So far behind!

I am currently 10 months behind on my scrapbooking.  Sad I know.  A couple of weeks ago I was over a year behind, so I’ve actually been making some progress!  I have really enjoyed looking back at all the pictures from last year, so I thought you might like to look at them too.

    

I don’t scrap everything, like I blog.  I just scrap some of my favorite pictures/moments/activities and put them in a book for each of my kids. 

 

   

They LOVE having a book that is all about them.  It is one of their favorite things to pull down their particular book and look at pictures of themselves.

 

    

I scrap digitally.  For several reasons.

1.  Less Mess.  No glue, no scissors, no paper required.

2. Takes up less storage space.  I don’t have to have a lot scrapbooking stuff in storage.  It is all stored on my computer.   I don’t have to have any special crafting tools to create special effects on the pages.

3.  Back-up copy.  I print out the pages and put them in a 3 ring binder for viewing.  But I also have a copy of it on my computer AND on my external hard drive.

4.  Interruptions.  When I find that I don’t have time to finish a page, it is not a big deal because I can just click save.  I don’t have to worry about putting up a bunch of stuff that I pulled out and then pulling it out again later.

5.  Multiple copy pages.  When we do an activity as a family that I want each of my kids to have a copy of the “family” picture, I can do 1 layout and then switch out the photos of the individual child to personalize it for each of them in less than a minute.  So easy!

6.  Free stuff.  There is SO much digital scrapbooking stuff available all over the net.  It is awesome!

7.  I love manipulating my photos to match the layout.  If after I put a page together I decide it would look better in black and white – I can change it with just a few clicks of the mouse!

There are of course a few down sides.  The printed product is not quite as nice as as a paper scrapped page because you loose that three dimensional layered effect, but it still looks pretty darn good.  Also to do it well, you really need to have good software like Photoshop Elements or something equivalent. 

Since I have been so behind in my scrapbooking, to kick myself into gear I decided to team up with a digital scrapbooking elements designer. 

So once a month, she sends me a set of scrapbooking papers and elements to use.  I make a couple of layouts and then post them to a few online scrapbooking galleries with a link to her store.  I get free stuff and she gets free advertising.  Works great for both of us. 

 

She sent me this really cute kit called Animalia this month.  I had lots of fun with it!

 

Hope you enjoyed all those!  Now I’ve got to get busy on the last 10 months of photos!!!!!!

It’s a miracle

Mandy is deathly afraid of anything that moves.  Bugs, cats, dogs, you name it.  She is scared of it.  So it came as quite a shock when there was a tiny puppy dog at Dallin’s last soccer game and she actually petted it.

My mouth is still hanging open.  I guess maybe because it was so tiny and didn’t jump up on her and was very docile in letting all the kids pet it?  Or maybe it was just peer pressure.  She saw all the other kids do it and so she did it too.  Maybe that was just one of those times when peer pressure turned out to be a good thing!  Layton of course wasn’t afraid at all.  In fact he was even trying to stick his fingers right in the puppy’s mouth.  Thus necessitating a little fatherly intervention :)  That puppy was amazingly patient!

8 years

 

We look so young.  It is amazing what can change in the space of 8 short years.  From this start together we have added 3 kids, a number of pounds, gray hairs, a couple of wrinkles, a few fights, lots of happy make-ups, more compromise, tons of laughter, occasional tears, many lessons learned, too many smiles to count, and a whole lot a’ love.   Here’s to hoping that not only will we have many more YEARS together, but that we’ll be able to spend ETERNITY together. Happy Anniversary Sweetie! Love you!

I’m so glad when

when Daddy comes home!

 

Layton has recently begun picking up on Dallin and Mandy’s excitement(mostly Mandy’s because she loves dramatic entrances) when Nathan walks through the door in the evening.  I just think it is so sweet.  I love it that he is branching out a little and is not quite as clingy to me.  Yesterday he actually stayed in nursery at church the whole time! Yay!

Inner Beauty on the Outside

Every once and a while I take a picture of Mandy or look over at her at a random moment get this feeling of surprise, thinking to my self, “Wow, she is so beautiful.”  I know I am prejudiced.  I’m fully aware that I see more beauty in her than someone else might because she is my daughter and I love her.

 

What is funny to me is that this phenomenon, of me seeing outward beauty in someone because I love and care about them, extends way beyond just my children.  Whenever I meet someone, I, because I am an extremely visual learner, take that first impression and store it away in my brain as a picture of the person tied with my initial thoughts of the person, i.e. whether they were kind, nice, eccentric, rude, etc.  Then as I get to know a person more, if I begin to note more and more positive personality attributes in the person, somehow the person outwardly becomes more and more beautiful to me.  I’ll notice the symmetry of their eyes or the brightness of their smile or the way their hair perfectly frames their face.  However, if as I get to know a person more I begin to see more and more negative personality attributes, like selfishness, entitlement, rudeness, etc., for some reason I begin to notice more and more their less than attractive features.  I’m sure other people must feel this way too, at least to some degree.  Right?  Does someone’s personality affect how you categorize their outward beauty?

Praise to the Kids

Have any of you read the new book by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman called Nurtureshock? I haven't read it yet, but after reading an excerpt from it on NPR I felt compelled to order it on Amazon and am interested in what they have to say. The excerpt on NPR discusses the use of praise. Namely why specificity of compliments and complimenting effort rather than giving general praise like "you're so smart" or "you are such a good boy" are a good idea.

I thought that this point was particularly interesting:

The presumption is that if a child believes he's smart (having been told so, repeatedly), he won't be intimidated by new academic challenges. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short. But a growing body of research and a new study from the trenches of the New York City public school system — strongly suggests it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of "smart" does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.

The study mentioned went on to demonstrate that children receiving the praise "You must be smart at this" did not handle failure well and had no desire to try things that they perceived were difficult. While children receiving the praise "You must have worked really hard" actually choose to tackle tasks that they perceived to be difficult and improved their score on the test given in the study. I found this to be fascinating.

Also interesting to me was the discussion of self-esteem.

In 2003 the Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister, then a leading proponent of self-esteem, to review this literature. His team concluded that self-esteem research was polluted with awed science. Most of those 15,000 studies asked people to rate their self-esteem and then asked them to rate their own intelligence, career success, relationship skills, etc. These self-reports were extremely unreliable, since people with high self-esteem have an inflated perception of their abilities. Only 200 of the studies employed a scientifically-sound way to measure self-esteem and its outcomes. After reviewing those 200 studies, Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn't improve grades or career achievement. It didn't even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.)

What is even more interesting is that they went on to tie the idea of self-esteem to parental pride. That much of the appeal of using general exaggerated praise to build self esteem is that in praising one’s children you are indirectly praising yourself.

Sincerity of praise is also an issue. Kids are smart. Sometime around the age of seven they begin to recognize when praise is exaggerated or empty. The research presented in the article shows that older children that continually hear insincere praise eventually begin to discount all praise, whether sincere or not.

The article I linked to is a little long, but I hope you take the time to read and then share your thoughts about it. I would be very interested in all of your insights on the issues presented. Even if you don’t feel like reading the article, I would still love to hear your philosophy on how best to praise children and build feelings of self worth without creating a narcissist.

Necessities

Dallin brought home a little drawing project from school yesterday. The project is in the shape of a house and at the top it says “My Family Needs…”. There were four spaces for him to draw things that his family needs. The first thing was water. Makes sense. It really is a necessity. The next thing was money. Again, logical. Having money definitely allows you to purchase the things that you need. The third was a toilet. Indoor plumbing. Absolutely a necessity. The last item though was the one that kind of caught me off guard. The fourth thing he drew was a bottle of hand soap. Apparently our family cannot survive without hand soap. I say that sarcastically, but doesn’t all sarcasm have just a hint of truth associated with it. Honestly, I think I truly would be a little lost without hand soap and hand sanitizer. It might just be the thing that holds my sanity together in this crazy dirty world. How could I possibly function without the first step of my routine with my kids after we go or do anything? Our life just wouldn’t be the same without the phrase “everybody do clean hands” as I pass around the hand sanitizer and demonstrate how to rub it into every nook and cranny of my children’s adorable little hands as though they’ve never done it before. Ah, the wisdom of a 6 year old. It’s true, hand soap really is a necessity.

Layton at 18 Months

Layton turned 18 months a couple of weeks ago and had his check up appointment last week. No surprises. He is super healthy and super small. So small that he is not even within the boundaries of normal on the growth chart. The purple line in the chart below is the average boy. Layton is the yellow line. The set of lines on the upper portion show age vs. height. The lower portion depicts age vs. weight.

Our doctor doesn’t seemed concerned about it at all, because even though he is below the normal range he is still gaining weight and inches at a steady rate. Some kids just have a different growth pattern than the norm and I guess Layton is one of them. The doctor did tell me again to try to get as many calories in him as possible. Now I don’t feel so bad about letting him pig out on cinnamons rolls :)

He is such crazy funny sweet boy. We are so grateful for him!

Too Much Chocolate Cake

A friend of ours had a baby recently so we took her a chocolate cake. Because cake and babies go hand in hand you know.

As I was making it I thought, “This cake is SO GOOD the recipe really should be shared with the world.” Then I realized, oh yeah, it has been. On a nice little recipe site called All Recipes. But well, I thought it couldn’t hurt for it to be shared yet again with you because it really is one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever tried. It is moist and rich and oh so chocolaty. Just look at all that chocolate:

It is a really easy cake that uses a box cake mix as the base. Simply mix together:

1 Chocolate Boxed Cake Mix (I like Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge)

1 5.9 oz pkg instant chocolate pudding

4 eggs

1 cup sour cream

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup oil

The batter will be REALLY thick. I think it is the pudding mix that makes it so thick like that. Stir in 1/2 of a 12 oz bag of mini chocolate chips. Put into a greased bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 50 to 55 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 30 minutes or so and then invert onto a plate.

For the icing, melt the other half of bag of the mini chocolate chips together with 1/4 cup of butter. I usually melt them in the microwave for 20 seconds, then stir, 20 seconds, then stir and repeat until it is nice and smooth. Spread over cake.

This cake is best eaten warm and with a nice big scoop of vanilla ice cream. So good it is sinful!!!!!

Simple Pleasures

It is amazing what fun kids can have doing the silliest simplest things.

Mandy would count to five and then flop back on the bed.

Layton didn’t really follow her counting, but he would flop back too.

Then they would laugh and laugh as though that were the most fun thing in the world.

Kids are so cute.  And my kids – well, they are of course the cutest to me.

They were having so much fun that I couldn’t resist joining them.  Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how you look at it – I couldn’t take pictures of myself flopping back on the bed with them.  Ah laughter – it really does a body good!