Monthly Archives: June 2016

Curve Ball

Two years ago God threw us a curve ball. We had a senior in high school, a sophomore in high school and an almost 10-year-old when we found out we were expecting our 4th child.

To say the least I was shocked. When the doctor gave me the news I cried. I was excited and elated that there was a life growing inside of me but a little crushed because it meant we’d be starting all over again. Life as we knew it was about to change. We were to become parents again. At my age of 43 the medical field calls it advance maternal age.

The shock eventually wore off. Due to medical concerns, the pregnancy was tough and a bit stressful at times but life began to brighten as we began to see our daughter grow and develop via ultrasounds.

Slowly the colors of pink and lavender began to inundate our home. We were finally blessed with the arrival of our first daughter, Jillian, in May of last year.

Having a little girl with 3 older boys has surely been interesting! The boys simply adore her but the boy adventures must simply go on.

Since the birth of our daughter many great things have happen. Our eldest graduated from high school. He earned his Eagle Scout through the Boy Scouts and is now a student at Pacific Lutheran University.

Our second eldest is now the Senior Drum Major in his high school band and is very active in his Boy Scout troop. He is currently working on his Eagle project.

Our youngest son has graduated from Cub Scouts and is now in the Boy Scout Troop. He is also learning to play the trumpet like his oldest brother. (It gets loud in this house.) He’ll be going to middle school in the fall.

It has been a very crazy year for our family. Jillian’s walking…ummm running now. It’ll be fun to see what kind of things she’ll be interested in as she gets older.

In all the craziness, our house at the moment has taken a back burner. This blog will be a great tool for me to help get things back on track.

Time to Cut the Cord

As I was washing dishes earlier today a thought came to mind. I remember growing up in Hawaii calling older acquaintances auntie or uncle, regardless whether there was any relation at all.

Moving from Hawaii to Washington was extremely difficult for me. I missed home and the weather was such a contrast to what I was used to. The friendships I made early on was my saving grace. The wives of the department my husband worked for in the Navy were some of the greatest of friendships I will ever make in my lifetime. We were all so very supportive of each other and during our husbands’ long deployments, our gatherings are what kept me sane.

During these years our families grew very close. Our sons called most of our friends Auntie (first name) or Uncle (first name). Till this day these very close friends hold their titles with our boys. It was a great comfort to have this tradition with them. Especially since I missed home so much.

In a conversation with our son a few days ago, he commented about helping our dear friend Cassy to rebuild a shed. When he mentioned her name, there was no Miss Cassy or Mrs. (last name). Most of you will probably think it’s strange for me to notice something so trivial. Often children will call me just by my first name and I don’t think anything of it but we’ve always taught our boys to refer to our friends as Mr. or Miss (first name) or Auntie or Uncle (first name).

I guess since our son is an adult I can’t hold it against him. He’s almost 19. It’s just odd, after all these years, to hear him not using prefix references for our friends.

What are some of the pet peeves you have about the changes in your adult children?

Effective Lists

Having an organized and clean house has always been a challenge for me. I was always great about making lists but not very good about using them. Lately I been trying a new attempt at list making. I first came across the idea of bullet journaling through Pinterest.com. I’ve just been using a plain ruled composition book for my daily lists but a bullet journal would work so much better. I just ordered one through Amazon.com.

So far my little fancy composition lists have been working. Plus it’s really nice to add little notes here and there about my day in my book. I’ve never really been one to journal so this is perfect.

Trying to motivate teenagers and a pre-teen is a chore in itself. I’ve been experimenting with “journaling” and jazzing up our childrens’ to-do lists. Above is today’s list for our 11-year-old. He got through most of the list. I think this works great for him.

Having a jazzy list for our 17-year-old is a completely different story. I’m sure there’s a lot more running through his mind than our 11-year-old. We’ll try it out for a few weeks to see if his motivation changes.

Do you organize your days with lists? What kind of lists work best for you and your family?

Here are a few links to a few blogs I found very helpful.

To-Do lijstjes die echt werken: Mijn Bullet Journal

http://www.bohoberry.com/craft-a-better-to-do-list/