Our New Family Mission Statement: Side by Side

We have our Family Mission Statement written!  Just in time for the New Year!

The Man of the House and I have been reading Steven R Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families. 

We've had some family home evenings where we shared what we were learning with the kiddie pies.  They picked right up on the ideas.  They are better than I am about changing their behavior. 

Habit 2   [Begin with the end in mind] has you create a family mission statement.  We had a couple of brainstorming sessions as a family.  We let everybody say all their ideas and I wrote them all down.  No one was allowed to interrupt or criticize anybody's idea.

We talked about:

What kind of family do we want to be?

What do we want to do together?

What kind of feeling do we want in our home?

What is important to us?

How can we contribute to society as a family?

What is our purpose as a family?  These were my favorite answers
Pumpkin- So we won't be by ourselves
Blueberry- so we don't live in boxes when we grow up
Cherry- learn to love each other
Cutie- be nice

We got ideas ranging from "no shouting" and "be nice" to "Dad should give mom chocolate" (thanks, Blueberry) and "pizza on Fridays."  I had about 3 pages of notes of things we wanted to do and learn and be as a family.

So how did we take all those ideas and form them into a Family Mission Statement that we could all get behind and be inspired by?  For 2 or 3 months, we just let those ideas cook in our minds. 


Add in this: At my brother's wedding, his bride's family sang a song I had never heard before, but instantly loved.  The song is called Side by Side.
I thought, what a great thought to have as part of your family culture--that you'll do things together and enjoy it.

That sounds really like,  duh, as I type it, but I've been going through this phase where I just want to be by myself and do my own thing and everybody just leave me alone and do their own thing.  It's not a good attitude for a mom to have and I've been struggling against it, but I keep catching myself back in that attitude.  Clearly I need more than just to realize my thoughts aren't right, I need a paradigm shift.

Add in this:  One evening, Ben and I had a real heart-to-heart discussion about a few things and I realized what he was asking for was for me to be his friend.  He doesn't just want to do the things he likes (example: climb mountains).  He wants to do the things he likes WITH ME (climb mountains with me). 

Suddenly I knew how to put our family mission statement together in a way that would be inspiring to us (I felt inspired) and would help us keep focused on what is important. I ran the idea past Ben & he liked it.  So here it is Ta Da!  Our Family Mission Statement.  We might edit it a bit more before it goes up on our wall, but essentially we've got it.  It is a little bit long, perhaps, but I didn't want to be too general with things like just say "Be Responsible"  I felt like it needed to be more concrete for me and for the kids.

Side By Side

Our family is committed to living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We will serve the Lord by being missionaries, by serving those around us, and by keeping our covenants. Being a Celestial Family is our goal.

Education is important to us, and we will never stop learning. We value the arts and other cultures. We will honor traditions we have received from our heritage and create new ones. We will discover and develop our talents to share and uplift others.

We love working and playing together, especially outside, keeping our bodies strong and healthy. Everyone will help with chores without complaint.  Being self-sufficient is important to us.

In our family we promise to be each other’s best friends.  We will do fun things together; we will help and encourage each other. We will always speak kindly and give each other hugs and kisses.  We will love each other.  We will stay together and encourage each other even if hard things happen. 

We will respect each other by being polite and never shouting.  We will appreciate each other’s efforts and remember that everyone is trying their best.

We will keep our house a clean and peaceful place so that we want to come home to it.  We will keep the Holy Ghost in our home.

We will be thankful in all things acknowledging the Lord’s Hand in our lives. We will show our gratitude by being generous with what we have.

We will walk through life together:  side by side.

Hiking at HaHa Tonka State Park

Hiking in the cold was harder than I thought it would be.  But we still had a great day.

 But the castle was very interesting.

 The spring was beautiful and mysterious, and the kids had fun counting the 300 wooden steps down to it.

 Baby Dumpling got a free ride.

 Why so serious, Blueberry Pie?

 This little girl is my cousin, but she's the same age as Cherry Pie.

 Cutie Pie had lots of energy early on.

Cherry Pie is getting to be sort of grown up. 

The best part was stopping at Uncle Jon's on the way home for some fish tacos!  Scrumptious.  So scrumtious.

Dyin' to be at Dianne's

This is my dad's little sister, my Aunt Dianne.  I've told you about her Cheddar Pear Pie before.  Which is delicious and also, it is delicious.

My family has our own Happy Birthday song that we tag on the end of the one everbody knows.  One of the lines is "May your birthdays be bright with cheer and delight."  Because my dad's other sister is named Chere, I always amended the song in my head to "May your birthdays be bright with Chere and Dianne."  It was like a birthday wish to get to visit them in the next year.

Well this year, I got to visit Aunt Dianne.  I and 9 members of my family stayed at her house for a few days when my bro Eddie got married in August.

 We drove about 20 hours, including through the night, to get there.



(I suppose I shouldn't say "we" drove, as my dad and bro Jimmy did most of the driving.  I did lots of talking to keep the drivers from getting bored.  I'm selfless like that.)

Anyways, I'm sure that if you've been on a long trip like that, you know that sort of nauseous bleck feeling you start to get after eating trail mix and celery sticks in the car for 2 days.  Even when you have your choice of 5 different kinds of peppermint gum (thanks, Dad) you eventually start feeling a little green.

We entered Utah valley at about 2-3 o'clock in the afternoon.  Dad offered to stop at Burger King, or something, but it was just an hour or so until Aunt Dianne's and we all voted to wait.  A Whopper might be warm and taste good going down, but then it sits there in your gut feeling oily and heavy--especially if you are already kinda bleh.  We were sure Aunt Dianne would have a better option, and she did!

We landed at her house, crowded in and somewhat bashfully admitted that we were starving and tired of car food.  Well Aunt Dianne told us to sit down and before we knew it, there was a huge pot of pasta soup and loaves of homemade bread and lots of sliced up cucumbers from her garden: all my favorite comfort foods loaded on one table.   The 10 of us plus a couple more who were already at her house gobbled down as much of that delicious soup and bread as we could hold and then we all had glorious naps on her many comfy couches.

This is the "Love Sack".  It is much coveted by all.

All that weekend, Aunt Dianne fed us delicious food and it all just appeared out of her cupboards and fridge like magic.  If we ate it all, more appeared, until we were stuffed.  Even the night that 70 aunts & uncles & cousins showed up to gab and laugh, she calmly produced food for us all.

And she had time to sit down and talk and be interested in what was going on in our lives and laugh at our jokes and loan us her stockings when ours got snags.

It was the most restful retreat I've ever gone too, and I felt like a new woman when I got home.  I got back the energy and enthusiasm for life that I'd been missing since my last baby was born.

part of that rejuvenation came from hanging out with these 2 amazing women.

This is the kind of hostess I want to be when I'm grown up.  The kind that can seemingly effortlessly produce food to feed a crown.  (I know it actually takes work and good planning too.)  The kind of hostess where everyone who visits feels welcome and at peace.

Until then, I'm lucky to have friends & family who are willing to come over and pretend with me that the food was great and the fun was seamless; even if there's a pot on the stove billowing smoke and I'm hastily scrabbling together the ingredients to something else and there's a pile of dirty dishes behind me.  One day, their faith and long suffering will be rewarded (I hope.)

Funny Dad Friday

So a friend of mine invited us all to blog about the funny things our dads say.  Immediately my mind went blank and stayed that way all week. I know my dad is funny, and appreciates a good joke, but I couldn't think of any.  The ones I could remember had 1 of 2 problems.  They were either

A-the kind of jokes that are funny if he tells them, but not if I tell them.  (I had to learn that the hard way.  In high school, I told my co-workers one of my dad's jokes that was always so funny when he told it and they all just looked at me, horrified. awkward.)  Kind of like there are some songs that only Willie Nelson can sing.

B-the kind of jokes that sound kinda racist in print--you gotta be there in person to hear them. ( "You hear about them new I-talian cars?  Dego through ice, Dego through snow, Dego through anything, and when dego flat, dego wop wop wop.")


Anyways, my brain finally unfroze so here goes.

My dad, the stand up comic

My Dad really likes funny little songs and poems, like this one by Austin Dobson:

Rose kissed me today.
Will she kiss me tomorrow?
Let it be as it may,
Rose kissed me today.
But the pleasure gives way
To a savor of sorrow;
Rose kissed me today
Will she kiss me tomorrow?

My dad also likes food. (Who doesn't.)  AND he doesn't complain.  He will eat anything that my mom cooks and he never complains.  As long as someone puts a plate of food in front of him, he gratefully and happily eats it.  He will eat a huge salad bowl of chopped cabbage and talk about how good it is. 

However, if someone cooks zucchini, he will make a token protest. He'll say, "I like everything, so I have the right to choose one vegetable to dislike and I choose zucchini.  Why would anyone want to eat zucchini?"

I've always thought it was pretty funny that he would fuss about zucchini when obviously he ate and liked everything.  But then, come to think of it, maybe it isn't a token protest.  My parents have never planted zucchini in their garden, not in my memory of 30+ years anyway, and they grow things no one else does, like asparagus and rhubarb, and bok choy.

My dad back in the '70s.  More than 30+ years ago.

of Shores and Ships

Twice in my adult life, I have received a message on my phone from my Mother  that went like this, "Everybody is okay, but call me as soon as you can."

Once I received that same message from my sister.  

The first time, my family's house had burnt to the ground, but my parents and all 8 of my siblings still at home had gotten out safely.  The next time, my sister's house had burnt to the ground, but she and her 4 month old baby and my 3 little girls whom she had been watching that day all got out safely.  The last time I got that message, a tornado had taken the second story off my parent's house, but the 9 people who were in it at the time were all okay.  

That message on my phone that begins with "everybody is okay" is one that sends my heart racing with fear because I know something scary has happened.  

But a message far worse would be a message missing that reassurance, "everybody is okay."

A sweet relative of mine lost her mother to ovarian cancer 2 weeks ago.  She wrote a very touching blog about her mother and included this thought:

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, 

“There, she’s gone.”
Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living weight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her; and just at that moment when someone at my side sighs: “There, she’s gone,” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices to take the glad shout, 

“There, she’s coming!”

 I am sad for my sweet friend who has lost her closest friend and glad for her mother, who is gone to rest, and many other feelings all at once which I cannot put into words that satisfy me.  Each day that we have is a miracle and a gift.

It's a Reunion! Day 1

When my family gets together, you know there will be lots of kids.  Last night was the opening meal of my mom's family reunion.  There were 37 adults,  48 children, and 1 lion (see above.)

I can tell you, it seemed like alot more children than that.  Especially 2- year-olds.  But then, it doesn't take very many 2-year-olds to seem like alot--especially if half of them are crying!

 This is Owie Boy and he is a sweetie peach.

Sam is getting ready to jump on a fast moving merry-go-round.  No one else was brave/foolish enough to try it.

Hi, Birdie

Hank didn't stop moving until he saw I had a camera.

Gwenny letting some healthy blood get to her brain.

Heath

Annie and Eva

Porter Frank the Tank!

Wyatt says, "My running! My climing! My Whinging!"

Maren is ready to be catapulted to the moon.

Renata and Julia.

   There's more to come, it's only Day 1!

Fathers' Day

My daddy, he was somewhere between God and John Wayne.  ~Hank Williams, Jr.

Legend tells of a legendary warrior...

 ...whose skills were the stuff of legend.

That legendary guy is my dad.  I've blogged about him before once or twice.

He is 6 foot 6 and 3/4 inches  tall (that's exactly 2 meters for those of you who understand metric) 

His hand can wrap around a basket ball the way a normal person's hand wraps around a grapefruit.

He wears a size 14 quadruple wide shoe (same as Abraham Lincoln).

My brothers used to beg him to flex his muscles--his biceps were like large cantalopes.

He doesn't even  excercise.

My Dad could eat a loaf of homemade bread and drink a gallon of milk in one sitting and not feel too full.
 
 My Dad was taller, bigger, stronger, and smarter than all the other kids' dads.  

He could drive 19 hours without stopping across the country to take us out to the family reunion and recite all fifty states (in alphabetical order, size order, or population order, take your pick) with their capitals.  

He could quote poetry he had memorized for over 2 hours without stopping.

He had over 200 scriptures memorized and could find you anything you wanted in the scriptures or tell you which apostle said it and what year he said it in.  

Sometimes I felt sorry for those other kids whose dads weren't actually the tallest, the smartest, and the strongest.

My dad used to say (when us kids were being crazy and wild or if we left his tools out laying around)

"Whaddo you think this is, a circus?"

Yes.  It was a circus.

 I've included this final quote because I think it's funny and I'm pretty sure my dad will think it's funny, too.

 ~Jimmy Piersal, on how to diaper a baby, 1968 

Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat.  Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound.  Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together.  Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again. 

Trophy Days

Twelve years ago, I was a brand new mother, sitting at church, with my new baby boy in my arms. Somebody said gloomily from the pulpit, "They don't give out trophies for being a mother."

I think the gist of what they meant was that being a mom and raising children right is important, even though the world doesn't recognize it as a prestigious job/occupation/career.

But as I sat there, I thought to myself, Maybe they don't hand out trophies, but there will be some "trophy days." The day my child turns 8 and is baptized a member of the church, that will be a trophy day. The day my son turns 12 and helps to pass the sacrament for the first time, that will be a trophy day.

I don't mean trophy in the sense that everyone would recognize my "achievements" and heap praise on me as the winner of something. But trophy in the sense that the happiness I would feel on those days would be like the happiness you feel when you finish a race and you feel that all that hard work and sweat and days of running in the rain and running in the heat were all worth it. Or when you receive highest marks on your piano solo at Music Festival and all those hours of practicing until your back ached and your fingers were too stiff to move are *nearly* forgotten/forgiven in the glow of those highest marks.

As I decided what days my trophy days would be, I admitted to myself that they would be few and far between--an allowance for that person who thought there weren't any trophies at all.





Now 12 years have passed. I am mother of not 1 but 6 children. I have a new baby. My little baby that was is now a 12 year old boy and will be ordained a deacon on Sunday. In another month a daughter will turn 8 and be baptized.

Those trophy days aren't few and far between at all.

And there have been many more trophy days that I never dreamed of twelve years ago.

Days of finding little scraps of wrinkled paper love notes on my pillow.

Days when a child comes home from school with a poem they had to write about the color brown, and they wrote about brown hair waving in the wind.

Days when I ask the kids to clean up and they actually do it without complaining or fighting.

Days when I'm sick and my 3 year old curls up in the bed next to me and pats my neck with her little hand because that is the best kind of comfort she knows how to give.

Days like last Sunday, when the DH was gone to guard drill and I had an early morning church meeting. I set breakfast on the table, woke up the children, and asked them to eat and dress themselves for church, promising to be back in one hour. When I returned home, they were dressed with shoes on and even hair brushed, ready to get in the van. (p.s. I did take the baby with me)


On Sunday, when I shared these thoughts, I said at the end, "Every day is a trophy day when you are a mom." That was just nerves, realizing I'd said what I'd thought and didn't know quite how to end and get away from the microphone... and maybe a bit of the emotion of the moment making me feel like that if I were a perfect human, I would find those trophy moments every day. I know that every day isn't a trophy day.
But they are there, generously sprinkled in, and they are what remind me to be happy when the struggle of life has made me forget.

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base. ~Dave Barry

This person took care of my 6 children while I went to the hospital fearing appendicitis.

When I came home without appendicitis, just a really bad kidney infection, she stayed and took care of me.

If everyone had a helper like Cegan, everyone would be overjoyed to be sick.

Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City

A little over a week ago, we took a family trip up to Kansas City, MO, to see our new temple. It was a lovely trip, the temple was beautiful, and the spirit we felt was wonderful.

I delayed posting about our trip because I didn't know what to say about how special it felt to be together with our children in that beautiful, beautiful House of God. I still don't know what to say. The only words which come to mind are these:

And no tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any man, ... and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time .....(3Nephi 17:17)

Only, if know that if you have been there, you do know that joy.

Golly! I love my family so much.

Family Home Evening

This is how I pictured it going:

It went more like this:

and this:

Sorry to our guest. I hope you still want to have kids someday.

DAD

Mothering aint for the faint of heart

Something I haven't told you about yet because it is one of those things that feels so shameful--even though my brain knows it can happen to anybody. We had our first go-round with head lice this past month.

The day after I got home from the hospital with Baby Dumpling, I discovered lice in one of the kiddie pie's hair. I had one moment of sinking feeling and then started issuing orders like a drill sergeant. The Man of the House was sent to purchase the highly expensive shampoo. The kiddies were sent to strip beds of bedding and the mudroom of all hats, coats, gloves, scarves, etc. I checked more heads. Even though I only found lice on one girl, I treated everyone including me. (we'll chalk that up to the freaking out, first-timer.)

While I treated heads, the Man of the House vacuumed the floors, the couches, and the now bare mattresses. Then I sent him out to vacuum the car. I considered how lucky I was to not be having to do all that vacuuming a mere 4 days after giving birth. I sent Blueberry Pie to bag up all the stuffed animals and dress-ups. These were banished to the balcony for 4 weeks. (it was just too much laundry to face.) I hoped freezing temperatures at night would help kill anything--though according to my research, just isolating them for 4 weeks ensured there would be nothing living.

Here is what I learned in case you are unlucky enough to have to deal with these nasty pests yourself:

1. You'll be afraid that you can't tell nits from dandruff-but it's easy, once you've seen one nit.

2. Dandruff shampoo is handy in reducing "clutter" so your eyes don't get distracted from the real hunt.

3. You really have to saturate their heads with that %$@# expensive shampoo, or you are wasting your time.

3.5 Coconut oil doesn't kill lice, and you'll have to use Dawn Dish soap to wash it out of the hair. But combing oil through hair catches more lice than combing water through hair does.

4. The only way to get rid of the lice is to comb through your child's hair every day for a week, searching for any eggs (nits) you may have missed. I would have her wash her hair. I combed through it 1" sections at a time. Then I used a hair dryer to dry it. The heat from the hair dryer is good, plus, the air blows the hair around in random ways that helped me find nits I had missed during combing.

When I didn't find any new eggs, four days in a row, I felt confident we had rid our home of vermin.

Two weeks later, a new infestation occurred.

More laundry

More vacuuming

More expensive shampoo. (Next time, I'm using kerosene, like my mom did on me years ago.)

It's not so much the housework that I mind, it's the feeling like everything is contaminated that bothers me.

And the way I'm suspicious of people who absentmindedly scratch their heads.

Baby Dumpling

It's love at first sight.

7 Brothers

These are my seven brothers. And my dad.

Aren't I lucky?

Trunk-or-Treating

Frost Princess
**A construct a costume from the dress-up bin costume! My favorite kind.

Lady Bug

**Borrowed from a friend kind of costume! My second favorite kind!

Lizzy Bennett
*I made the red bonnet yesterday in about a hour. It's a Butterick Pattern. The rest of the costume was found around the house. Yay.

Satyr Warrior (with hoodie)
**Re-using the goat legs I sewed for him last year, plus a $3 sword. Yay! love re-using costumes. I think he just really wanted a new toy sword and planned a costume that would require a weapon.

**Not Pictured: Cutie Pie who slept through the whole thing.**