A New Beginning

Well, we have made it to Phoenix safe and sound. We are all settled in with the Edgell's. I must say, it is quite a culture and temperature shock coming from Seattle (and our 2 week Christmas in Rockford). Everything is taking a little getting used to. Kaija and Lili (age 5 and the one pulling the wagon) our sharing a room and insist on calling each other "sisters". Finley is now walking too! I think she must like the squishy carpet on the floors and is trying to keep up with the big kids. On Sunday we of course, watched the Cardinals game and we have already been multiple times to their neighborhood park. Ben is still waiting on word from his job position so we are still playing the waiting game. We are hopeful!

The Little Mermaid

This year, I dont know what came over me.... but i decided to sew. Here are a couple of pictures of the mermaid costume. I was just determined to do it and did it all by hand. As you can probably tell by the stitches and the askew shell bra:)

Children with Parents Who Work

by Kyanna Sutton

For the first time, someone has asked American kids what they think about working parents. Ellen Galinsky is author of Ask the Children: What America's Children Really Think about Working Parents.

She says parents are always trying to BALANCE which implies if you are giving to one side then you are taking away from the other. She says, "I think "navigating" is a better word for several reasons. Navigating implies that we know we're always in process .. With navigating, there can be good weather and stormy weather, just like parenting.

It's by dealing with the stormy times effectively that we're making the most important contributions as parents (such as teaching our children how to deal with their siblings without warfare). And with navigating, if we know where we want to go, we're more likely to get there." Such a wonderful way of re-wording and way to re-think parenting in general.

The Eight Critical Parenting Skills in survey of children when asked to grade mothers and fathers (from Newsweek 1999)

1. Making the child feel important and loved
   2. Responding to the child's cues and clues
   3. Accepting the child for who he or she is, but expecting success
   4. Promoting strong values
   5. Using constructive discipline
   6. Providing routines and rituals to make life predictable and create positive neural patterns in developing brains
   7. Being involved in the child's education
   8. Being there for the child

A list to go over periodically to remind me what is most important!

when mom feeds me apples and rice cereal (or anything for that matter) I perform the following steps:

a. purse lips
b. grab at spoon
c. gag
d. continuously gag until the lady figures it out.

I am happy because:

a. I threw the spoon on the floor

b. mom gave up trying to feed me

c. she is going to nurse me now

I think I love life

Kaija believes these places are magic:






because they carry these:







Yesterday we went to a friends house "She lives by 7-11 too!" We went to the Wallingford Farmers Market and she got to hang out with her friend Lucy. We did not get a push-up as we will save that for emergency bribing days:) I have some videos and pictures coming soon.

I found this picture on another blog and thought it was amazing so i decided to share it along with this quote:

“Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers ~ strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.”

— Barbara Katz Rothman

"You are as ugly as a pot.

But you still a child of God."

-I think these are the right words, or at least the words I remember...from Queenie in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

My own ben and I watched this movie last week, very touching and interesting... If you have a chance, watch it.