The Power of Why

Here's a fun and informative story about 2 year old Jack.

Family gathered last week for his big sister Rachel's 12th birthday. One of her gifts included a big bag of M&Ms -  Jack's favorite treat. He managed to get ahold of the candy and carried the bag from person to person saying "Open MMs?" over and over and louder and louder as each person said "no."  He finally got to me, quite frustrated and whiney. He repeated "OPEN MMs?!!!" I said, "Jack, those are Rachel's special birthday M&Ms." He said "OK," set them down and walked away.

Are 2 year olds reasonable all the time? No. But I'm convinced it's essential to teach why. This will lay a foundation for self discipline.

Joseph Smith once said, “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.” (Messages of the First Presidency, comp. James R. Clark, 6 vols., Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–75, 3:54.)

In parenting terms - teach them why and they will learn to control themselves. "Why" includes how their actions affect those around them and also Gospel principles  and doctrines (eternal truths) such as the Plan of Salvation).

I still remember, years ago, getting a call from my daughter. She said "***  lied! What should I do?"   *** was about 3 years old at the time and my daughter couldn't believe she knew how to lie and had no idea what to do.  My first thought - teach her the Plan of Salvation.

To a 3 year old?

Yes!

Help her understand that we all need to learn how to keep the commandments of God in this life so we will be prepared to return and live with our Heavenly Father someday. Help her know that it's worth it!

And remember - 2 year olds turn into teenagers. If they understand the "Why" when they are young, they may grow up to be reasonable and enjoyable teens.

Pillow Evolution

I spent most of last week in Boise visiting Joelle and family. I love my visits!

I'm not very good at relaxing so we usually tackle a project or two. Recently we've painted two bedrooms, sewed a bedskirt, and made a cute modest dress for Julia.

This time, Joelle mentioned she'd like help figuring out pillows for her new family room sofa. I came across these interesting pillows and sent pictures to her - I suggested we could make simple little figures for the whole family.





Joelle liked the idea, but then showed me the work of a friend of a friend who does crazy fun family paintings - funkitup, on Etsy.



Hmmm - maybe we could make the pillows a little fancier. I made a sketch and a mock up out of paper and Joelle liked it.





So off we went to the fabric store for the fun part - finding just the right colors and fabrics.

Here's our step by step process:

Sketch the figures and then outline with black sharpie.



Identify fabrics for each piece of the figures, then trace the pieces, grouped together by fabric, onto the paper side of an iron on adhesive like heat 'n bond.





Cut around each group of pieces (not the individual pieces - the fabric group) and iron them onto the back of their fabrics. (Follow instructions that come with the adhesive.) Next cut out each piece and peal off the paper backing. Lay the pieces out on the pillow top and iron them until they fuse.

I used my original pattern to figure out placement.







Finish the edges of each piece with a machine zig zag or by hand embroidery. We chose hand - so quite a few hours were spent sitting, chatting, and sewing.

Joelle learned the lost art of needle work. It was fun!



Finish with embellishments. We added ribbons, trims, and buttons to personalize the clothing and to represent the family pets - dog, hamster, bird, and frogs.





Sew the pillow top to the pillow back. We used a simple overlapping envelope type back and used cording to edge the pillows. Here's a pillow making 101 tutorial giving the basics.

Here's our finished product:

Mom and Dad


and the kiddies



Look who loves the new pillows

Olivia's Quilt

Karenin and I picked out fabrics and a design for Olivia's quilt.

Here they are:

the quilt:


the fabrics:


Yay,  I get to make a girly quilt!

Cutest cupcake book!

Joelle and I saw this book at Williams Sonoma. We just stood there oohing and aahing over every page.

There's actually two volumes at Amazon (about $9 each):

Hello Cupcake and What's New Cupcake?

Williams Sonoma must have a special combo book because theirs is called "Hello Cupcake, What's New?



These cupcakes are so fun! Take a look









I found a video on how to make the corn on the cob cupcakes:



 

I just found the authors' website with a whole library of videos!

Love these chairs!

from West Elm


A hint of butterfly:

Now, where could I put them?

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,700 times in 2010. That's about 9 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 18 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 53 posts.

The busiest day of the year was January 10th with 43 views. The most popular post that day was Lehi's Dream.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were westindiesmission.blogspot.com, facebook.com, mybigglife.blogspot.com, edandjoycecollins.blogspot.com, and sogoodsoeasy.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for lehi's dream painting, byu football, minerva teichert, lehi's dream greg olsen, and lehi's dream.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Lehi's Dream September 2009
6 comments

2

Using time wisely October 2009

3

Granny's toys August 2009

4

Staycation August 2009
3 comments

5

A chocolate snob's hot cocoa recipe August 2009
3 comments

General Conference is on YouTube!

Already!

The final session was today and it's already up on YouTube, including the Priesthood session.

I love it!

Here's a link to the General conference playlist on the Mormon channel