Jozie's Antics, Spending Time, Kid Dinners, Becca's Headstone, etc.

Since Jozie's the oldest, sometimes I have to remind myself to relish the age she's at because just like Haven, her age isn't going to last forever. I need to enjoy every bit of her 5-year-old-ness as I can. One thing I love about Jozie is that ever since she was little, if she laughs really hard she gets the hiccups. I wonder if she'll ever grow out of it - she hasn't yet!

Every night we've been "spending time" one on one - first with Haven and then with Jozie. Haven first so she can get a bit more sleep than Jozie - I've pretty much given up on more than a nap a week with her and by nighttime she's pretty exhausted. First Haven and I do a "falling hug," where we grab onto each other and pretend to be losing our balance and then fall on my bed. Then we lay by each other and talk about our day, which often consists of me asking Haven questions and her saying "I don't know" in a sing-song voice, then we read a story and pray. Jozie and I do pretty much the same thing. We've been sleeping in the basement because it's so much cooler at night than it is upstairs - gotta do something about that by next summer I think or the baby will spend the summer sleeping in the office.

I don't think I've written about kid dinners yet. Once a week Jozie or Haven gets to choose what they want to make for dinner (we have a picture menu thing with simple meals like noodles and sauce, franks and beans, fruit salad, mac and cheese, tuna fish sandwiches, etc.) and the other one gets to pick the vegetable (usually cucumber, green beans, or raw broccoli with ranch). So far this has been going really well. At first I thought it would mean eating more junk but I think it's turned out to be less, because instead of asking me if they can eat Ramen all the time they know they can choose to make that for their dinner, so they ask for it less. I love the accomplishment Jozie feels when she uses the can opener to open something or how Haven feels when she cuts bananas. It's been good.

I'm still working on keeping my mind directly in the situation I'm in and not wandering or being distracted. It's a really good thing for the most part. It helps me enjoy my kids more and helps me better recognize the many reasons I have to be grateful. I don't think I had realized how much I was missing out on by trying to be so "busy" in my thinking.

Today we met to finally decide how to design Becca's headstone. I don't mind that we were slow in doing it but I'm glad that it's done. I think it will be pretty. I was up at YW camp the week the year mark passed for when Becca's body was found. That was tough for me - it's tough sometimes to hang around all these girls and miss my sister who in some ways was still such a young girl and who never really "got" the YW program. She missed out on so much and I'm sad for that.

I've started reading Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People." It is a great book. I should have read it a long time ago but I'm glad to at least be reading it now. I actually bought it (I buy very few books) because it's something I want to keep around for me to revisit and for my children to be inspired by.