Jonny teaches us very wise lessons sometimes. Here are a couple examples:
Dave had to give Jonny a little spank for sassing one day. Jonny was upset about it.
Jonny: Sorry means sorry! Say sorry.
Dave: I'm sorry.
Jonny: (immediately) It's okay.
It amazes me how quickly they forgive us for everything.
Later he gave Claire this lesson:
Jonny: Claire, you need to pologize to me.
Claire: I'm sorry.
Jonny: . . . now give me a hug.
Claire: There.
Jonny: Ok . . . now you can play with me again. I'm serious.
News
- Jane is doing GREAT in vision therapy. Her evaluation showed great progress, and she works so hard. We changed how we pay now, so it's easier to come up with the money each month. Such a huge relief. She's in the reading program at school now every day for half an hour and it seems to be helping a lot.
- Speaking of paying for vision therapy, January was rough for us financially. We decided that in order to revive our budget, we would have a no-spend month. We used our food storage instead of buying groceries, we kept the heat off whenever possible, we tried not to drive if we could help it, and we sold a bunch of stuff from our garage. It was just the boost we needed to get back on track! I think we'll do it every year. We also learned some valuable lessons about how good our food storage is (surprisingly good!) and I started paying better attention to what items we need to keep on hand in order to cook the most meals for the least amount of money. It was almost fun to see what I could concoct from the pantry each night, and we were surprised to have pretty good meals all month having only spent about $20 for groceries! We're all glad it's over, though. It felt downright luxurious buying graham crackers and butter again. Also, it was good for the kids to hear "no," that we were trying to save money that month. It opened up a lot of good discussion about money and priorities.
- Jonny is totally potty trained!! He almost never has accidents, day or night, and he takes himself every time he has to go! We are already looking forward to potty training Darcy, and we're almost excited about it! Four down, one more to go!
- I hosted book club this month. I was nervous about it, but it went so well. We read Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin, and everyone loved it. I highly recommend it!
- We now have church at 9:00. We thought it would be so hard to go from 1:00 to 9:00, but we love it. Darcy gets a nap, which means we all benefit from a nice stretch of quiet time after church. We don't have to get up any earlier than we do during the week, and the expanse of day left after church is over makes the weekend seem to last longer, too. I'm still teaching Gospel Doctrine, and Dave now teaches the 11-year-old boys in Primary. He told me that singing time is kind of awesome, and he loves it. :)
- We've had a lot of visitors this winter! Much more than usual because Dave and his dad have ski passes and try to go together when they can.
What up with me lately:
Besides painting, I've been into a lots of new things lately. I have started putting on my awesome bluetooth headphones that I got for Christmas in the evenings and just cleaning the house like crazy. I actually look forward to it! Not being tethered to a phone by a cord that's always in the way is so great. I originally got the headphones so I could do yoga with them in (also awesome), but the real pay off has been how clean the house has been lately!
I've also been using The 5-Minute Journal every day. It was a gift for Dave, but he has since passed it on to me. It's a little exercise that prompts me in the morning to write three things I'm thankful for , three things that would make the day great, and one affirmation. At the end of the day, I write three things that made the day awesome and one thing I could have done better. It doesn't take long to do it, and I've really loved looking back over what I've written down.
I'm still reading like crazy--I'm pretty certain that will never change. I recently read Parent Effectiveness Training, and it totally blew me away. Out of all the parenting books I've read, that one has got to be the best. I ordered a copy so that Dave and I can study it together and implement it's strategies. I am very optimistic that it'll help me kick my yelling habit. :S
And finally, I've put my other blog on hold for now. I realized that my blogging was taking away from my Learning Project an my reading, which was ultimately why I started the blog in the first place. It was such a great learning experience that I'm not sorry I started it, but I do feel more balance now that I've put it on the back burner for a while.
