Dear Self...

 

This girl does something really funny...she writes letters to herself.

She's been doing it for a while now. I think it is something that she started during the pandemic.

She is writing these letters to read when she is away at college...over 4 years from now!

It's really, really sweet though.  The envelopes say things like "open when you're sad and miss home", "open on your birthday", "open on October 10th", "open when you think  you've found 'the one'". ETC!

She has read some of them to me.  And I'm telling you it's so sweet. She encourages herself, reminds herself that we love her, and gives herself good advice.

With letters like these I don't think she even needs me really! Yet some of these letters end with "PS - Call Mom" and "PS - Call Granny".

Today, she turned to me and said, "Mom, I wrote you a letter....but I'll send it to you in 5 years."

Typical Scarlett.

Maybe you've got a girl in your life looking for a goal to apply herself to....this might be a good one...

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The Happiest Time of the Year: Coy's Birthday

 

As I catch up on more of the happy moments of 2020, I am reminded about what a perfect day we had on Coy's 3rd birthday!  What made it sweet, besides that fact that he is just the sweetest thing was that the big kids all joined in on the birthday party and made it fun.

On a normal year, this would be a normal thing, but this was not a normal year for our family (as it is always touch and go with our oldest son and to be honest it was that day as well). So a smooth and happy celebration of our boy was appreciated by us, the parents!

We decided to make Coy's birthday like a friend-party, with party hats and musical chairs.  My older kids got into it, and before long there was even a conga line going...lead by Guy!  The little kids were thrilled, and it more than made up for not being able to have any friends over.

Coy got his traditional Cookie Monster cake, which all of the kids have had....and breakfast in bed, which is a highlight...and lots of love and snuggles and attention from us, which can be the best gift in such a busy/big family.

I am so grateful that God gifted us with Coy.  He brings us joy and helps us to feel light, even as life is heavy, and I'm so grateful for that.

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Fall Flower Show at Phipps

One of the best decisions we made last year was to get a membership to more of the local museums.  

I ended up getting a membership to the Phipp's Conservatory in Pittsburgh mainly because we wanted to attend their winter lights display and a membership cost as much as one visit for our family, but boy has this membership brought me a lot of joy and a chance to feel peace as we've toured many flower and plant shows during the quarantine time of 2020.

Since I have quite the hankering for Spring lately, I thought I'd share photos from my favorite show, the Fall Mum Show.

What I love about going to Phipps is watching my children falling in love with the flowers and telling me everything that they like about each room and each bud.

I love this room, because it's always so romantically beautiful, no matter the season, but the fact that they did it up in these pastels was really interesting to see in the Fall. It was so refreshing.

And these specialty mums are so gigantic. In person, they are really stunning.

I just love exploring God's beautiful creations with my kids and to do so during a time when it was difficult to go anywhere due to COVID, was truly a blessing.  I hope these photos bring a smile to your face as it did to me looking at them again!  Have a good one!

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Hopeful Journals

To help us have a good perspective on life during quarantine and during all the turmoil our son brings us, we started doing hopeful journals.

Right before family scripture study, we write down three things were each hopeful about that day or three things that bring us hope.

So far, it has really helped lighten our hearts and brought us joy!

Give it a try!

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To Follow a Prompting

Around the beginning of this year, I kept having this nagging feeling that I needed to get off of social media, which was sort of sad for me, because I enjoy connecting with friends and former co-workers through Facebook, and I also enjoy sharing about our faith and family online and I receive a lot of positive feedback about the things that I share.

Yes, that feeling kept coming back to me time and again.  I needed to let it go.

So this week, I finally took the plunge.  I removed the Facebook app off of my phone.  And contrary to what I thought would happen, it was really quite enjoyable: not being interrupted every few minutes by notifications, not scrolling mindlessly through mildly funny or mildly questionable material of little importance to my day, not thinking so many thoughts that weren't mine, and not filling my head with details not pertinent to caring for my family.

I was nervous to do it because as the Mom of six children, I am the communication hub of the family.  I need to know when school is closed or delayed due to weather. I need to communicate with other Moms about rides or playdates or things happening at school, and having recently relocated, we we are all still developing new friendships, etc.

Eventhough it did scare me a little, I took the leap of faith in following this prompting, and what resulted was more peace in my life this week, more time to look into my children's eyes and hold them and talk to them and play with them and care for them and consider their needs, and make memories with them, more conversations with my husband and time for personal and couples study.

I don't know where this is leading, but I do know that God knows my personal goals for this year. And I believe this is His answer and His way of helping guide me down a path where I can actually find time to realize those righteous desires.  

It is comforting to know that there is a Father in Heaven watching out for me and for you and for all busy parents out there trying to decide how to best live their lives.

Have you taken a leap of faith to follow a prompting recently? I'd love to hear about your experience!

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Teaching Principles

This little boy turned three months old yesterday!  Can you believe it?  I can and I can't.  Time is a strange thing!  Coy Boone is doing great!  He is a lot of fun, happy, and healthy.  We spend most of our time together and have a lot of sweet moments.

My other boys Val (22 months) & Guy (age 12) are still totally in love with each other and the new baby.  I'm excited for them and happy that Guy finally has a boy crew to run with, despite a major gap in age!  

It's certainly been a huge learning curve to figure out how to parent a young man now.  It always seems to take time to adjust to new stages of life, and I'm still not sure what surprises he's going to throw our way from day to day, but I'm grateful to know that the Lord knows our kids even better than we do, and I know He's there to help when I don't know how to approach things.

This was proven again to me this week when I had a situation that needed to be addressed.  I wasn't sure what to say or do, and I was pretty sure I didn't have the answer within me, so I prayed for help.

As I did so, the answer came that I needed to teach principles (as opposed to simply reiterating policies) and that that would be the best approach for all of the children.

Last week, in my FHE report, I talked about how Family Home Evening has been such a powerful tool for our family in uniting us.  This week FHE, while not being quite as light-hearted, was definitely useful as we learned principles that if applied will help our children grow in character and their understanding of Jesus Christ's Atonement at work in our lives.

I know that by taking my questions to the Lord, He was able to help me respond with wisdom and love and to help my children use their agency to grow, mature, and change for the better, as we all must do in this life.

Oh, parenthood!  You are such a mixed bag!  But I am learning as I go!  I am sure that you are too!

Ok, one last order of business!  

I have a post up at Power of Moms' blog this week.  If you have a moment, please drop me a comment over on my post called "Total Eclipse of the Fun."  They do a great job of creating a positive conversation about Motherhood, and I'm sure my readers would have a lot of great things to add to that conversation, so go check it out!

Now, bring on February!

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