leads to staying up late when you’re really tired to put up blueberries:

which leads to the best husband in the world googling “homemade blueberry muffins” and getting up with the littlest girl to make them and delivering breakfast in bed…

how wonderful! i can’t even describe to you the crumbly top. so, if the mountains and the snow and the wildlife and the wildflowers aren’t enough to get you here…. how bout’ fresh blueberry muffins made from scratch with a nice crunchy crumbly top? book your flights now! we’re going back today for more hunting and gathering for winter!

it’s official—we have entered the wide world of full-blown school going. is she not the most adorable girl you’ve ever seen? i get teary eyed just looking at her pictures, which i’ve done numerous times each day.

dropping abby off for her first day of kindergarten was such a huge milestone. thank goodness lilly and i kept busy, thank goodness. it was a tad difficult. and weird. and happy and proud and emotional. what i didn’t count on was that abby would be like, “see ya, mom!” and off to do her coloring without a second glance BUT lilly would be hanging onto her for dear life with her lip poked out far enough to reach the little boy sitting next to her. it was pitiful, ya’ll, just pitiful. it did keep me occupied with something other than snotting and blubbering all over abby’s table or something. i didn’t want to be the mom they kicked out on the first day…

abby liked school (of course) but i was a little surprised that she had left her hershey kiss treat in her lunch box. i asked her why and she told me that she wasn’t sure she was allowed to eat it and that she didn’t want to get a “pause” (timeout) which would result in the absence of a happy stamp on her calendar for the day. did i mention that the girl is a rule follower, bless her heart? i assured her that eating her hershey kiss from her mom that was in her lunchbox would not get her in trouble and all was good.

all in all it was a fun day of rule following and learning the routines and how you’re not supposed to eat peaches that fall on the table because they use super germ killing cleaner at school and it might make you sick. that was the most detail outta my girl. she talks on her own terms! and then she fell asleep as soon as her sweet little head hit the pillow at 8 pm. and woke at 6:30 rearing to go do it all again.

she loves her teacher and said last night, “mom, you were right about ONE thing. ms. johanson is the perfect teacher for me!” i’m proud as punch of our big gril! and today was easier…

ps-glad she recognizes that i’m right, even if only about ONE thing!

another thing i loved about this book is that it gave practical tips for each parenting style paired with each child style. take for example, the interactive parenting style and the conscientious child. it gives a page of really specific information for each pairing. in this case, one of the strengths are that the child can learn to not take things so seriously and have some fun. the adult can learn to think things through more analytically. one of the struggles is that “because you are so verbal, you may miss the child’s more indirect way of sharing concerns.” and then there’s a list of strategies, like “Don’t expect him to be a risk taker. Accept his cautious nature.”

another cool thing is that the author highlights aspects of God that demonstrate each of the behavioral/parenting styles. Here’s one: “No passage of scripture pictures God as a supportive parent more than Ps. 23. This familiar Psalm expresses the calm and peaceful relationship that God leads us into.”

I found each of the many ideas helpful and thought provoking. and I like that it’s stuff that can be put into practice immediately. you don’t have a twelve step training or anything. It’s fun to read, great practical advice for parenting.

overall, i give this parenting manual an A. job well done, Mr. Boyd!

then this morning i heard him say, “please don’t hug roni’s bo bo (butt at our house)!”

and lastly…. today i went to a meeting at church about MOPS. abby went with me. lilly did errands with mike. we have started dividing and conquering more lately. anyway, abby behaved very well so later today i said, “i really appreciate how good you were at the meeting this morning. you really behaved well and i am so proud of you.”  she responded, “yeah, i was planning on being good, but i was better than i even meant to be, momma!”

i think she will love school. i knew when she was 18 months old telling me “mom, that little boy is eating a goldfish off the floor, and that is not the right thing to do” that i had a little rule follower on my hands. she was cut out for school, and has been since, well, since before time. and i’m excited for this new adventure! we’ve both mellowed a little over the years, hopefully.

just pray that i don’t slobber and glubber, and snot all over her table on the first day or something so that her teacher opens that brand new box of kleenex we just turned in…and that she will let the teacher be the teacher and not take on that responsibility yet! oh, the fate.

but boy, when i first started reading Different Children, Different Needs by Charles F. Boyd, i had trouble sleeping. see, i’ve always been a little too much on the self-analytical side. so give me a book about human psyche and personality and i’m on the thought train. the train that doesn’t know when it’s time to pull into the station for a rest.

this book is incredible! it’s a parenting book based on Boyd’s desire to carry out proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he won’t stray from it.” He pointed out that most people believe this means the typical teaching right and wrong. And while moral training and character training are important he taught me the true meaning and inspiration of the verse. the following is how Boyd says it:

The correct interpertation of Proverbs 22:6 has a radically different meaning. The phrase “in the way he should go” does not refer to some prescribed path that every person should follow. In the Hebrew language, the phrase is better rendered, “according to his way.” And the Hebrew word for way is derek, which literally means “bent” and refers to a unique inner design or direction. Therefore, a more accurate rendering of this verse would be:

Adapt the training of your child so that it is in keeping with his natural design; when he comes to maturity, he will not depart from that pattern of life.

Can we just give a collective sigh of relief? I’ve spent many hours of my life contemplating who God made me to be. I’ve wanted to change my personality many times, I’ve struggled with being too serious, too bossy, too critical, too judgemental, laughing too much, worrying too much, too (you get the idea, the list could go on forever) and while most of that needs to be filtered through the Spirit, my personality isn’t the problem. God designed each of us. The same hands that carved out the mountains and sand, the ocean and and prairie designed each human being in a special way, quirks and all.

The book is a huge relief to me- the part of me that has taken so much responsibility for “how my kids turn out” that I sometimes forget to just enjoy them as God created them. after all, they’re to be a reflection of Him, not myself. what an epiphany moment for me…

I have so much more to say about this book but will stop for now for brevity’s sake. More to follow but I leave you with this quote from the book.

If you want to have a meaningful relationship with your children, you must understand who they are as God designed them. You must lay aside what you want your children to become and spend time getting to know who they already are.

ps. maybe i will fall asleep more quickly tonight now that i’ve gotten some of this out and made a list of what else to blog about. so type a, i am.

we had a blast. it was my first beach experience wearing polar fleece, but i will take it. any day. our friends sarah and paulo went, too, and their cute boys. and we hung out at her aunt and uncle’s house down there some. it was great to feel like part of the family.

then tonight was the icing on the cake. we braved cooking up some homemade fried clam strips. boy, were they tasty. we’re spoiled. fresh clam, a trip to the alaskan beach, kids and grownups having pure fun, surrounded by gorgeous scenery. so thankful!

i had too many pics to put in the post. click on the little flickr sqaures below to see more and see our friends!

I called the place beside Lowes (insert name of place??? Or something
similar). I asked their boarding price and the guy immediately told me
that they are not your typical dog boarding facility. He said the
overnight dogs have a “SUITE complete c HDTV and a webcam so we can
watch them at anytime.” They go into circulation during the day and
play with other dogs. He said they are always attended by humans and have
“structured activities” (this is for the dog not one of our girls,
right?). He also said they will keep them on our schedule as far as
sleep, eat, bathroom and that a person is attending them 24/7 unless
that person goes to get something like a burger or pizza. So after all
of this he said they charge 40 per night and give a break with 5+ days
in a row.

So I booked a suite for Ronnie and a friend (do we have any friends with
dogs or we could just get the neighbor dog that she visits all the time)
as I would hate for her to not have someone to share her suite with HDTV
and webcam with.

Love you

Mike

did i mention that our own room in the people hotel is barely $40 a night?

]]> http://www.halftiedribbons.com/blog/2008/07/31/doggie-day-camp/feed/ http://www.halftiedribbons.com/blog/2008/07/29/link-up/ http://www.halftiedribbons.com/blog/2008/07/29/link-up/#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:24:41 +0000 Kristy http://www.halftiedribbons.com/?p=419 thought i would share some of the online stuff i’ve been interested in lately:

i thought this was a cute idea. a swim coverup made from a terry towel.

there’s a resurgence of embroidery and all sorts of cute stuff. these designs i liked.

i am loving reading this lady’s blog. she just has a way of making everything involving mothering her young daughter funny.

this helps me manage all the blogs i read.

the prettiest fabrics and coolest patterns and stuff for sewing/knitting are found here…

again, i love this lady’s writing style and have always had secret dreams of life on a ranch…in montana. maybe someday…although i think she writes from texas.

i want to make these to keep up with my girlies’ artwork creations…for now abby uses repositionable scotch tape and puts drawings all over the house. she’s like her momma, that girl, sees a blank space and fills it.

this is a cool way to recycle a bicycle tire.

and these candlesticks are interesting, and would definitely help with a burglar issue.

leave a comment with your favorite blog or site. happy surfing.

in other news: lilly announced last night at 12:30 that she didn’t want her pappi anymore. i was up reading in the LR just outside their door and was just about to stand up and turn out the light when i heard her, standing in her room, saying, “i waaaantttttt watttteeeee, mommmiiiiieeeee!” in an effort to not wake up abby or disturb mike’s nausea i ran in and in a hushed voice said, “you want water, ok. here’s some water. let mommy lay beside you. it’s night night. time to sleep.” (even thought it’s light up outside) but no, it was not in the cards to just go to sleep. she was a happy child, but a very wake child, i tell ya! i wanted to scream. why is it that when we’re so tired, they’re so wired? i’ll never know. just a test of the will i suppose. oh, we talked, we laughed. i tried to remain calm and peaceful and nicely say, “yep, that’s your backpack over there. we’ll put stuff in it tomorrow, after we’ve slept awhile.yep, you’re right, that is your kitchen, yep, that’s your abby’s cup!” she did name most everything in her room, which made me feel better about her speech, which i’ve been concerned about. but still, after midnight? give a mom a break….me and sleep deprivation just aren’t a good mix.

we’d talked about giving her pappi (paci) to baby Levi, a friend of ours. he’s about 5 months old and adorable with a capital A. both the girls just love him. i think it was friday that i mentioned it. you know, it went something like this: “lilly, you’re a big girl now. you use the potty now and everything (well, mostly). and big girls and boys don’t have pappis. see, momma doesn’t need a pappi, daddy doesn’t need a pappi, abby doesn’t need a pappi.” you get the idea. ” maybe we could give your pappis to baby Levi. YEAH, wow, he would LOVE your pappis, especially the blue one.” and she’d nod, but no action followed. on her part or mine.

then after talking for a long time, and i do mean long, about other stuff last night, totally out of the blue, she says, “momma, i give this pappi to e-vi tomorrow. I no need it. i big girl.” i was like, “yes, hallelujah, gee, that was easy. man, i must be the best mom ever.” (all mentally, of course). but it lasted all of about 10 minutes. she finally popped it in and went to sleep.

BUT, she’s not playing with it in her mouth today. more to follow on the saga…i’m seriously afraid she will want to take it to kindergarten… and i have seen it before, so don’t tell me it doesn’t happen.