Author Archives: guest

The Little Things

Posted on by

Long ago, in the days before the internet, I was a timid freshman at Vassar College. Vassar is located in Poughkeepsie, New York, about an hour and a half north of New York City. Though there is a small airport in a town near Vassar, it was significantly cheaper to find your way to NYC and fly in and out of there.

There was a shuttle between Poughkeepsie and the NYC airports that was convenient and fairly inexpensive, and it was popular with the Vassar students, so I used that to get the airport when I flew home to Utah for Christmas. I, of course, planned to repeat the route to get back to campus when I returned after Christmas, but was thwarted after landing in NYC when I found that the shuttle company had gone out of business.

Insert panic and general freaking out here. Continue reading →

Success Strategies ~ Respecting Parents

Posted on by

There are certain skills I teach my children for successful communication in my home.  Two of the main skills are Following Instructions and Accepting No Answers.  These are two of the basic skills for showing respect to parents and for learning how to respect any authority, even God.  People who can’t do these basic skills are very noticeable in society. 

However, learning these skills takes lots of practice and really goes against our selfish tendency to disconnect and Continue reading →

Parenting Discipline ~Another Perspective

Posted on by

One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those days where you go, go, go?  On these days there are lots of places to get to, you are always running late and your children seem to be grumpy, whiny, and aggressive.  You don’t know if you’ll ever master getting out the door with a smile on your face and everyone in a good mood. 

At the ends of days like these we plop on the couch grateful that there is finally quiet in the house and still some chocolate ice cream in the freezer.  We hope the children will give us at least two hours of good sleep and that we might be able to actually check something off or our to-do list before we get to ‘turn in.’  These are the days we can’t wait to finish. 

I have felt those days too.  Continue reading →

Family Valentine Ideas

Posted on by

I make my children breakfast in bed every Valentine’s day.  It’s a tradition that we all look forward to.  It is my Valentine to them.  Some times we have red heart pancakes and sometimes we have eggs with candy sprinkles and chocolate chips.  🙂  Try it.  Surprise them.

Relationship building is so important.  If you want your children to come to you and confide in you during life then you need to build an honest, thoughtful, loving relationship.  Nothing says, I love and accept you better than doing surprise service for someone, and nothing makes children feel more grown up and special than getting breakfast in bed.  I hope you have a happy Valentines Day. 

Other ideas are: Continue reading →

LDS Families – Making Home an MTC

Posted on by

For years now our family has had one focus;to be the kind of family who lives each day with spiritual purpose.  We deliberately do all kinds of things like have daily devotionals and family council meetings, weekly PPIs.  A family mission statement isn’t  just a good idea to us, it is something we use to keep our family focused on progressing as a group toward the missions God has prepared for each of us.  We talk about everything and every feeling.  If we feel the Spirit leave our home every member of the family has been taught to bring it to the family’s attention and to pray and sing a song to invite it back into the home. 

If we are driving to the store and children start to argue, we stop, discuss, pray and sing until we feel the Spirit so that we can go out into the world carrying a feeling that will be different, warm, and inviting.  This is the way we live to keep the Spirit and to stay focused on our responsibility to spread goodness and light to the world. 

Each member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been asked to be a missionary. Continue reading →