How To Make Your Child Feel Great

During my daily reading of Simply Bloom, I found this post originally from Mom Life Today.  As I mentioned a few posts back, I'm trying very hard to give our children true self worth through encouragement instead of just praise.  To go along with that, below are 52 ways to make your child feel great.  Some of them may sound like praise, but most of them are specific things and not just "You're so smart" or "You're awesome."  There are also actions listed below that will make your child feel important and a valuable part of the family.

1.       The way you (insert action) is such a perfect addition for our family. God knew just what we needed when He gave us you.

2.       I’m sorry. Will you please forgive me for (insert specific action)?

3.       I forgive you. And I won’t bring this up again, okay?

4.       I want to hang out with just you tonight. What do you want to do?

5.       Thank you!

6.       Yes, there is food in the house.

7.       I trust you.

8.       I can’t believe how (insert positive adjective) you are. I can’t imagine the plans God has for you!

9.       I saw how you (insert specific positive action). I’m so proud of you.

10.   There’s money on the table for you.

11.   I believe you.

12.   I’m proud of you. And even if you weren’t so fantastic, I’d still be proud.

13.   I know you and I haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye lately. But I want to let you know that I accept you whether I agree with you or not, and I’m committed to working on our relationship so we both feel understood and secure.

14.   I got you this, just because.

15.   Lately I’ve really seen you grow in the area of (insert character quality), like when you (insert specific action).

16.   I admire you in (insert specific area). In fact, I could learn a lot from you in that area.

17.   That was a really wise choice.

18.   Snow day!

19.   You’re really growing into a young man/woman of character. I can’t tell you how exciting that is!

20.   I remember when I (insert vulnerable moment). I felt so (insert description). I don’t know if that’s like what you’re going through, but it was a tough time for me.

21.   No matter how royally you mess up, I’ll always be glad you’re mine, I’ll forgive you, and I’ll love your socks off.

22.   Go ahead and sleep in tomorrow.

23.    I had no idea you could do that! You impress me.

24.   What do you think?

25.   I canceled your dentist appointment.

26.   I love your dad so much! He is so (insert adjective).

27.   I love being around you.

28.   No chores today.

29.   I’m so glad you’re home.

30.   I love doing (insert activity) with you.

31.   You are one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten. I am so humbled He gave me you.

32.   I feel so proud when I’m with you.

33.   You handled that so well.

34.   I made your favorite (insert food).

35.   You know, you may not feel very (insert adjective), but God knew exactly what He was doing you making you the way He did, and it was just how He wanted to express Himself. I love you just the way He made you. And I wouldn’t have wanted Him to do it any differently.

36.   I’m trusting that God will take perfect care of us. He’s always done it before! Can we pray together about this?

37.   With God’s help, your dad and I will never, ever get a divorce.

38.   That looks great on you.

39.   If I were in your shoes, I would feel so (insert adjective). Is that how you feel?

40.   Would you turn your music up?

41.   You are so well-disciplined in (insert specific area).

42.   I sent you a big ol’ care package in the mail.

43.   That was so courageous.

44.   Do you feel like I’m understanding you?

45.   If there were one thing you could change about me as your mom, what would it be?

46.   You have some real gifts in the area of (insert adjective).

47.   Let’s go to Grandma’s!

48.   It is so cool to watch you grow up.

49.   Just wanted to let you know I’m praying for you.

50.   I miss you, but I’m glad you’re having a good time!

51.   You make me so happy just by being you.

52.   I love you so much.

How will you make your child feel great today?

Now I Really Need A Serger

So after my numerous attempts at sewing clothing for my daughter, I've come to the conclusion that I am ready for a serger.  It would make things so much easier if I had one, but I'm not sure I'm ready to ask the hubby to spend the money on one...It would be like buying a second sewing machine and it's not exactly necessary, but it would make the items I sew look cleaner and neater.

Here is more reason to want a serger:

The pink paisley is to make a matching pair of ruffle pants to go with the knot dress I made Kendall last week.  The green and pink flowered material is to make a skirt for Kendall and the blue and red fabric I envision a pillowcase dress.  Using mostly the blue and a panel of the red at the bottom with bright red ribbon to tie it at the arms.  Even if I don't invest in a serger, I've got plenty of projects to keep me busy for awhile!

Can You See It?

This is the road outside of our neighborhood and on our way home the other day, this is what the kids and I noticed.

Can you see it?

It's like Where's Waldo.

Do you see it now?

How about now?

There is a rainbow that looks like it ends at the pedestrian crossing sign in the second picture.  The unique thing is that it was snowing in the mountains, not raining!  You can catch a glimpse of blue sky in the first picture and nothing but the clouds in the last picture.  Just part of the beauty of living in the Beehive state!

Are You Ready For Swimsuit Season?

Well, here's one little girl who is ready for fun in the sun:

Check out her new suit!  She loves it!  Reminds me of something my grandmother would have worn!  She even likes the bathing cap.  Who knows if she'll wear it once the bubble comes off the pool at the gym, so I had to snap a quick pic while she had it on.

The Letter E

We took a little time off from our Letter Of The Week because the kids and I have been under the weather.  Today Kendall asked for an art project so we worked on the letter E.

Here's our picture for the E.  Yes, it's supposed to look like an elephant.

To go along with our letter E, we are reading Ellison the Elephant by Eric Drachman.  It's about a little elephant who struggles to trumpet like the other elephants.  He learns to find his own voice through the help of a friend named Weasel.  

As for our E related snack, she's not too crazy about eggs and I struggled to come up with other foods starting with E, except eggplant and that wouldn't have gone over well either.  Maybe you have an E sounding snack idea you could share with us!

Sewing Frenzy

So when my mom was here we made a trip to my favorite fabric store here in Utah.  She helped me pick out lots of fun material for a list of projects that I've had on my computer for the past few months.  I don't know about you, but when I have a stack of new material, I can't wait to get started!

As you can imagine, I've been busy.  Here's what I've been up to this past week:

I made this from an existing t-shirt that I bought for $2 at Walmart.  Cut it off below the armpits and then sewed the dress part onto it!  Super easy and looks adorable with matching pink leggings!

Similar idea to above but cut if off at the waist and made it into a dress.  Looks great with matching leggings!

This is an apron knot dress that I just created yesterday.  I didn't start it until naptime (yes she took a nap when I told her I was going to make her a dress!)  I love it.  I just got a pattern for a pair of ruffle pants that I think will look fantastic with it.  Now I've got to make another trip to the fabric store...Darn!  ;)

Again, another $2 find at Wally World turned into a St. Patty's Day shirt!  Freezer paper stencils are so much fun, especially when you can cut them out with a cricut and not by hand!

Kendall-isms

Yogi Berra has his list of Yogi-isms so I am creating an ongoing list of Kendall-isms.  I started a list on a post many months ago to try to preserve all of the goofy, cute, and funny things she says.  Lord knows there are a lot of them!

This month's favorite Kendall-ism is "hancock shake" which is her way of saying shamrock shake.  Yes, we've hit up the golden arches for their green, minty, liquid deliciousness.  We've been having a great time prepping for and celebrating St. Patty's Day for the past two weeks and I've enjoyed hearing her try to say shamrock over and over!  I wonder how many times I can get her to say it tomorrow?  ;)

How To Learn The Apostles Creed

Riley has to learn the Apostles Creed for school. When I was a kid I learned it via Rich Mullins and his song "Creed." I have always loved Rich Mullins music and now this version is just as good if not better...It's Brandon Heath and Mac Powell singing Rich's version. Third Day has a version out which is in true, awesome Third Day fashion, but I'm partial to the original version. I love that I get to use this to help Riley learn it...the down side is that he's learning the Lutheran version which is slightlydifferent, but I don't care. I just want Riley to understand the meaning and to feel that it's something he believes as well. Living here in Utah makes me cling to what I believe and confirm why I believe it. I am such a minority here in terms of my faith and I think that God put us here to really solidify what it is that we believe and to pass that along to our children. He really does work in amazing ways.

For Mothers of Little Girls...

I just found another very interesting blog today in my "blog stalking" session.  (Can you tell Andy's out of town and Kendall and I are both under the weather?  I can only watch so many princess movies!)  Any way, this blog is designed specifically for those with young daughters.  It's focus is about changing the way we think about girls.  What a great idea!  I have so many concerns with my daughter's obsession with Disney princesses.  As much as I'd like her NOT to be so interested in them, I fear it is a battle I have lost, or may never even been able to win!  There is a book out that a friend from MOPS told me about called Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein that I really need to check out.

If you have a daughter, you should check out Redefine Girly.  There are times I look at my daughter and wonder where this little pink, girlie girl came from?  Not me...I was the one outside playing with the neighborhood boys in a competitive game of kickball!  I never minded dresses or skirts that twirled, but never (and still don't) cared if my nails were painted, if my shirt was pink or about having "pretty" shoes!  Sneakers in the winter and bare feet in the summer were my shoes of choice!  But then there are times that I look at her and see her risk taking behavior and think, maybe there's hope for a tomboy yet!  She's so coordinated and athletically inclined that maybe that's the route she'll end up taking.  As I type this I see her outside in her pink Disney princess tutu dress with a pair of purple Minnie Mouse crocs!  At least she's not afraid of getting dirty - she's standing in the middle of the fire pit!

I by no means want to dictate the person my daughter should become, but I want her to have true self-worth and not feel she needs to be pretty to be accepted.  I have been good about watching how I speak to her.  I try hard not to give praise but to give encouragement.  Instead of saying "Boy, don't you look pretty in that dress!"  I choose to say something like "What a great outfit you've chosen to wear" or "I like that you are big enough to decide what you wanted to wear today."  I do the same with Riley.  When he scores well on a test, I tell him "It feels good to see your hard work pay off, doesn't it?"  It's amazing the difference in my kids.  They see the value in the choices they've made.  No, I'm not that intuitive, I've just finished reading Have A New Kid By Friday by Dr. Kevin Leman.  Great book for every parent and yes, I have seen improvements in Kendall's behavior!

Veggie Tales also has a great movie called Sweet Pea Beauty which I'm so thankful to have to offset the Disney princesses.  This movie talks about how it only matters what God thinks of us and how he loves us and made us perfectly.  It also discusses how true beauty is on the inside not the outside.  I love that both my kids enjoy watching it because it's a great message for Riley to understand that he needs to see beyond someone's looks to see what's in their heart.

Okay, getting off my soapbox...But just thought I'd share.  I'd love to hear from other veteran moms who've survived this stage and can offer sound wisdom.  How have you dealt with the girly girl in your life?

Good Luck!

New Ideas For Teaching The ABC's

Make and Takes has a great idea for helping you teach your child her ABC's.  She suggested using pipe cleaners!  What a great idea!

For more info on this and other great ideas from Make and Take, click HERE

 

Have fun!

Fun Ways To Celebrate St. Patty's Day

Andy and I decided to revive our St. Patty's Day parties of years gone by.  Here in Utah, St. Patrick's Day is not a big deal.  I guess because of the large number of mormons who don't drink and because when it comes down to it, St. Patty's Day is a day of drinking for the Irish Americans!

So if you're going to have a party, the first thing you need to do is decorate.  (I really wish I would have had more time to take pictures prior to our guests arriving because the table filled with food looked great!)  Here's what I did for our home:

This banner was so simple!  Cut some green burlap into triangle shapes, cut out freezer paper stencils and paint your triangles.  Hot glue them onto some jute and tie some white ribbon bows between each triangle and ta da!  A cheap, cute holiday banner for your mantel!

Some cute little Irish signs that I used with a shamrock plant to decorate my sofa table.

There are LOTS of free printables available online for almost every holiday and season that look great framed and on a table.

Here's the chalkboard paint plate we made at MOPS this year.  For each holiday or season, I change the saying.  Paired with a mini shamrock plant, it was adorable on my kitchen counter.

This is what I used for my centerpiece on my dining room table...I really wish I had taken a picture of all of it set and ready for guests!  Oh well.  I just took a witches cauldron and filled it with plastic bags, a black garbage bag on top, then topped it off with gold coins.  I had a  bunch of chocolate gold coins around the pot of gold on the table - you can still see a single one left on the table after my son got into them!  I also had a bowl of Rolos and a bowl of Hershey's nuggets.  Both candies come in gold packaging so they looked like gold pieces for the pot of gold!

Now what would a party be without a St. Patty's Day themed menu?  Here's what I served:

Mini shepherd's pies

Rainbow fruit w/ green pina colada dip

Watergate salad

Pesto pasta salad

Corn dip

Guacamole

Green, orange and white veggies with dip

Irish cream shamrock shaped sugar cookies

Mint brownies

Leprechaun hat cookies

What would a St. Patty's Day celebration be without some good ole' Irish folk music!  Download some Hair Of The Dog from itunes and you'll start to dance an Irish Jig!  This is a great Irish band from Albany, NY!  

And of course, the whole reason you host a St. Patty's Day party is to DRINK!  So, find some green or Irish drinks to serve.  We made appletinis, orange and lime jello shots, and served a variety of beer and wine.  

I had created a St. Patty's Day quiz with a bottle of Jameson (Thought of you Beth!) as the gift for the person with the most correct answers, but we never got around to using it...I guess that's a good thing that the party didn't have that awkward feel to it, especially since there were people from different parts of our lives there.  It was nice for Kevin and Cara to finally meet my other Utah friends.

I can't wait to see what the pesky little Leprechauns do to our house Thursday morning!  Last year he caused all kinds of trouble.  Wonder if the milk in our bowl of Lucky Charms will turn green again?  If the chairs will be overturned?  If he'll leave any gold coins behind?  Have I mentioned how much I LOVE St. Patty's Day?

Found A New Favorite!

Most of you know how much I love to "blog stalk" as I call it.  I wonder around blog world some days for much longer than I should.  Most of the craft/sewing blogs are "mormon mommy blogs" but today I stumbled across the most inspiring blog called Simply Bloom.  Joy is the author of this blog and is a Christian.  She has some incredibly moving posts about faith, marriage, motherhood, scripture, etc.  She also shares her crafts and creations on her blog as well.  (There's a great post on how to make your own play make up.)  It was so exciting to find a new Christian blog to follow to inspire me and encourage me in my walk.

Taken from Simply Bloom...Hope you go check out her blog...Good stuff!

Sleeping Beauty

With Kendall refusing to take her naps these days, I don't even bother to try much anymore.  Friday was a busy day for us.  I took her with me to the gym in the morning where she played, then we hit the grocery store, came home for a movie and snack break then headed out to dance class.  After dance we went to lunch with friends and had about 30 minutes to kill until we had to pick up Riley so we went to the craft store to window shop.  When we got to Riley's school, I let Riley got to Kids Place (their afterschool child care program) while I had a meeting with another mom until we could attend the school faculty meeting a half an hour later.  She was pretty good for Kendall standards the entire day.  I guess all that good behavior was hard, tiring work because as soon as we got home, this is what happened:

She walked into the house, turned the corner and fell immediately asleep on the family room floor!  She's so precious when she's asleep!  

The Letter D

This morning Kendall and I took a field trip to the donut store (aka Beyond Glaze) for our D snack to go along with out letter of the week.  The girl was in sugar heaven!  Of course she picked out all the donuts that had pink icing on them!  We ate our snack at the store because she was too impatient to wait until we got home!

Here is Kendall eating a peanut butter raspberry donut that tastes just like PB&J!  

Then we came home and worked on our craft to go along with the letter of the week:

It's a duck for the letter D!  

Afterwards we read the book called Duck Soup which is about a duck named Max who likes to cook.  He leaves his pot of soup on the stove while he goes out to the garden to get some herbs to complete his soup.  In the meantime his friends enter the house and can't find him so they assume Max has fallen into the pot of soup! 

Now if Disney came up with a princess for each letter of the alphabet, then we'd have a movie to watch with the letter D too!  Who knew learning your ABC's could be so much fun (and so delicious!)