Parenting and Friendshipping

Friday I met up with a friend from Covington.   She had some concerns about a friend of her daughters who is LDS and is not happy with her home life.  My friend seemed so confused by what she was hearing from this friend and wanted to talk to me about it hoping I could give her some insight into the parenting methods of these parents.  It was sad to hear how this girl is being treated and struggling to explain how the church may be the starting point of these rules, but that they parents seem to be taking them to the extreme. That if we are really listening to our church leaders that our children would feel loved and safe, not untrusted and unloved.  Trying to explain why LDS people have such a fear of their children/family members losing their testimonies/leaving the church and how it often causes them to behave overbearingly and overprotective.  All parents want their children to grow up and be good humans, LDS or not.  We have created this problem where we want our kids to be "perfect" and they know it.  And we let them know when they aren't.  We need to be more lenient.  We need to be there so that our kids can come to us with their problems.  So many parents don't talk to their kids about hard things b/c they are worried it may make them want to do those things.  Us talking to them about it, letting them voice their concerns and questions, is what helps create a healthy relationship.  I am not always good at this.  I'd like to think my kids know they can talk to me about anything, but I also know I have quite a few expectations for them and I don't always go about it the best way.

How do we parent in a healthy way?  How do we teach our kids that we want them to have standards, we want them to be safe, but that even if they don't follow those standards they can come talk to us and that they will be heard.  In this situation with this LDS teen she doesn't feel like she can be heard.  She doesn't feel valued or that her opinion will matter one bit.  This girl wants to move out as soon as she turns 18 b/c she just can't handle being at home anymore.  I can't believe her parents want that. I can't believe they don't have her best interest at heart, even if they are going about it the wrong way.  But they have created a hostile environment where they are pushing her away from them and away from the church.  Which I guarantee is not their wish.

My friend also brought up the fact that her only issue she has had with members of the LDS church is that when she is in big groups of them they ignore her.  They aren't welcoming.   They just talk with each other. She knows that LDS people want everyone to be LDS (haha!) and that they are supposed to be kind and friendly, but she never felt that from my group of friends.  She asked if it was b/c they were judging her (her daughters friends said "they are all judgmental, if you don't fit the mold you can't be their friend").  I assured her that wasn't the case.  That when LDS ladies get together its like a family gathering.  This is our community.  We talk about church, we talk about our callings, we talk about our children's primary classes, etc.  I feel like blinders are put on and that they don't even notice what is happening around them all the time.  I have 3-4 friends that don't wear blinders.  They are so good at talking to everyone and especially those that look like they don't know anyone very well.  I am always so grateful for them for stepping away from their besties to make someone else feel welcome.

Changes need to be made.  We need to reach out to those around us.  We need to be what we claim to be.  We need to love unconditionally and reach out to those that need the love.

But how?

Sam Starts School and other happenings

Sam finally started school this week.  She was so busy.  We barely see her.  She starts classes at 7:00 and has them until 10:00 on M and W and 2:00 on T, Th, and F.  On M and W she goes to work after and then comes home for an hour or so then heads to dive.  On the other days she goes right to dive.  On meet days she is gone from 6:30 until 6:00ish.  Luckily she is still squeezing in time with her friends.  She seems to really enjoy taking college classes rather than high school ones.  

 This doesn't happen often so I documented it :)

 I love fall in the PNW when the spiderwebs are covered with dew/rain and you can see all the details.  This one is hanging outside my bedroom window.

Camryn played goalie in her soccer game.  She has a great little defensive stance and keeps an eye on the ball.  She stopped quite a few, but a few did get past her.  Once she gets past the fear of getting kicked I could see her being a good little goalie.

  Sam had great dive meets this week.  I thought she took first on  Thursday, she had 3 dives that she scored 7's on, but somehow she ended up in 2nd.  I don't remember the other girl having better scores than her, but I must have missed something.  Of course I was so sure that I even posted that she took first, only to find out she didn't.  Oops. Edit post.  We love watching her dive and we are glad she found something she really enjoys.  We all wish she had a good coach though.  They have a person there "coaching" them, but he wasn't a diver and often contradicts things she has been told to do by past dive coaches, who were divers.  Her and her friend Gracie tend to be coaching themselves which is unfortunate.  They are doing well, it's easy to tell with a coach they would be doing that much better.

Allison's Birthday Celebrations

I still can't believe Allison is 14.  Seriously, time flies.
Sunday the 22nd we had a family party for Kenzie and Allison.  Grandpa got the kids all riled up as usual!

 Ready for presents:

 She didn't love that these were the "cheap" candles that have wax covering the wicks so it takes forever to light them!  Lesson learned!

 On Friday the 27th she had Gabby, Jenna, Maddie, and Sandy over to celebrate with her.  I took them to Red Robin that night and then they just hung out and had a sleepover.

 Saturday Allison had a soccer game that she had to leave for at 8:00.  Her friends stayed at our house and hung out while her team kicked butt with a 4-0 win.  She had two goals!

For lunch they had Italian sodas with their pizza.  They had to visco it :)

  My dads sister (Lori) and BIL (Larry) were in town for the week, watching as much baseball as possible (5 games I believe). We were glad they stopped by on Saturday to say hi.  It was fun visiting with them.

 Presents from the family:

 Using the second half of the Costco cake :)

 Sam sang so loud that Allison went to the corner and plugged her ears :)

 Allison got into Friends this year and was so excited to see that there was a 25th Anniversary Friends celebration at the movie theater on her birthday.  We had a great time watching 4 episodes in the theater.

 We chose to watch the movie in Federal Way b/c there is a Coldstone there.  Allison LOVES their cake batter ice cream (no mix-ins!) and I knew she'd want some on her birthday.

We sure love this girl. She is smart, funny, caring, thoughtful, silly, helpful, sporty, sassy, and amazing.  We wouldn't change a thing about her and are so grateful she is in our family!

Weekly Happenings

This past week was a busy one. Full of school, work, soccer practices, classes at the gym, basketball in the early mornings, swim lessons, dive meets, church things, the fair, soccer games, and watching football games on TV.

We have also been playing a lot of vaskeyball.  Its a volleyball/basketball game that is played using a volleyball and playing basketball with it.  Setting and passing into the hoop of course.  Allison is determined to beat Konrad...she gets 20 bucks if she does and has been close twice.  She'll get him one of these days!

We took Cam to the fair on Monday night (the other two were hoping to go with friends later in the week so they didn't come with us....and didn't end up going with friends either, stinks to be them!).  She loved the animals and could have watched the dogs all day long.  She played in the petting farm for 20-30 minutes and enjoyed riding the tractor tricycles and working on the pretend farm.  We of course enjoyed a corn dog and an elephant ear, while she had a Cow Chip cookie that was as big as her face.  No rides this time, we rode them all summer long at Wild Waves and didn't get to play any games, but still came home with "Fluffy" b/c some random guy handed him to her on our way out.  He made her night!

 Allison has been enjoying spending time in the rain.  This day her and I were playing vaskeyball, but when it started raining I was done.  She chose to stay out and eventually came and got goggles b/c the rain was getting in her eyes.  She was completely drenched!

Love rainbows over the water!

 Konrad and I had a date night while the girls were at soccer/dive. Taco Time and then Menchies, where Konrad added a cute little ice cream cone to his yogurt cup :)

Allison had a night game.  At one point we thought they were going to have to end the game early b/c the lights hadn't turned on yet.  Luckily they came on though and they were able to finish the game.  

Dogs, Lightning, and Sunsets

Camryn loves dogs.  Like really loves them.  A very small part of me wants to be the nicest mom ever and let her have a dog, mainly b/c she doesn't have a sibling close to her age.  But I just can't do it.  I just can't be the nice mom with this.  

So we let her approach all the dogs and ask their owner if she can pet them.  At a ward potluck she got to walk this pup around (or the pup actually walked her) for at least an hour.  She was in heaven!

Later that night we had a big thunder storm and lost power.  There was a beautiful lightning storm and some crazy loud thunder.  It was so cool.  It did throw off our plans of going to play volleyball though.  Sad face!

But I did get asked by Allison to play a game, so that was fun!

And just some pretty pictures b/c why not!