.  Decorating our homemade Christmas tree- where we make almost all the ornaments for it. Qwillows for the nieces, hats & mittens for the boys.  Not the mention the Advent Calendar currently sitting on the table staring me in the face. 

Yes, much to do, along with the shopping, preparing holiday dinners, going to parties, wrapping (lots), sending out Christmas cards, Arnie traveling (lots), and then heading up to Michigan for the holiday itself.  Much to do indeed.

But honestly, I’m not overly worried about it.  If I were, you’d never read this post because I’d be too busy going crazy with projects.  I’m rather excited about all the fun things that I have to do.  And the deadline means that I might actually get them done.  I’ll finish the calendar tonight.  Then make a list for the rest, and start working on them tomorrow.  Now the state of my house while getting these projects done is, well, a whole ’nother blog post.

Time to get crafting!

Christmas Photography

Pinterest has become a new pastime for me.  I’m not actually a member yet, I’m on the waiting list.  But that doesn’t stop me from perusing hundreds of pins and bookmarking every favorite idea I come across.  These ideas range from crafts to do with Hayden to recipes, and led to my first attempt at a photography shoot.

Oh, I take pictures all the time.  And I do mean all the time.  But I saw this adorable photograph and just had to try it on my boys.  So I hung up white sheets, taped lights to them, laid down the toddler mattresses and covered them with a furry soft blanket.  The tutorial showed icicle lights, but I only had straight lights on hand, so I purposefully strung the lights rather haphazardly (if that makes any sense.)  I was so proud of my set up and couldn’t wait for the boys to wake up so I could try it. (Unfortunately the tape couldn’t hold the sheet up anymore and fell before I thought to get a photograph of the backdrop.)

I gave up when the urge to yell at Hayden for rolling over his brother for the umpteenth time almost overwhelmed me.  Then I loaded the pictures to the computer and, being addicted to taking photos and obviously a glutton for punishment, we went back downstairs after lunch with the plan to take a few more pictures of the boys together since those turned out the worst.

I was chagrined to see the sun out in full and shadowed lines across my carefully planned photo op.  So, I did what any desperate mother pretending to be a photographer would do and I used painters tape to tape a white sheet over the window. 

The lighting was actually much better than the morning’s light had been.  The boys were still pretty uncooperative and some of the morning together photos were actually better.  Then I put Hayden down for rest time and went back down with Mason and shot about 10 more pictures while he didn’t have his brother trying to claim the spot light.  Those are definitely my favorites of Mason, the lighting was so much better and I was able to get his attention with some funny noises and also just take pictures of him playing with the ornaments. 

I have to say that the results made it totally worth it.  The pictures aren’t perfect, some are awful, the focus is off on some of them and there are random feet, fingers and toes missing in others, but overall there were several that turned out pretty good.  I learned so much about picture taking, the hands on experience was great and thankfully I’ve got my boys to experiment on so no else’s children were tortured in the process.  I’m also excited about the pictures and proud of myself for venturing out and trying something new.

Purposeful Moments

It only takes a moment to create memories that will last a lifetime.  The holidays always start me thinking about family, togetherness and traditions.  Its so easy to get caught up in the mayhem of the holidays, the buying gifts and forgetting that the whole point of a family dinner is the gathering itself.  Not the turkey on the table or the gifts under the tree.

I’ve been trying over the last few years to do things with Hayden (and now Mason) that will hopefully become lasting traditions throughout the year.  Some of those things are big things, such as Thanksgiving dinner.  Others are smaller, but still significant.

For the past two years, the day after Thanksgiving we go to a light festival of some sort to kick of the Christmas season.  The first year we went to the Memphis Zoo Lights.  Last year we went to the Shelby Farms Light Drive.  So this year I wanted to do the same, but being in a new place, plus the cost and distance made it hard to find an event that worked for us.  Eventually I found a wonderful neighborhood just 15 minutes up the road where 6-7 houses decorate elaborately and all the lights are timed to music.  It was small but beautiful.  It was so fun to see an everyday neighborhood transformed into a Christmas light show.  It really lifted our moods even higher and put us in the “Christmas Spirit” if you will.

But again, it made me think of all the things that create a sense of family.  The rest of the weekend was spent Christmas shopping and decorating.  It would have been easy to get busy and just want to get it done.  But instead, I let Hayden put ornaments on the tree anywhere he wanted… and I didn’t move them.  He helped Daddy put up lights outside while I fluffed trees inside and put up stockings.  We spent time saying, “Merry Christmas” over a cup of hot cocoa (even with it being 65 degrees out.)

Those tiny moments in between, the purposefulness of it all, creates traditions, connection and lasting memories that will tie us together for years to come.  They are what make us family.



{This Moment}- Holiday Beginnings:Sweet Endings

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by SouleMama

How Does Your Garden Grow? Front Yard

Our front flower beds needed mulching, badly.  So this weekend we planned a “garden day” for Saturday.  It was a wonderful day.  Don’t get me wrong, it was work.  We trimmed bushes, weeded, spread mulch and more.  Arnie is still sore from shoveling, wheeling and dumping mulch.  But really Hayden made a day of work into a day of fun.  He had a blast following Daddy around with his little wheelbarrow full of mulch and dumping it just where he thought we needed it.  He dragged around the rake, jumped in the leaves, “helped” us prune bushes, plant flower bulbs, pretended to be a frog and entertained Baby Mason. 

He chattered away and the things that came out of his mouth just melted your heart and made you want to sing.  Just a few of my favorites…

“You’re a good cutter Daddy.”  When Arnie was pruning several of our large grassy-bush things.

“I love mulch!”  Of course, he loved carting it around, throwing it, climbing on the mulch pile… you get the idea.

“Garden Day is a great day.”  Randomly said, throughout the entire day.

Its truly amazing what being outside in the fresh air and doing something productive can do.  Hayden, at 3 years old, has such pride in those flower beds now.  We pull out of the driveway or go outside and he talks about how “we did that” and that it “was fun” and “garden day is a good day”. 

I can hardly wait until spring when the daffodils, tulips and buttercups start to push up through the dirt and mulch and point out to Hayden how the work of that one garden day brought beauty all the way into the spring.



{This Moment}- Sleeping Sweet

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired By Soulemama



Wash On

Yesterday my new dishwasher arrived!  Arnie spent all evening (ok- until midnight) hooking it up.  Aside from starting it for a few minutes to make sure the hook-ups didn’t leak, I didn’t run it yesterday.

At first not having a dishwasher didn’t seem like a huge inconvenience.  After all, people washed dishes by hand for thousands of years.  And I’ve read on so many blogs and in so many books how meditative and relaxing it can be to have your hands in a sink full of hot soapy water, rhythmically washing and rinsing.  Um… no.  Not for me at least.

I found that I spent so much more time cleaning the kitchen that I had less time to do other chores around the house, it made me want to cook less and the evenings that we usually try to squeeze some family time into were completely taken up by soap suds and wash cloths. 

Arnie would be spending time with the boys.  Trying to appease Mason, who’s getting cranky and tired; and trying to reign in Hayden, who wants to get some quality wrestle time in with Daddy.  And there I’d be watching from my position at the sink.  I didn’t like it at all.

Today I spent the day loading my dishwasher after each meal, making my typical clean up simpler than it has been in a long while.  Later, (in an attempt to get back on track with cooking all homemade meals) I defrosted some homemade spaghetti sauce, browned the meat and added a side salad.  After dinner while Arnie was wrangling with both boys, I started in on the dishes and then Hayden asked if he could play his preschool lotto game.  (Its this one from Eboo.  He absolutely loves it and asks to play it multiple times a week.)  I was so happy that I could say, “Just let Mommy wipe down the counter tops and we’ll have time to play before bedtime snack.” 

I pressed start on the dishwasher and off to the coffee table we went to play his board game.  It was so wonderful.  Hayden, Daddy and I played while Mason kept pulling himself up on the coffee table giggling with delight whenever he almost got one of the cards.  It seemed so silly to blog about a dishwasher, so much so that I almost didn’t post this, but anything that helps me to create cherished moments with my family is worth blogging about.  And today, we had just that.

So I completely forgot to take pictures of us playing his lotto game.  (Ooops!)  But here's one of my new dishwasher!  :-)

{This Moment}- Photo Op

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.



Inspired By Soulemama

To Pause

It’s the time of year when you wish for your pace to slow.  To pause.  To enjoy the brief days before they become shorter still.  Yet this is the time of year when, alternatively, things get busier.  Our family has seven birthdays just between October 21^st and November 17^th.  On top of that the calendar fills with social events, service projects and very soon, Christmas shopping. (For me anyway- I know many thrifty mamas are already well on their way.  Maybe next year I can manage that.  Maybe.) 

But today the chill in the air and the falling, crunching leaves make me just want to curl up with a good book.  Never mind that I did exactly that yesterday.  Or I could just sit and stare at the tree filling our front window with all its brilliant red glory.  Then again I’d love to simply knit and watch the boys play (that is- if they’d let me.)  Or perhaps I could peruse the internet reading my favorite blogs and searching for Christmas gifts ideas for my little ones, who actually need absolutely nothing but Mommy- ahem, I mean Santa, wants to spoil anyways. 

Instead, I will do more cleaning, organizing and start packing for our quick weekend trip to Michigan for my father-in-law’s 50^th birthday, which my mother-in-law so sweetly offered to us.  We’re right in the thick of everything, with a food drive the week we get back and then preparation for my parents visit to us for Thanksgiving.  After that… well I’ll write about it later. 

Sometimes the busyness can feel overwhelming.   That'swhen I have to remind myself to enjoy the pauses when they come and to otherwise embrace the busy, sometimes chaotic but usually celebratory time of family, friends and love.

Today's Pause...