The Power of Words

For quite some time now, we've had a serious attitude problem at our house. There's a whole lot of name calling, finger pointing, lack of patience, and lack of responsibility going on. As such, Teag and I have been working on a few different things to try and change our kids perspectives towards each other, and their attitudes in general. One of those ideas has been a daily gratitude chart, where each person in our family has to come up with a different thing they're grateful for every day. We liked to see what the kids wrote, and they liked to see what we would write for ourselves, and for Finn, but we didn't see any overall changes taking place. So last night, we attempted another tact.

I gave each kid a different color of post it note, and we had an FHE about looking for the good in each other. Not just the obvious, surface things, but really looking at people, and trying to find their positive attributes. Many of you may have seen the video of the youth in one ward doing something similar to this for their Young Women. I made each person in our family a poster, and then we took turns sticking our "words" on them.

Not only have the kids seemed very excited to get new messages, they've been actively plastering them to other members of the family all day. Less than 24 hours later, their posters look like this:

It makes me very happy to see some of them words that they've come up with to describe each other, heartfelt things that give me real hope of a positive change. As a writer, I definitely believe there is a significant power in words, and I hope to teach my family how to use them wisely, to build up those around them, and to make an impact for good.

The Property in a Day

We decided last minute to go up to the property on Saturday to spend some time with the fam. We got up there about lunch time to see that Uncle Kevy had hung up his hammock. That became an instant hit, especially with Finn.

 I tried to convince him to take a nap in it with me, but he wasn't interested. So we took pictures instead and then I fell asleep after he climbed out.

Even Rory got in on the action, with a cozy Aunt Meg.

Some of the older kids had some pretty intense games of War going on for a good share of the time we were there. They even managed to suck Grandma into their games.

And Henry found a horny toad, something that has shown up with increasing frequency around the property.

Henry's new shirt decoration

We stayed long enough to enjoy some S'mores and then it was time to head home.

A fast trip, to be sure, but a good one.

Sometimes All You Need For a Better Outlook on Life is a Cozy Grandma

Fun On the Fourth!

We had another wonderful 4th of July this year! Our tie-dyed shirts drew quite a lot of comments, especially at the community pancake breakfast.

One cute lady in our Stake even said, "I want to be friends with you, but you need to take it down a notch." Oh well :). Rory had a bit of a hard time riding her tricycle, as she's long grown out of it, and ended up walking most of the time. But she did enjoy riding during any downhill stretches.

And this next picture just sums Dany up to a tee. Notice the cheesy facial expression.

On the way back to the car, I quickly snapped this picture, that I really love. I only wish Rory had been in the pic as well, and then it would have been perfect.

After the parade came our water party, which ended up being a bit of a struggle, as last years limbo water slide had sprung a leak, and our new "curved" water slide ended up being a bust, as no one could really make the curve. We made the most of it though.

And now Bomb Pops are part of the tradition as well. What better holiday to enjoy them?

After that, we had lunch and naps to recharge for the evening. It was already incredibly hot, so we decided to start dinner a little later; both so it could cool down, and also, because there were a lot fewer of us. My parents and Kev and Meg decided to head up to the property after the water party, so it was only us and Brad and Sara. And Brad and Sara didn't have most of their kids with them either. Not many fireworks this year, but we did have a few Sparklers.

This was Finn's first experience with Sparklers and he absolutely LOVED them. I think he went through fifteen Sparklers himself.

I love this picture of Rory, even if her Sparkler has gone out, simply because it's a genuine Rory smile, not the fake ones we often capture in photos.

Once it got dark, we got ready to watch our outdoor movie, something we all really enjoy. This year, we watched The Lego Movie.

It was a great holiday, if a bit more subdued, due to lack of people. We still had a lot of good old, American fun!

Girls Camp!

We had such an amazing time at Girls Camp this year. My mom actually volunteered to be our Camp Director, so I got to go up with her again.

We had a really amazing time, and even though our girls were few in number, we had some pretty humbling spiritual experiences, as well as just a lot of good, clean fun. I wish I could attach some videos of our skits and songs, but the files are all too large.

First up, our theme for camp was God is the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever, and as such, each ward was asked to pick a decade. Our ward chose the 1940's, and Rosie the Riveter became our mascot.

The Stake leaders even built a TARDIS to "travel" through time with.

So of course, I had to pose in front of it with my TARDIS cell phone case.

Other than that, I don't have many other pictures of me doing things, because I spent a large chunk of my time doing this:

Even though I wasn't on the Stake Camp Committee this go around, I still ended up with the role of Camp Photographer. I did want to document it on our Blog at least somewhat though, as this was a seriously cool experience. Not to mention, we got to look at this every night.

I don't feel like there is a great way for me to get into some of the spiritual stuff, as it's quite personal in nature, but I will say that we witnessed a few miracles happen there. I was very glad to be a part of it all.

Hill Air Show

I took Danyn and Finn to the Hill Air Show a couple of weeks ago. Maisie and Kerri weren't interested, and Rory, quite maturely, said she would whine and be too hot so she declined as well.

We airplane-loving, non-whining folk rode Frontrunner for the first time to get up to Clearfield. I thought Finn and Dany would think riding the train would be fun, but they didn't seem very impressed or entertained. Finn kept trying to lick the seats, for some bewildering reason. Yummy public transportation germs! UTA was logistically on it, though, and had multiple buses waiting to take a trainfull of people onto the base. It was better than fighting the traffic jams, but not as speedy as I'd hoped, overall. 

Chicken strips and F-15s in the background. What else do you need?

We got some early lunch and sat on the flight line to watch the show. Finn seemed more interested in his chicken strips than the planes, which was a surprise to me. Danyn wasn't super interested until a flight F-16s simulated bomb drops, complete with explosions, flames and smoke. She then started jumping up and down shouting, "This is awesome!" 

We later took the opportunity to tour the bellies of some cargo birds.

Gotta check out those comfy cargo seats and seatbelts

As the day wore on, Finn got very tired. He was a trooper in the heat and not having a nap. 

The Thunderbird dots. Didn't bring the DSLR obviously...

"I'm exhausted and the Thunderbirds are loud."

 Overall, I think everyone had a good time. The kiddos held up really well, the weather was excellent, and the airplane eye candy was everywhere. Good old-fashioned summer fun!