SNOW DAY

It snowed....and stuck! So much fun! I had to take the boys out of school to play.

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Update

My friend EJ reminded me that I hadn't blogged about the recent events in our lives. It was a crazy insane weekend. I left at 6am Friday morning and drove to Houston by myself. Leaving my girls with my dear friend Jessica, as the boys were off to school. I met up with another photographer, Angie, and assisted her on a day full of photography sessions. She is someone whose work I admire, and I wanted to see what I could learn from her. She took me to lunch and we chatted all things photography. It was great. I left Houston at 3:30 and got home at 6:30pm. I listened to podcasts, the radio, made a long distance call, and didn't get sleep--yay! I usually have a really hard time driving, so I am glad all went well.

I met Angie in the warehouse district in downtown Houston. I got to the meeting spot before her and grew slightly concerned as I drove a block down the road and saw a gathering of about 100 homeless individuals lining up for their morning breakfast. A block in the other direction had apartments and small businesses, so I felt better after seeing people. Angie was really nice and after about 15 minutes of chatting, the first group of people came to be photographed.

What was funny is I had noticed her blog a few months ago mostly because besides photography, she sells template designs to photographers. So she is quite known among photographers because of this. I was pretty impressed that she can live out of state, post on her blog that she would be in Houston a certain weekend, and get her sessions all booked up. Wow, that must mean she has lots of blog readers out of her area. Well, come to find out, all the sessions she booked were of admiring photographers who idolized her work. And I truly mean idolized. I was shocked to see how these ladies were around her. One even explained to her daughter..."You know how much you love Miley Cyrus and would love to meet her? Well, thats how mommy feels about meeting Ms. Angie." Wow, I thought. This is serious. I mean, I appreciate her work, but I wouldn't have put her in my top 5. But I did make an effort to come shadow her for the day, but I would have done that for 25 other photographers, too. Anyway, it was interesting.

{All people I met that day--don't we look so chummy? Angie, Mark is holding the camera, he and his wife (next to him) photograph weddings in Louisiana and he is kindof a big deal, so I realized after. He was interviewed on GMA a year or so ago. It was their daughter Angie photographed. Tristian in pink is a hairpiece designer that Mark uses--came out for 10 min at the end of their shoot.}

I helped get the kids to smile, held reflectors, talked to mom so Angie could get the kids alone (and mom to stop nagging them to smile so cheesy) I totally get it, so it was fun to help in that way and watch instead of be in the hot spot. And to spend the day chatting and doing photography is my kind of fun.

Angie insisted on buying my lunch, and we met up with her husband who was at a helicopter conference. He was nice. She shared her post processing secrets on what she does to her images, and I made mental notes, but can't seem to remember each detail now that I sit in front of photoshop. We talked about her struggle to be the breadwinner with photography, and I'm so grateful I don't have to do that. It would be so hard to depend on that. We both did darkroom printing back in the day and have similar photography journeys. We discussed how we both struggled in figuring out digital and manual settings long before you could just google how to do it. Also how we dropped majoring in photography in college because our professors wanted artisitc landscape shots when all we wanted to do was "shoot" people.

So I left Houston, got home at 6:30pm--cuddled my kids and nursed my baby (she had some goats milk while I was gone) and at 7:30 headed out again to our Stake Relief Society Conference. My friend, Michael, was catering the event, and had asked me to photograph the food and such.

When I chatted with friends after (9pm) I felt like I was going to fall over, I was so tired. I fell into bed and the next morning did a bit more photographing the lunch she organized.

Came home. Michael went on bike ride. He came home, and tag I was out again. Had a long planned photo session. Came home, and we went out to eat with 2 other couples. Came home. Fell into bed.

Oh yeah...while I was driving to Houston on Friday morning, our realtor called and said that our offer was finally accepted after 2 weeks of negotiations, so we officially have a contract to sell our home. 2 weeks ago this offer came in 10K below our asking and them wanting to pay all their closing costs (approx 6k). We found out then that they first came 6 weeks before (around New Years Day) and made the offer 6 weeks later without even a second walk through. Weird.

So then they wanted a second walkthrough (when we countered quite a bit up) and I went to my across the street neighbors to spy on them. I even took a few pictures. I'm so sneaky. (not on computer yet...don't feel like loading it now).

We ended up agreeing to a sale price about 3k below our asking (not too bad) but are paying their closing costs, which adds up (about 5k). BUT, we are closing March 29th and renting back from them until May 10th when our new home should be done! Yay! That is VERY happy. Now I'm just having the adjustment time, I will miss this cute little home. I love it so much. But as we are watching our new one take shape, the excitement is coming more and more. This dragging on is sortof annoying, yet I think good in the long run. It will be good. It will be great!

Sunday was ward conference. I subbed as the primary chorister and Michael was gone for several hours after church with the stake presidency doing visits. Home relaxing for a bit, then we went to dinner with our friends the Wilkinsons in Cedar Park. They are one of our favorite families to hang out with. The men relate so well, the women relate well, the kids love each other, win/win/win all around. We just have to plan ahead to get together because otherwise it will go a long time before seeing each other.

She made the yummiest rolls and helped me realize the depressing fact that while walking for exercise, I only burn about 7 calories a minute. 7 a minute???? No pics yesterday, but here is a funny shot from when they came to dinner at our home last month. Rustin got sprayed in the face with our fridge water dispenser.

Once home and the kids were in bed, Michael and I read, printed, and signed the contract for our home. He then chatted with his brother plotting our drive to Utah next month. Never done it with kids...any suggestions on routes? I want to avoid Wyoming, but I don't get all the say in it.

Family Goals and Traditions

I've been wanting to post about a few new traditions we have started in our family. I have a few books that talk about the importance of traditions, helping families be connected to each other. I think it is so important, so I am always trying to come up with new things. Traditions around holidays are staples, but I am talking about traditions in the day to day. Week to week. I'm going to throw in some pics I took the other day, of our family just hanging out at home.

(I could have cropped this closer on the right, but I love how her little bum sticks out)
One we already do pretty well is our Monday Family Home Evenings. Our kids when they are VIP's at church, often say that their favorite thing to do with the family is family home evening. I find this fascinating b/c we do A LOT together as a family. We play games together many week nights, weekends are mostly just us. But I think the sitting together as a family, and inviting the spirit really helps them feel a closeness to each other, and for that I am grateful our church has encouraged it for 100 years. A recent general conference talk from Elder Bednar says that what is most important is that you have it regularly, not necessarily what it is about.
(Going over the new job chart)

Here is a quote I love:

Sometimes Sister Bednar and I wondered if our efforts to do these spiritually essential things were worthwhile. Now and then verses of scripture were read amid outbursts such as “He’s touching me!” “Make him stop looking at me!” “Mom, he’s breathing my air!” Sincere prayers occasionally were interrupted with giggling and poking. And with active, rambunctious boys, family home evening lessons did not always produce high levels of edification. At times Sister Bednar and I were exasperated because the righteous habits we worked so hard to foster did not seem to yield immediately the spiritual results we wanted and expected.

Today if you could ask our adult sons what they remember about family prayer, scripture study, and family home evening, I believe I know how they would answer. They likely would not identify a particular prayer or a specific instance of scripture study or an especially meaningful family home evening lesson as the defining moment in their spiritual development. What they would say they remember is that as a family we were consistent.

Consistancy is key!

We also attended a fireside tonight by the Stake Presidency specifically for parents of Primary aged children (3-12). It was centered around using the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet and teaching our children while they are young the standards so that when they are teenagers, it isn't new information. It is already instilled in them. They mentioned a few things that I have long wanted to do and have tried a little to do, but now have a deeper resolve to do. Centered around family traditions and consistancy.

They are:
-memorize a scripture a year as a family
-Have a family motto or theme that you repeat at least each family home evening
-pray morning and evening as a family (we have the evenig prayer down, morning is harder)
-read scriptures each evening (we already do this, and I am grateful Michael got this daily tradition rolling for our family)

We are going to do something with the motto around our last name, a sort of fun chant/dance, being silly and serious at the same time. Any suggestions???
The Dukes are:
D-
U-unified
K-
E-

That's all I've come up with so far.
(I have to add that Michael just got home from cycling...he even has gloves on, it was THAT cold).
I also have loved the idea of memorizing scriptures, because it has been so great for me as an adult to have had some scritpures memorized in my youth. NOW is the golden time/age for my kids. I wanted to do one a month, but Michael was overwhelmed with this, so one a year is good (but oh, to narrow it down) and it will become deeper seeded into them.

Now to share 2 things that my friend Emily shared with me, then blogged about (and Em, I could not find the post on it, link me up) that my kids have LOVED!

First in Nacho Sunday. We have a little tune we like to sing when we really like something, and nacho Sunday was lucky enough to be connected to that tune. We sing it on the way home from church now. I just have to rememer to have chips each Sunday. It's just our easy lunch after church. Chips with cheese for the kids, a little salso and sour cream for Michael and I. I love it. There, tradition made. We've done it for a few months now pretty consistantly. The kids get excited about nachos, I get excited to not have to think of making food for my starving kids running in the door from 3 hour church.
(click to enlarge)
Another cool tip from Em is Rose, Bud, and Thorn. She explains this well on her blog, but you'll have to watch for her comment with the link (it was a while ago). It is our nightly dinnertime discussion. I wasn't sure how the boys would accept it, being that it is centered around flowers. I joked with Michael that maybe we could call it Earth, Wind, and Fire, but the kids seem to like the gardening analagy. We even sometimes add seed, grass, dirt, etc.

Rose--Something good that happened today
Bud--something you are looking forward to tomorrow
Thorn--something sad that happened today
We also added
Seed--seed of kindness, what service did you do for someone today

It doesn't have to be complicated, and it often leads to further discussion. It doesn't have to be something that happened to them, but maybe that they observed (so and so got sent to the principle's office).

I was shocked that every day for weeks, they were so excited to sit down at the table to discuss (Alyssa even wanted to do it several times during the day, just the 2 of us). Mostly excited to share what they each had to say. We go in order depending on who prays (we rotate our prayers oldest to youngest from day to day). If you pray you share first and it goes through. Michael and I even share, and I think it is good for the kids to hear the good and the not so exciting things that we do during the day as well. We decided service was something we really want to emphasize in our family, and for them to think about it daily whether it be smiling at someone or helping at home, important to pinpoint and share.

More than anything, I want to create a family who loves each other and loves other people. A family that wants to be together. A family that has fun together, but also feels the spirit together as we work towards the common goal of being an eternal family. I want my children to know that when the world is a scary place, our family, our home is a safe haven. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the task. But I do believe creating and fostering fun and spiritual traditions in the home can build that foundation for them.

(LOVE that tongue!)

It even says so in the proclamation on the family:

“Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when
founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Successful marriages and families are established and maintained
on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness,
respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational
activities” (“The Family: A Proclamation to the World”).

Share if you have something that works for you...