Photographs

A picture is worth a thousand words?? That is exactly what I think when I see this. My baby is growing up and is turning into quite the little character. This fake smile pose is so typical of her now. It used to be that if I wanted to take her photo, she would hide her face. But now that she knows how a camera works, she is always making some forced smile, then begging to see herself. She is also becoming so independant. She insisted on standing-not sitting-on the hayride and she had to be up on top of the hay. The hayride was going SO slow so I didn't mind this time. But it seems like everything has been a battle lately, and oh my, the tears! Hormones are in place! When you open the door to the van now, you have to "get away" so she can get in all by herself. It's the little things like that. The quality of your whole day can be determined by one small decision. Now I see why the youngest children are sometimes so dang spoiled. I am too old to deal with drama! Speaking of drama, see the dress? She has to wear them all the time. Luckily I can get her to wear pants under. But she wants the "pretty" clothes.

This photo also represents fall, and change. We are all about change in our home right now, and I think the smile of her face is significant. To say the last half of 2012 has been sucky would be an understatement. SO much stress. But a good chunk of it is in the "change" mode. Robby has decided to come back home to be homeschooled. Now some people might wonder how bringing a child home to be homeschooled when you already work a TON is a GOOD thing? But I almost immediatly felt a ton of weight come off my shoulders. When he was at the local High School, it was such a battle. My eldest was always being influenced by the bad kids, by the temptations at this age. He was developing some not so wonderful habits and attitudes. Then there is the issue of him failing out. Robby just doesn't learn like most kids. So I found myself having to re-teach everyting he was doing. He would waste his time by going to school all day, then come home at night for hours and hours of homework. And in the end, he still had D's and F's. Stress, fighting, exhaustion. Poor Sofi gets so upset now if anyone else is upset, especially Robby. She is his biggst cheerleader.  So here we go into new adventures.

I have decided not to use a virtual school. While it worked when Robby was younger, I want to be in control. I feel like a virtual school is still a battlle. You still have to modify things. So I am looking forward to teaching my son the way I know he can learn. I know I am uptight enough that my son will get a stronger education then most kids. But at least I can push him in a way that doesn't make him snap. The friend issue should be a little bit easier now, he has seminary. He has YM. He can go to a homeschool group with other LDS teens on Thursday's. He can get involved in a Drama production (which I think he will be great at!) that is now not goinng to interfere with homework. Good wholesome kids to be around. Good leadership. I am excited! This should lead to a little "me" time too. I have no choice to slow down. The homeschoool group that meets weekly has a book club for moms. When I first heard, I thought, " I have no time for that." But it is what I need. I have given myself to everything else for so long, it is time for me to have some personal time. I need to learn how to relax.

I look ahead with the same cooky smile that Sofi has. I am excited for winter, for the holidays. I am excited for the new year. I have gotten used to hiding my face. Now I look foward to "seeing the picture" when we are done.

On The Market

Well, it has been a stressful month, but we did it. Our rental house is on the market. A couple weeks ago I woke up at 3 am to the spirit testifying to me that we needed to sell our other house. We have always wanted to keep it as an income property, but there was no doubt in that moment what we were supposed to do. So we are being obedient. We spent a lot of money updating the house, but feel good about the homes being sold in the area. Hopefully this will allow us to remove some past debts and to reduce the distractions in our life. Robb and I agree that we want two things: our kids and the practice. That is enough for us right now. We feel like there has been way too many things pulling our family in different directions, too much stress. So we are de-cluttering our lives. Refocusing on our family. But in order to do that, we had to be really stressed our for a couple weeks!

The kitchen really needed a major update. So we painted all the cabinets and added hardware. We also had beautiful hardwood floors put in, along with all new carpeting in the entire house.

The new kitchen sink! It is funny to think about all these fabulous purchases that we will never get to use!
I am so thankful for my wonderful husband who practically lived over there for two weeks trying to get all the doors, windows and moldings in the entire house painted white. It was a huge job. I am so looking forward to the simple actvities we used to do when we had time: going to the temple, doing genealogy, playing a game together as a family, talking the dogs for walks. I was really touched by General Conference this past weekend: most of the talks dealt with reducing distractions, focusing on the family. I know we have been spending so much time away, so much time in the car. What a blessing this is going to be in our lives!