Grateful

There are days when Big Little and I butt heads, enormously. I feel like my patience with him is too little, always too little. He is so much like me that some days it's hard for either of us. Yet he (like me) has a sweet side. He is loving and kind and he cuddles his mama every chance he can. Reading about the loss of a child on Pack of Fixations makes me bawl every time without fail. And it makes me realize just how lucky I am to have those moments whether good or bad with my beautiful boys. Those days where you are puked on seemingly endlessly (like Sunday) and those days where your kids won't listen to a word you say they just push the boundaries again and again. I love every moment, sometimes the days are long and I just can't wait for bed time but soon after it hits I find myself going up to kiss my non-sleeping still playing rather loudly boys. And again once they are asleep, and again before I go to bed. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and go upstairs just to look at them and give them a snuggle. I would rather face any struggle God can give me than to loose my boys, I love them so much everything I could have thrown at me would be worth it. My number one thing I have been working on is patience. I think that more than anything will give me the results I want not only with my boys but with our lives as a whole. Besides being a wife to my wonderful hubby nothing can compare to being those boys mama. I hope we have a few more in store for us one day.

Christmas

I know it may be ridiculous but starting late on Christmas day I start missing Christmas, and I miss it day in and day out until Thanksgiving when the whole beautiful season starts again. I wouldn't add another Christmas because once a year is part of what makes it special, but I bask in every moment of the Christmas spirit that I can. This year I am already missing German Christmas Markets. Germans do Christmas right, better than anyone I have so far seen. The smell is second to none, even Keukenhof gardens in Holland (if heaven doesn't smell like that place I WILL be disappointed) cannot top the smell of a German Christmas market. The food, the tree's everything about the atmosphere is perfect. From the little shops set up in wooden booths to the different versions of nativities (Bitburg's live animals top all no matter how creepy the mane quins are) I could spend every day of the Christmas season wandering through the markets listening to the live bands, and drinking the cider and shopping, ahh endless shopping for beautiful hand made goods.

Doesn't this look like Christmas heaven?

Helmuth Hubener

Since moving back from Germany my obsession has grown even more, it could have to do with the love I have for Germany or maybe it's just feeling like a piece is missing from life now that we are back . World War 2 has always had a strong draw form me, thanks to watching mass amounts of documentary's with my dad growing up. Today I watched "Truth and Conviction the Helmuth Hubener Story" It's an amazing story of three teenage boys who did all they could to fight the evils of the Nazi regime. The boys were LDS, (Mormon) and something about knowing that those of my faith did all that they could to fight the evils of this era is completely moving. They were so young and although they may have been scared they were truly fearless in their actions. Some members of the faith believed in Nazi's (every faith is full of different political believers) many simply feared objecting but, these three boys were so brave and willing to risk everything to stand for their beliefs. I love history, and knowing where the world has been and what caused those events this story is moving and gives you faith in the world that sometimes feels so full of evil.

Fostering a Love of Learning

The main thing that I love about Montessori is that if done correctly you can end up with a child who loves to learn who is curious about the amazing world around us. Personally I lost my love of learning when middle school hit, I had no desire to attend college and hardly cared about high school. After having a child however I wanted to learn, not just to teach him but for me. Now there is little I enjoy as much as I do learning, particularly about history. I have been attending school online for awhile, and before it was all just to learn everything I could about anything that interested me. Now however I have decided to finally be degree seeking, and now that we are no longer military it's going to cost a small fortune to finally get that piece of paper in my hand.
I want my children to love learning, and have a strong desire to know all that they can. So instead of rushing on walks we stop and explore everything from bugs to cracks in the side walk. We read as much as we can and any time a question arises I do all I can to answer it to the greatest degree of my knowledge and their level of understanding.

The Soul Soother

There is something about little little that brings this amazing peace to you when he is close. I always get a sense of peace when I am around my boys even when things are pure chaos but there is something about this little man that just soothes the soul. I am so excited to see what kind of person he becomes as he grows older, and I hope he never looses this sense of peace he carries around with him.

Montessori Materials

With Little Little's first bday fast approaching I have been on the look out for fun educational things, I got all of this from Adena Montessori. They have amazing prices for Montessori materials, which are super expensive and defiantly not in the average budget. Although they were all listed in the infant/toddler section  the discs on dowels are not going to be put in the rotation for awhile, although his brother may have fun with them. So for now he is going to have the circle puzzles, Horizontal Dowel Variation ,and imbucare Box w/ Large Cylinder.  I am very excited to see what he thinks of them. He isn't one for normal toys so I think they should work out great, at the moment his favorite toy is rhythm sticks. There is nothing better than a toy you can both chew and beat everything in sight with! There are a few more things on the way that I know he will love, this is the first birthday we are going all natural and I am super excited about it. Not that we won't buy plastic toys or little metal cars (I have boys after all what kind of mom would I be if we didn't have hot wheels in our house?) I cannot wait for his little wooden animal to get here. Here's to hoping he loves it all if not just some of it!

Behavior

Big little and I seem to butt heads often, and since his dad has been gone for longer periods of time over the day with work, behavior has become a major issue. I know I need to work on patience (that is one virtue I have the hardest time possessing) and change something in our daily life to fix whatever the problem is but I just don't know what! He can be the sweetest person out there, he is loving and kind and on the flip side he is crazy hyper and the most defiant child I have ever met (if you know me you know where he gets this from) I think a lot of the head butting is how similar we are but, I just am not sure what to do at this point. I need to finish simplicity parenting (any guide to calmer kids should be read by all adults in this house). Being a parent is such a tough thing, you love them more than anything and who doesn't want the absolute best for their kids? In those bad moments I have flashes of those kids you see and die a little inside for their parents, or thoughts of all those messed up adults who according to their psychologists their parents are to blame for every bad thing in their lives/things they have done. Finding a good balance of everything is hard especially since every child needs one that is tailored to them. I wish that the desire to raise happy healthy children would solve it all, at this point though I am willing to try anything. No form of punishment seems to phase him, and positive re-enforcement worked about half the time (the time that he is normally well behaved any ways). I never realized quiet what a worry being a parent would be I knew it would be bad, but this is defiantly exceeding my expectations.