Love More

I love this child with all my heart. Everyday she walks out that door to go to school, I feel like she's walking away with my heart. Her struggles feel like mine. And I ache to help her be the kind of woman I know she has the potential of becoming. She has so many strengths. So many talents. But right now we are struggling tremendously. Our personalities are very similar, and then again, very different. She is very independent and strong willed. If she detects you pushing her in the slightest, she will push back with all her might and dig her heels in. Since I'm the one home all the time, she is in constant conflict with me over getting ready for school, doing her homework, practicing the piano, being nice to her siblings, and so on and so forth. The more I tell her to hurry along, the slower she gets, and the meaner her looks get as she walks by me. I feel like I've tried so very hard to be nice. I've read countless material about how to motivate her. I've made charts and come up with rewards that SHE picked and yet we are still back to ground zero. So last week, I resorted to prayer. I prayed like crazy, even in the shower that she would have the desire to be a good kid. I even talked to the teacher about ways to help her. But in the end, the only thing I keep going back to is to LOVE MORE!

I'm going to love that child into obedience. I'm going to love her regardless of how she performs at school. I'm going to leave nice notes in her lunch box. I'm going to remind her how much I love her as she jumps out of the car to go to school. I'm going to make her bed while she's at school to serve her. I'm going to make her favorite dinners. I'm going to love that child until she comes around. I can't change her, or make her like me, but I can soften her heart. I can show her that regardless of what she does, I'm going to love her because of who she is and what she can become.

Our 1st Piano Recital

 Gabriela had her very first piano recital on Saturday. She got really nervous when I told her it was at the church, because she thought she would be playing in front of the entire congregation. But she did such a wonderful job and we were all very proud of her. She looked fantastic and she had all of her pieces memorized. We were really glad to see her thrive and excel. 

 She also received a little motivation yesterday, when our new home teacher came for the first time and brought his wife, who happens to be a piano performance major at BYU. She filled our whole home with music, and the spirit, and it was absolutely inpirational for us beginning piano students, myself included. So now when we sit down to practice, I just have to remind her of Sis. Gilbert and then we focus and get down to business.  Maybe someday we will have a concert pianist of our own to fill our home with music!

Early Morning Reading

Since we've been struggling getting all of our homework done in the afternoon and since a particular someone doesn't like to be rushed when woken up in the morning, we've decided she should wake up at 6:30 am to do her reading and it seems like she attracted a following. This is what I found yesterday morning.

Random Happenings

We have had to get extra creative with Max. He doesn't like to just sit for very long, so during dinner one night, Miguel got creative and came up with this. It's crazy, but it worked.

 Max really likes his baths and I realized that I don't have any cute bath pics, so here you go.

 Love this expression!

 We took Gabriela to her first BYU football game, and she was so excited about it. She felt really special and we told her it was a reward for her hard work at school and for doing her homework every night. With a score of 56 -3, she had plenty of opportunities to sing the fight song she has memorized. Papi even spoiled us with frozen lemonades and ice cream.

 Yesterday, Julianne's preschool went to good ole' pumpkin patch. The kids had fun running all over the place and it was good for us to get out. Sophia was lucky enough to tag along. We love this preschool and their teachers.

I don't seem to be able to blog much, because I'm so stinkin' busy these days. Life just seems to have gone into overdrive. It's good, but I don't seem to have a spare moment to do any of the "I want to do's" because there are so many "I have to do's. " But I'm sure it's the same for all of us. 

Creativity?

This sweet child of mine.

We've struggled lately. I love her to death, but the thought that keeps coming to my mind is, "where is your brain?"

I know that sounds harsh, but this child is always pushing the limits and my patience. She doesn't do the obvious thing to do. I'm always faced with some new challenge as I raise her. Some new thing or problem I have to solve.

For instance.
- She decided it was a good idea to CUT MAX'S HAIR, the other day. After I've threatened her life after her last 3 hair cutting incidents!
- I catch her setting up camp in the back of Grandpa's truck that's parked out on the busy street in front of our house. We only have a 1/2 acre forested backyard to play in. And she leads her sisters out on the street!
- She has been digging in my sewing box and cutting up my saved material to "make clothes for her stuffed animals."
- She is constantly sneeking candy around the house. I had to throw out their whole bag of candy because they were breaking the "asking rule."

And the list could go on and on.

I feel bad for her, because she is always in trouble and I feel like I'm always loosing my cool with her. She does push my limits. It's like it physically hurts her to be obedient to me. If I say put the sweater on, she takes it off. If I say one thing, she'll do the other. It's just a battle.

But then I started thinking that it is probably because she is the oldest and she is always breaking new ground around here. The other two girls don't seem to phase me or do such naughty things, but I think they are watching Gabriela to learn the limits. Poor Gabriela. She probably feels like she's the first one over a field of land mines, trying to figure out what things are going to set her mom and dad off.

I also believe that she has an amazingly creative mind. She is always thinking outside the box. She will make an octopus out of a DOTS candy box. She makes clothes out of fabric and brads. She is very imaginative. Sometimes I wonder if I'm stepping on her creativity when I am yelling at her about constantly getting into my stuff. Miguel reminded me that those types of people are usually the most successful in life, because they CAN think outside the box.

The point is: I'm Hard On Her

My parents were hard on me.

Does that just come with being the oldest?

How can I change it?

Back in Session!

Man, today is a glorious day! Why? Because we started back to school today. Way back when, when I was thinking about having my fourth baby, I thought it would be so fun to have a baby in the summer. I didn't happen to think about what it was going to be like to have 3 kids in the house with me every day with the new baby. The lack of a schedule has been crazy, so with that said, that is why I'm so excited for today! We will finally be forced into a schedule and there will be times when I will only have two children at home so I can actually go to the grocery store and run errands. Woohoo!

But besides my own excitement, I'm really excited for my kids as well. Gabriela is ready. She's super social and has not had many chances to be social over the summer outside of her family. I know she's glad to see her friends. She was a little nervous to start first grade, because she was afraid of being with all the big kids. She will start eating lunch at school now. (I'm biting my nails over this one. I think I've taught her how to choose healthy things to eat and why, now let's just hope she does it when I'm not at the table with her.) She was really excited to have her own desk and not sit at a group table like in kindergarten. So without further adou...here she is!

Miss. Gabriela.....The First Grader.

 This is her teacher Mrs. Frey.

 Her friend Sophia, from Kindergarten, is in her class.

 A lot of the other kids looked pretty nervous, but Gabriela was beaming! I love that about her. She has a lot of confidence and I'm so proud of her.

 And where were the other little rugrats, you might ask? Yeah they were there too. I pretty much snatched them out of bed, threw their shoes on, and off we went to walk Gabriela to school.

 And there she goes! My baby girl will be gone all day now to school.

I sure love that kid!



All I want for Christmas...

Well it finally happened.

Gabriela lost one of her front teeth.

This is her third tooth, but by far, the most eventful.

It has been a process. Way too long for my blood. You see, I'm a tooth puller. I like it. A lot. I pulled all of my sister's teeth. I'm pretty good at it, so when Gabriela told me it was loose and I could finally see it was ready to come out, I was dying to pull it. But I refrained. I had to build her trust and promised that everytime I felt of it, I..would..not..pull..it. And I didn't.

 By Sunday morning it looked like this. I was begging her to pull it herself, because I did not want her walking around church with her tooth poked out like that. I know it grosses most people out. And of course they sang on the stand for Father's day and she was fiddling with the tooth the whole time. And as she's walking back up the aisle to our pew, she flashing it to everyone. It was just as bad as I thought. It was hanging by a thread. Oh, I wanted to just put her in a head lock and pull it myself. I was ready to be done with it.

And, well, last night we were talking about it and fiddling with it some more and I told her to twist it as far as she could, even if it hurt, and what do you know...it popped right out. I wanted to sing the hallelujah chorus!

She was super excited. And surprised. At night she placed it in an envelope under her pillow, but then thought better of it, because the tooth fairy is so small that it wouldn't be able to lift her head up to get to the tooth. So we placed it at the foot of her bed. (Much easier and better idea). But before she knodded off into sweet slumber she informed me that her cousin told her that the tooth fairy isn't real and that it was just a mom and that Santa wasn't real also. It was just some dad. I might have to have a talk with said cousin soon.

Gabriela's Last Dance Recital

Yeah, we had our last dance recital this past weekend. We were all excited to see her perform again. She's always done such a great job and this year she was in three numbers. (We secretly dread this concert each year because it is soooo looong and we know we will have a hard time with the other two.) I have a lot to say about dance and have been meaning to write a post about it for a long time, but when I came into the dressing room at intermission and found Gabriela lying on the floor, I knew we were both done with this whole thing. She told me she wanted "to go home and that she missed her stuffed animals and blankets." I feel pretty confindent in my decision to end this. 

But onto the concert:

 My little prima ballerina.

 She looks so skinny! That's why her nickname at home is "little bones."

Wish I could say that about myself. Wow, my face has really rounded out!

 This ballet number was to "Someday My Prince Will Come" from Snow White.

 This is from "What's New at the Zoo?"

 Yes, she is supposed to make that face.

 And this lyrical number is to "When Somebody Loved Me" from Toy Story.

 We were all very proud of her and she was happy as pie to finally get flowers after her performance. We love that kid and admire her will to stick to it and work hard. She really has come a long way and it's been fun to watch her dance over the last three years.



Oh, St. Patrick's Day!

Dear St. Patrick's Day,

I don't think I really like you. Nor do my children. You see we've never given you any attention before and we've been just fine here in our home. However, I got a wild idea and decided to teach my children about you this year and all of your mischief and magical people. We talked about leprachauns and their sneaky ways and if we catch one, we can get a wish. All of which was highly reinforced by Gabriela's Kindergarten teacher who set her own trap in the classroom. Gabriela came home singing songs and bringing home leprechauns of her own.

 Well here is what our leprechaun left us that night.

Gabriela was the first one up that morning and when I reminded her about the trap, she all of a sudden got a look of horror on her face and told me she was too afraid to check it. She peeked into the kitchen and said she saw footprints and told me to go look. I played along and eased her fears when I said he wasn't in the trap. She then came in and discovered the chocolate coins he left behind. All of which were consumed by the kids before breakfast.

Later she declared, "Mom, I know why he didn't mess up our rooms or our house...it's because it was already a mess!"   NICE, but she's probably right.

I guess at school during recess a leprechaun made his way into her classroom and messed up everything, turned the milk green, and created havoc all over.

So later on that week we had babysitting group at our house and all of the other children started talking about leprechauns and told Gabriela that they saw one in her room. Next thing we know she comes to us crying and shaking in fear that there really was something in her room. We've never taught our kids to fear and it was strange to see her so terrified. She truly believed in those little things and I don't think she had a friendly image in her mind. I tried to convince her that nothing was in the house, but she wasn't buying it, so I finally, against my gut instinct, had to tell her the truth. There are no real leprechauns. I felt like I was going to crush all of her other beliefs with this sinking ship. She looked at me strange, and said, "yes they are. What about the green milk, and the footprints?" I told her that Mommy and Papi were the leprechauns, and she said, "why would you do that?" I had to tell her it was all for fun, but that it was our secret and don't ruin the fun for all the other kids.
Even after our pep talk, she still wouldn't sleep in her own bed for a few nights.

So St. Patrick's Day...the heck with you. It wasn't that fun and we would rather love and celebrate Cinco de Mayo anyday.

Adios

Celebrating a Birthday "FANCY NANCY" style

Yesterday was Gabriela's sixth birthday. We decided it would be fun to celebrate like Fancy Nancy, one of my girls favorite books. If you don't know her look her up. She's always dolled up in her dress ups and everything has to be fancy. She has curly hair, so we put everyones hair in sponge rollers the night before to get ready for the big day.

Gabriela had her usual birthday breakfast of pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream. But we made it fancy by pulling out the green goblets.

 Sophia's hair turned out perfect and I just kept admiring her cuteness all day!

 And here is the epitomy of Fancy Nancy herself. Don't you just want to squeeze her? I do!!! While Sophia was at preschool, Julianne and I went to Gabriela's class to do a demo on green smoothies. Her school has a welness policy so you can't bring cupcakes for your child's birthday, so we decided to teach them a healthy new habit. The kids loved it and drank it up beautifully along with the muffins I made. Julianne freaked out when we had to leave, but one last muffin seemed to settle her down in the car. Oh, and yes, she did wear that whole get up to the school.

 Once Gabriela got home, we started preparing for the big lunch date. In Fancy's book the kids get the adults dressed up and they go out to eat. Everyone thinks they are "movie stars!" So I got these crowns for the girls to decorate to go along with their ensembles.

 And here is the final product!!! Soooo Fancy!

 Grandma and Grandpa even came to celebrate with us. I think they missed the fancy memo, but that's o.k.

 Gabriela just gave Grandpa someone elses crown.

 I could eat this child alive, I'm telling you.

 Gabriela sat next too me and insisted that I eat every bite of my food with my pinky up like this.

 She even got an ice cream parfait at the end, just like Fancy, but she didn't drop hers on the ground, thank goodness. Oh, but trouble was abruing when she went to the bathroom and Julianne jumped in her chair and cleaned out the bowl. Let's just say, that didn't go over so well.

 We came home and opened the box that Gigi sent. They pulled out all kinds of wonderful clothes, but the immediate hit was the new princess gowns. They all looked beautiful and proceeded to dance around the living room to primary music.

(Is this not the atypical youngest child photo. We asked her to stand next to her sisters, but refused, but at the last second ran in front of them and did this. Miguel and I just laughed, while the other two were probably rolling thier eyes.)

 After naps and dinner, we finally made it to the cake and ice cream part of the day. We went with a small cake, because I'm making one for a family party for her and Julianne this weekend, but everyone needs a little cake on their birthday.

Little do these two know, they are getting a trampoline this weekend. They are going to be so excited!

So here is a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my BIG GIRL GABRIELA.

We sure love her and it has been so fun to watch her grow and learn and become a little lady.