My Mommy Mission Statement

To create an atmosphere of laughter, learning and love in a clean home.
To encourage our family to live a healthy lifestyle. To value exercise as a fun part of life not as a chore. A cookie is a treat, not a snack, and one is enough. A bowl of ice cream should be small in order to really be enjoyed and savored. And to come to the conclusion eventually that the real treat is the apple.
To teach my children the benefits of hard work. Play hard, but work harder. Pull weeds. Fold laundry. Rinse dishes. Wipe off the toothpaste spit from the sink. Dust occasionally. Practice the piano.
To appreciate the sticky face, sticky table and sticky kitchen floor (and any other randomly sticky thing) and remember that the time is slipping by. The minutes and hours will continue to pass on. And remember someday I will miss all the sticky messes. Appreciate the sticky.
To behave my age. When my 11 year old is hitting like a 5 year old, and my 9 year old is calling someone a dumb dumb head, and my 4 year old accidentally pees her pants on the stairs, I will not have a 2 year old temper tantrum. I will act my age.
To allow my children to live their lives...not through a video game or a cartoon character, but through their own wonderful bodies. To see, smell, taste, hear and touch life everyday. By planting and picking flowers. By walking barefoot in the dirt. By picking berries then making something delicious. By watching birds with interest. By taking chances on new experiences and believing they will succeed. I will not allow them to waste their precious minds or bodies sitting slumped over on the couch with only their fingers feverishly twitching. Live. Live. Live.
To help them come closer to our Savior Jesus Christ by developing a testimony of the Atonement and a love for the scriptures.
To have an organized home; a house of order and peace. A home that is comfortable and clean. To delegate responsibility to my children so they learn how to "keep house" and so I don't have to do it all. I accept that this is a lifelong work in progress and will never be "done".
To give my children a happy childhood. So years from now, when they look back and recall their childhood, they will have warm memories of building a clubhouse together, making smores over the kitchen stove and going on treasure hunts. I hope to give them what I received; a happy childhood.

To create, encourage, value, teach, appreciate, behave, allow, help, have, delegate and give.

Emma and Eliza

I have been reading the biographies of Emma Smith and Eliza R. Snow. My father -in- law gave them to me for Christmas and said that these biographies were the most well done and accurate. I have enjoyed learning about these amazing women so much. I finished Emma a month or so ago and I'm almost done reading Eliza. I can't imagine enduring what these great LDS women endured. What strength. I don't have much spare time to read during the day, so I just read a few pages every night before bed. Last night I read a particularly funny paragraph I thought I'd share. Apparently Eliza was concerned about the young women of the church dressing immodestly...

This statement was given by one of Brigham Young's daughters Clarissa, "...but there came a time when Father called all of the girls into the parlor and announced that they were becoming entirely too adept in following the fashions of 'the world' and that he would like them to modify their manner of dress. Flounces were to be curtailed, bangs were no longer to be frizzed, bustles were to be subdued; in fact, they were to retrench in all the vanities and frivolities of the world and set an example for the rest of the daughters of Zion to follow."

I am just imagining this scene with all Brigham Young's daughters (the oldest 10 were referred to as the Big Ten, because I guess they were pretty hot and sought after by many young men...hmmm.) I imagine them gathered around with tight dresses and frizzed bangs. I was laughing out loud in my bed. Heaven forbid frizzy bangs! Amen Brother Brigham.