Mother of Boys

Meet the Teacher

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Meet the teacher is always an exciting day.

The boys loved reconnecting with old friends while at the school.

Our family tradition is that we bring flowers to the teachers as well as an “All About Me” card. I’m trying to train them early to give flowers regularly and to communicate. {{wink}}

This year we are truly lucky as Dylan’s 3rd grade teacher is the same teacher Davis had! Whoohoo!!

Here’s Jason filling out all the paper work. What a good man.

Next up was the Intermediate school. I was having major anxiety but Davis was loving every minute of it. We met Davis’ teachers and gave them his “All About Me” card as well as a copy of the letter his teachers wrote to them from last year. All went well, but I didn’t get the good vibe from his teachers I usually receive. As I was handing over Davis’ instructional manual {{HA!}} to his male teacher, it was quite obvious that he didn’t see us coming.

The next morning we got a call from the principle who asked if it was alright if he changed Davis’ teachers. He said that he had a meeting that morning and his team thought Davis’ would be better matched with a different set of educators. I was delighted that they would take the time to make sure Davis would be well taken care of and that his specific skill sets (and deficits) would be taken into consideration.

We’ve had 3 weeks of school and I’ve met his teacher on 3 occasions and just adore her. We’ve talked on the phone a couple times and have e-mailed. As usual Davis’ team of angels that constantly look over him; protected and hooked him up with the most amazing angles here on earth.

Man that boy is one lucky kiddo! Every single teacher he has had since Mother’s Day Out has been an absolute angel with the perfect skill sets to help properly teach, motivate, and redirect him to the amazing young man he is today. Granted, mommy’s on a first name basis with every principal he’s ever had, and has had to fight some battles along the way, but it is remarkable the amazing people who are drawn to Davis and who are willing to give so much to help and teach him. Words cannot express my gratitude and admiration for these women.

Drake LOVED meeting his teacher. Although he was a bit confused as to why he couldn’t stay and play. He kept saying, “You kiss me and say goodbye!” It was a bit traumatic to take him home. However, I’m very pleased to announce that he absolutely loves Mother’s Day Out. He calls it his “little school”.

All of Drake’s best friends are in his class. {{squeal in delight}} It also makes carpool a dream.

You are supposed to be fully potty trained which Drake is not. He hasn’t had an accident there yet. {{knock on wood}} But every day he goes I just know, that’s the day I’m going to get the call and we’re going to get kicked out. I just pray that he behaves himself as I desperately need this time to get things done.

Small Talker

Good Bye College Station

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It has finally happened, Lisa sold her house! Her last weekend in College Station was a big one as my youngest brother gave a talk and sang at church, and it was my middle brother’s birthday. So we all gathered as a family to do some bonding “Mills-style”. {{loud & rowdy}}

Lisa had already packed her house, so all that was left was just some minor hole plugging and painting.

After wrapping one of Lisa’s friends house, we decided to reek havoc at our youngest brother, Scott’s house. The dude didn’t have one tree in him yard. {{lame}} So when he happened to be jogging by – we attacked him. Poor guy, was scared half to death! {{evil laugh}}

I had so much fun at Lisa’s church. During Sacrament meeting the toddler in front of us was playing with this laminated quiet book. Oh yes I did!

I asked her if I could take pictures of it for my Executive Homemaker blog. She said yes. {{squeal in delight}}

Lisa and I ended up going to Young Women’s (because they had food) and who did I run into? Yep, Rochelle’s mini me!! I swear this is what RO would look like if she was 16 right now. Isn’t she adorable. I asked her to do a fun pose and she was all over it. {{fabulous}}

I was very impressed with my brother Scott’s talk and his voice is absolutely beautiful. He did an amazing job. I was glad I was able to be there and meet his girlfriend. It was weird being in a Singles Ward again. Talk about a meat market and some serious good people watching. {{snicker}}

Dinner with the family was great. Scott brought his girl friend for us to meet and she broke up with him a couple days later. I think she was just too straight laced to be a Mills. I’m quite sure we scared her off. Poor Scott.

It was such a fun weekend. I haven’t laughed and played that hard in a while. I packed up some of Lisa’s valuables and drove back home to reality.

Good Bye College Station!

Girly Girl

Totally 80’s

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Like, no way! I just got invited to a RAD party at the skating rink! Time to grab my newest rock band shirt and do some shredding. I’m such a groupie. {{totally}}


Leslie (birthday girl) and John (as Richard Simmons)

I’ve been wanting to throw an 80’s party for years. However, there’s no way I could have planned a better party than this one! Leslie celebrated her 40th birthday by reserving the skating rink and 80’s apparel was required. {{squeal in delight}}

Here we all are dressed to the 9’s in our best 80’s inspired outfits. Holy cow we’re a beautiful sight! Chanda was born in the eighties so she came as a little girl. {{awe sweet}}

Anessa’s clothing was all authentic!! Yep, the jean jacket, high-waisted jeans, and LA gear shoes. Talk about impressive.

These girls were straight up fabulous. The middle one is dressed up as Star Bright!

On the Rink:

What’s so funny about Lisa D’s hair is that my mom did my sister’s hair this way for YEARS! Yep, even with alternating colors of scrunchies. {{bwaaah!}}

Cheryl and I on the rink.

We even had couples skating, red light – green light, and Thriller. Dude, I had such a great time. LeAnne made a rubics cube cake which apparently I didn’t get a picture of – but it was amazing! I may have had 2 pieces. {{evil laugh}}

With all the shoulder pads, units, leg warmers, hoop earings, blue eye shadow, layered necklaces, lace gloves, big hair, and RAD music – I was surrounded by crazy memories of the past. {{good times}}

Jason was out of town so he missed out on all the festivities. Poor guy. What was so funny is the next day, a couple of us met up for lunch and they said their men felt like women looked better dressed up with big hair. WHAT!?!

That just doesn’t sound right. So what do you think, should we bring back the 80’s fashion?

Mother of Boys

Feed the Children

Laurie3 Comments

One of the activities I’ve looked forward to this summer is “Feed the Children“. It’s a program organized by a Realtor where different churches and groups take turns feeding children in a specific area of town.

You can tell that this Realtor just loves these kiddos as it takes a lot of coordination to pull this off every summer. Once again, I was in charge of face painting! Basically, I’m crowd control and provide an activity for those kiddos waiting to be served.

This year Davis really got into it as well. He’s artistic by nature and couldn’t wait to get started. He did a great job and I was proud of him.

Each child was able to take home their very own book. We also had bubbles and stickers to keep the kiddos entertained.

This year Megan went all out as she even got a cover band to come and entertain us! They were great and it was really nice to have some music playing in the background. I couldn’t believe how fast the time flew. We ended up feeding 113 children that afternoon.

Thanks Ladies! I had such a wonderful day and my boys loved the feeling they had while serving the children as well. I can’t wait until next year!

Family Cruise Director

Just Another Day at the Lake

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With summer winding down, I’m really going to miss our family trips to the lake. Here we are in Lake Murry in Oklahoma with Jason’s mom and 2 of his co-workers and their families. It was such a kick back day.

The boys loved spending time with Gramma Betty. Her visit was short but we really enjoyed her company and it was a happy reunion. It had been quite a while since her last visit and it was lovely to see her once again.

Can you believe I had to threaten the boys get on the jet skiis? Geeze! Sometimes I think anxiety takes over and they just need that extra push {{no PS3 or Wii}} to get them to participate. Of course once they got on, they had a blast on the jet skiis and the tube.

The men got their turn on the tube and took it to an entirely different level! Jason held out for quite a while, but a tube just can’t tolerate certain G-forces. {{bwaaaah!}}

I wish every day could be a warm, calm day at the lake. It’s been my saving grace this summer.

These are the moments I’m going to remember and cherish. Beautiful.

Business Owner

How do you store Legos?

Laurie6 Comments

Jessica over at Life As A Mom is doing a series on taming the lego monster. You know I love a fun theme!

In our home Legos provide great joy and hours of play time. My boys are little engineers and therefore they make the coolest things and create entire worlds in their room. With 3 boys and 5 sets of grandparents, we have a LOT of Legos.

How do I store our Legos? Labeled bins and large under the bed bins.

1. One for the Mars to Mission Legos.

2. Another for the “work in progress” or “completed” Lego creations. This way they can store their Lego creations safely in this large bin and not have them get broken. It also solves the “I’m working on that!” issue when it comes to clean up time.

3. I also cut up the cardboard boxes and keep the pictures of the completed Lego projects for inspiration and future Turk boy play time. I keep all of the instructions manuals and cut out cardboard pictures in it’s own little bin for easy clean up and safe keeping.

I have the Indiana Jones Legos in their own bins which we keep in Dylan’s room since he got them for his birthday.

I try to keep the Bionicles, Mission to Mars, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and other themes in their own containers. However, that doesn’t always happen. I don’t stress out about it and just try to encourage only 1 theme to be opened at a time.

Soon, we are going to convert our guest bedroom to a Star Wars bedroom for Dylan. Then Dylan will have a long shelf to hold all the finished Star Wars Lego vehicles. It will serve several purposes as a storage solution, a brag wall to show off his hard work, and decorations for the room.

How do you store your Legos? Be sure to head over to Jessica’s post and let her know: Taming the Lego Monster.

Genuine

How Do You Balance It All?

Laurie10 Comments

I’ve got to tell you about my latest Blog Crush! Yes, I get them often in real life and in blog land. I can’t help but adore the fabulous women who come into my life. The latest blogger that I’m sweet on is Simple Mom.

I no longer have the time to read blogs, but I can’t get enough of her so I’ve subscribed to her RSS feed via e-mail. I get daily dose of inspiration and words of wisdom via my inbox.

We live very different lifestyles as her goal is to simplify life and mine is to embellish it. {{giggle}} However, I swear Simple Mom and I are on the same life path as almost all of her posts lately are what I’ve been thinking about!

Her post last week on The Great Myth is a subject that I am going to speak on at SITScation in October. There’s no way I could say is as eloquently as she did, so you’ll have to check out her post.

I also get asked the question quite frequently, “How do you balance it all?” in real life and via blogs. Just like Simple Mom, I giggle to myself because I don’t feel like I quite have the balance I would like to. Life is all about choices, what you focus on, and give & take. If you focus on one thing – something else will be neglected. That’s just life.

For instance:

I don’t cook. I hate it. In my opinion, it’s a big fat waste of time.

I cooked 3 days last week and after spending 2 hours each day in the kitchen – my feelings were once again validated.

I hate to cook. My family doesn’t appreciate it. They complain. Then I complain (in my head).

I’ve decided to keep trying new recipes and cook a couple times a week – for now. Once school starts I’ll probably go back to freezer meals. That’s only 20 minutes in the kitchen which equals an extra 100 minutes for me to get other things done.

How do I balance life?

In all honesty, I don’t know that I do. To me a balanced life isn’t a little of everything every day – it’s getting done what needs to get done while you play along the way.

I’m old school and have a schedule and lists. Lately I’ve had the attitude that it’s got to be fun

* So I watch movies while I work on Tip Junkie and reply to e-mail and fold laundry.

* I have the boys do the chores I hate to do like empty the dish washer, vacuum, and feed the dog.

* I plan activities for my family and invite friends to come along to entertain me.

* I school shop online.

* Drake goes to bed at 7:30 and the boys go to bed at 8:30.

* I create my posts for Tip Junkie at night to automatically post in the morning. This clears up my morning to work out and get other things done.

* I only go to the pool or lake if a friend will go with me to keep me company. {{evil laugh}}

* I have my calendar in my iPhone and it reminds me when I have to be places or do things.

* I don’t let things pile up. {{I hate piles}}

* I throw a lot of things away.

* I theme my days often: Shampoo the carpet day, respond to e-mail day, play at the pool day, throw things away day (purge day), organize day, project day, painting day. I ingore everything else until that task is done for the day – then I resume the regular schedule.

* Every 2 weeks or so, I take the entire day off. No cleaning, no errands, no to do’s. I’ll veg out in front of my flat screen and catch up on the latest series of movies or TV series I’m wild about. I need these days to regroup and relax.

I’ve also been combining the things I don’t like to do with the things that I do like to do. For instance combining Family Home Evening and Scouting. I’m also a huge believer in carpool and child swaps. If I can swap with someone, it’s done. The less time I spend in a car the better.

I also plan my entire month at the beginning of every month. I’m not perfect at it and things get missed – but it really helps.

I have the attitude that “I don’t put off till tomorrow what can be marked off the list today”.

Another thing that helps me are events. I’ll plan a potluck lunch or have friends come over – just to motivate me to get the house cleaned up or the laundry put away. Sometimes I just need outside motivation. If you need that too, plan a Sunday dinner at your house with your favoite people – your home will get cleaned. {{HA!}}

With all of this said, I do miss appointments, I don’t get to attend baby showers or book club, my kids are a constant worry and source of stress, and I don’t have the energy I need to get everything done the way I want.

Life is crazy and I think it’s supposed to be that way. I believe that we can have it all. Just not with a potty training toddler. {{HA!}}

I’m so grateful that I have the opportunity to spotlight creative women every day. That’s such a source of joy and motivation for me. I’m more productive the busier I am because I have to stay on top of everything.

I’m so grateful that I have this blog to document life and the wonderful things in it. It’s been a wonderful grateful journal of sorts and has helped me to keep life more in balance.

Business Owner

I was Featured on ProBlogger – Sort Of

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I’ve been a fan of Darren the ProBlogger for quite a while. He’s the guy in the know and has created the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workshop which is free and full of fabulous tips. I’ve followed his workshop for 2 years in a row with great results.

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So you can imagine my excitement when I read this article How to Promote Your Blog with a Giveaway from guest blogger Olivia over at ProBlogger and saw the Tip Junkie Giveaway Directory mentioned in today’s article. {{squeal in delight}}

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Shut up! {{said in complete denial}}

Tip Junkie was listed 3rd behind Prize.net which charges a fee because they are so widely used.

I launched the Tip Junkie Giveaway Directory in February because I was recovering from back surgery and was receiving over 100 e-mails a week from people wanting me to announce their giveaways. I wanted to help but could no longer undertake the work load. It was created out of necessity and on a complete whim.

In all honestly, I haven’t done a thing to promote the giveaway directory. I’ve felt a little guilty about it at times. I guess that worry was for nothing and it’s doing it’s job. {{whew}}

Drake has been cranky all day and it’s been terribly difficult to get anything done. I so needed this little uplift to the day.

Everyone needs a little validation every once in a while.

Girly Girl

Boutique Hopping

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This week on our day off, Wendy and I decided to go boutique hopping. I finally made it to Charming Charlies which is an accessory store organized by color at cheap prices.

I was in accessory heaven as we browsed through the store trying to think of what color accessories we need to make our outfits pop.

We then headed to a couple local boutique and also had a great time. Our friend Lisa met us for a Tex-mex lunch. {{yummy}}

We then headed over to the Elementary and Intermediate schools and registered the kiddos. It was a breeze with out children. We ran into a few familiar faces and really enjoyed the day.

Parker (our babysitter) took the older 2 boys to the skate park while I was out. Needless to say, I returned home to some really happy skaters who told me all about their adventure. It was a wonderful day and I’m now rejuvenated and ready to take on the rest of the week.

Girly Girl

Stamped Washer Necklaces

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My dear friend Melissa came to stay with me a while ago and she gave me some alphabet stamps to make stamped washer necklaces.

That is so Melissa to know that I would rather have the stamps to learn how to make my own necklaces. She’s seriously fantastic.

We were bad bloggers and didn’t take any pictures during her visit. We were too busy catching up and playing with the kids.

I’m in major need of a crafting break, so I took a day and created some necklaces for the darling beauties in my life.

There are so many cool things you can make! I’m thinking backpack pulls, bracelets, and bookmarks. Oh the possibilities…

Emily loved her necklace with a pink tear drop in the middle. Just what I needed to get those creative juices flowing again.