A mother's little lessons from Valentines Day

With the internet, blogs, and pinterest the ideas and options for how to help your kids make their own Valentines cards are endless.  I found a couple of ideas I liked primarily because they seemed easy and cheap and I thought my kids would like them.  I went for the "melt your own heart shaped crayons" and the "glow stick light sabers."   I wanted to make pretty hearts like these or these.

The crayons turned out to be much more work than I had anticipated (see my friend's experience, who agrees with me)-(random people's blogs on the internet always make everything seem so easy), but luckily we managed to make one batch, which had 14 hearts and LUCKILY for me, Rebecca only has 14 girls in her class. Phew. So, one batch did it. 

The light sabers weren't hard, but when you multiply a craft by the number of kids in a class everything starts to become a chore.  I was originally going to cut them all nice and evenly, and cut out red card stock and glue the white light saber pictures to the card stock (because I had just printed them on plain paper), making them stiffer and more fancy looking.  After just finishing the first step I had already had enough. 

As far as the heart crayons go, the ones you see on people's blogs have printed out sayings like: "You color my world" or "For crayon out loud, won't you be my valentine?" and they look very cute and professional.  We managed to cut up some cardstock and tape on our heart shaped crayons and barely managed to get everyone's name handwritten on there with the phrase: "Happy Valentines Day!"

But Lesson number 1 was this:  IF YOUR KIDS ARE HAPPY THEN YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY, TOO!

My kids didn't care that I had added extra card stock, extra stickers, glue dots instead of tape, or fancy sayings printed properly from the computer.  My kids felt like they had made the Valentines themselves and were pleased with the results, AND THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS!! Not whatever perfect craft person's blog I'm comparing myself to. 

Lesson number 2: it is more important to HAVE YOUR KIDS DO THE CRAFT than to have the craft turn out "picture perfect." 

My kids were so happy to do it themselves (until they got tired of signing their names).  But their joy was my joy.  (Don't you love how the card I took a picture of doesn't even have R's name spelled correctly?! - So much for picture perfect!)

I saw these beautiful cookies on the internet and wanted to copy them.  What other people's blogs don't tell you is that making cut out cookies with a tired 4 year old isn't all that easy.  Especially when he wants to do it all himself, including rolling out the dough, pressing out the cookies in random places all over the dough and getting the cookies onto the cookie sheet (which isn't always easy to do without breaking them.)  I let the kids do a couple of batches and finished the rest themselves.  I even gave up on the idea of fancy decorating and just had fun throwing sprinkles all over the cookies with my kids.  

Lesson number 3: YOUR KIDS AREN'T COMPARING the crafts you make or the cookies you bake with the ones you saw on the internet that looked "Martha Stewart worthy." In fact, your kids aren't comparing anything  you do to the picture perfect ideas on the internet including your kitchen decor, your mismatched dining room chairs, your lack of Valentines decorations all over the house, or any other thing you might think isn't up to snuff in your own life.  Your kids are just happy you're their mom, and that you took some time to do a little something with them. 

Lesson number 4: SIMPLE IS GOOD ENOUGH.  For Family Home Evening last week we did our Valentines lesson.  We each took a paper heart and wrote one nice thing about each person in the family and taped them to the wall.  We talked about how it is important to love each other.  Voila, the end.  It was short and sweet. 

Happy Valentines Day to everyone! Hope you feel loved by family and friends and that you have a great day.

December Activities

Our town set up synthetic ice skating and one of my children's Christmas wishes was to go skating with their uncles. I was proud of how well they did for their first time.  Now they want to try it on real ice! 

 Park Days

 

Fun with our NY friends, Georgia and Ladd.

Christmas Day 2011

My first ever Christmas Dinner (that I was in charge of all by myself!)

Theo: Lover of Hats and ice cream!

Christmas Eve

 In our family we celebrate our main present opening in the German/Austrian style of Christmas Eve.  The kids go for a walk around the neighborhood and when they come back to the front door they hear the "Christkind"(Christchild) ring a bell, signaling that they can come inside.  It is dark, except for some real candles lit on the tree. While they were out for their walk the Christkind brought the presents.  We ALWAYS sing a verse of O Tannenbaum and Stille Nacht. Singing Stille Nacht always makes me think of my Grossvati Immo Luschin and of my dad.   We open a present and then have our traditional dinner: peas in a cream sauce, rice and ham.  When my dad was growing up peas and rice were expensive and a treat, therefore it was special to have them on Christmas Eve.  That's what we always ate growing up and I've continued to do, too.  It is nice because it is simple and reminds me of my childhood.  We had the pleasure of Philipp and Fred's company this year.  It was our first married Christmas without one of the sets of our parents.  Having Phil and Fred come made it feel more festive!

Singing the carols

New hats!

Joseph's present to Theo-a dollar store sword. It was a big hit!

"New" bikes (courtesy of a neighborhood family whose kids were getting new bikes)

 

The main attraction-a fire station/police station- Thanks Grandma Julie and Opa Hanno!

LA Temple Lights

 We had our annual outing to the Los Angeles Temple Lights in December.  The kids always love it.  One of my favorite memories is how enthralled Joseph was with the Christus statue. He kept wanting to touch it, especially the nail marks in the feet.  On the one hand I was telling him not to, because, of course, it is a statue, on the other hand I thought it was pretty sweet.  Christ wanted the little children to come unto him after all. 

The Unwanted Christmas "Present"

Monday night. Just 6 days before Christmas.  My husband called me from work to let me know that his firm would not renew his contract.  They did not have enough work for him and in less than two weeks we would be out of a job.   Again.   From the same firm.  Except this time things were more complicated. 

I held it together on the phone while he gave me details of his conversation, but as soon as we hung up I cried hard.  It was deja vu.  I was pregnant with Theo the last time this happened.  And here I am again, expecting our 4th, a little girl, in a few months. 

For the first 24 hours my mind and body went into a bit of panic mode.  We had a really bad nights sleep and a lot of worries and concerns went through my head the next day, especially concerning my health care.  I had just recently begun feeling well enough to take care of my household duties and was excited to have a wonderful Christmas break.   Solving our new found problems and questions was NOT what I wanted to spend Christmas break doing. This was not what I wanted for Christmas.

Tuesday night as we drove to the church so my husband could do tithing settlement and I could practice the organ for the Christmas service we were emotionally spent and it was taking its toll on us.  To top it off the kids had been particularly wound up with the excitement of Christmas being right around the corner.  Whereas I had just two days before looked forward to Christmas as a time to have fun, relax and enjoy being together without worrying about things now it felt like a stress, a burden.  I heard myself saying in my head as the tears began again: “I wish Christmas were over.” 

I immediately felt badly that I had even had that thought, but I didn’t know how to enjoy Christmas anymore with these worries looming over our heads. I knew I had to do something or my kids would feel the strain, which I didn’t want.  I requested a blessing, wherein I was told-not that everything would be solved right away-but that my body could feel at peace.

I wasn’t sure how this could be, how could I find peace and enjoy Christmas. The next day the words from a song I had been practicing with the young women suddenly came to my mind: “Do you have room for the Savior?” 

Elder Neal A. Maxwell stated: “Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus!”
Suddenly I realized that I am the innkeeper to my own heart.  Only I have a say over who enters there.  Life will always have trials and some Christmases will be harder than others.  But if I don’t make room in my heart for the Savior it will be harder for me to feel his love and peace. 

I realized that I needed to open up my heart to him if I wanted to rejoice with him and celebrate his birth.  I pled with him: teach me how to trust. Teach me how to have greater faith.  Please come into my heart and let me feel thy peace. 

Sometimes it seems easier to have faith when someone else is going through a trial.  We have faith that things will work out for them.  It becomes a different story when the burden and hurt is suddenly our own.  Illness both mental and physical, death, job loss, infertility, disappointment, loneliness, to name just a few are some of the things that can cause great pain in our hearts.  We feel alone and maybe even forgotten. 

Do we have room for the Savior in our hearts? 
Do we make room to allow the Savior to come into our heart and heal us? Do we make room for him to come into our lives and wrap his arms around us and hold us? Do we let him enter?

How can we make room?

Are willing to make room for him in our hearts by casting out sin and proclaiming with King Lamoni’s father: “if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee.” (Alma 22:18)

Are we willing to make room for the Savior and with Alma cry in our hearts: “O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death”.  Will we with Alma experience what it is like when we do make room for the Savior and he enters our hearts and we can echo Alma’s words: “And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more.  And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!” and: “there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”  (Alma 36: 18, 19, 21)

Do we believe and embrace and even celebrate the tidings of great joy, that he “has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows,” that he was “wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities” and “with his stripes we are healed.”  (Isaiah 53:4-5)

In seasons of peace and prosperity, do we make room for the Savior by inviting him into our grateful hearts, knowing that all we have comes from Him? 

The Savior was born in a humble stable, not a perfect mansion.  Our hearts don’t need to be fancy, just humble and willing to welcome him.

He is standing there, knocking on the doors of our hearts, looking for room at our inn.  He knows our needs.  He knows our individual hurts and our joys. We are the only ones that can open our heart and let him in. 

As I opened up my heart to the Savior this week I was able to feel the joy of his birth, his life and his atoning sacrifice for us.  I don’t have any more answers for the struggles in my life, but I opened the door to allow him to enter and feel me with peace.  Whenever I felt the worries starting to bear down on me, I literally imagined my heart opening up to the Savior so that he could be a part of my life.
May we remember to make room for the Savior, today and always.

(These remarks were given Christmas Day, Dec. 25th, 2011, in the La Mirada Ward, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)

Merry Christmas 2011

Dear Friends and Family,

We wish you a very Merry Christmas 2011.  We have so much to be grateful for-food, shelter, friends and family and above all the Savior.  We hope you feel His Peace as you go about your Christmas festivities and hope that we can all remember the wonderful things He has done for us.

Our update for the year:

Warren is still serving as bishop of our ward (congregation) at church.  He loves this opportunity even though it is almost like having another full time job on top of his regular job and fatherly duties. When we drop him off at the train station in the mornings he gives the boys a thumbs up and says: "We're buddies!" A couple of little thumbs go up and you can hear a chorus from the backseat echo him: "Buddies!!!"

Dorothea is still working with the Young Women (ages 12-18) at church.  One of her biggest projects was preparing a workshop for the girls on the topic of what it means to be beautiful and why and how to feel beautiful yourself.  It was a very meaningful experience for her and those that participated.  She is grateful to be past (most) of the pregnancy associated nausea and is extremely grateful to those who helped her during her months of sickness.  


Rebecca (8) was so excited to get baptized this past October.  She is doing great in 3rd grade, loves to paint and is a tremendous help to her mom.  She is a fabulous older sister and is best friends with her little brothers. She is kind and caring to those around her.  She has enjoyed starting Activity Days at church and is already diligently doing her "Faith in God" program.  She can't wait until she is old enough to babysit. 

Joseph (4) is enjoying his Pre-K program.  As he told me: "School is FUN!" He is a tender, sweet boy with a deep thinking mind and a big vocabulary.  He is enjoying his music class and goes around life singing.  His school teachers told me they have to tell him to be quiet because he sings while he works.

Theodore (20 mos) loves Little Einsteins, Shaun the Sheep, balls, babies, wrestling, and tackling his older siblings.  He is talking up a storm with new words appearing almost daily.  He is definitely determined to keep up with them.  He likes to tease Rebecca and bite her toes and he likes to mimic Joseph in a little game they play where he echos the sounds Joseph makes.  He is a joy. 

We are excited to announce that we are expecting a little GIRL, due the beginning of May.  Rebecca is especially happy to be getting a little sister. During the ultrasound we watched our baby's hand make the "I love you" sign with her tiny fingers.  She loves us and we love her and are excited for her arrival.

Although our life also includes trials, struggles and sickness as it does for everyone, we truly feel blessed to have the things that matter most, especially the knowledge that we can be together forever.

We love you and hope you are healthy and happy and know that we think about you and send our warmest greetings.

With Love,

Warren, Dorothea, Rebecca, Joseph and Theo