The Houston's Home: March 2010

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Soccer

Claire stared her first season of indoor soccer two weeks ago. Shawn is the coach which is fun and Claire's cousin David is on the team too! It's a lot of fun to go and watch the games on Saturday! Here are some pictures!

Makeover party!

I usually don't blog about the b-day parties my kids go to, but Claire went to one a couple of weeks ago and it was so girly and cute I thought I'd blog about it. Claire's friend Sammi had a girl makeover party. The girls got to put makeup on and get their hair and nails done and make pretty hair clips and then they took pictures of the makeover. Then they turned on music and played freeze dance. Those girls have some moves! It reminded me so much of the parties I used to go to with my friends! Ahhh the good old days :) Here are some cute pics of the girls.

FHE for the last three weeks

I'm not doing too good about getting on the computer and blogging about family home evening. I've missed blogging the last three weeks, but we did have FHE and I will sum them all up here. We've actually been talking about being happy. This all started three weeks ago when I went to a depression class that they had at church. We had Psychologist/counselor Dr. Frank come and talk to us for a Relief Society class about his experience with treating depression. I thought he did a great job speaking on this subject, and the things that stuck with me I brought into family home evening. Dr. Frank told us that the #1 attribute of a happy person is to be grateful, or have gratitude. The following four attributes are also are found in "happy" people in no particular order:

-Zest and Enthusiasm for life
-To Love and to be able to be Loved
-Having Hope and Optimism
-Having a curiosity of the world we live in.

Anyway, for me it seemed he talked about how to be happy. He said it's important to focus on how to be happy not how not to be depressed. Does that make sense. He talked a lot about gratitude since it's the #1 happy predictor. He said it's important to stop and "smell the roses" -You know notice not only the big things in life, but the little things and be grateful.

So anyway, I really want my kids to be happy. I think it's so easy to be depressed, and I want them to know ways to be happy even when life throws us curve balls. So the first week of FHE we talked about how it's important to be happy and one of the best ways is to have gratitude. We challenged the kids to notice something everyday that they are grateful for and to report it to us at dinner. They couldn't use the big obvious things either like our family and our home (we know the big things that we are grateful for, but I wanted them to try thinking deeper) It seems to work Claire would notice little things like Vivi laughing and friends at school that were nice. Will one day noticed a bee (which is very exciting- doesn't that mean spring might be coming?).
The week after that we talked about having curiosity of the world. I'm not 100% sure what he meant by this, but I think that if we are curious about our world we will appreciate the many differences in it and appreciate our own lives. So, we talked about the world.
This week we talked about loving and being loved. This was pretty easy, we talked about who we love and who loves us and why it's important to both love people and to accept love from others. Next week we will talk about zest or enthusiasm for life. We will be revisiting these again in FHE because really I can't think of anything I want more for my kids except a close relationship with our Heavenly Father than to be happy - truly happy not the world kind of happy, but really internally happy. Ok, so this is a long blog entry, but I wanted to get that all out. One more thing, a quote:
The past is behind, learn from it.
The future is ahead, prepare for it.
The present is here, live it.”
Pres. Monson
I need to do this I get too caught up in the past and future. The present is now and we need to live it!

Out Of The Mouth of My Kids

On Easter this year Will had his easter basket full of the little plastic eggs when he accidentally tripped and dropped his basket. When he dropped his basket the plastic egss broke open to reveal the candy inside. Will, in the most excited voice I've ever heard him use said "The eggs open!!!!!!" He couldn't believe there was candy inside- it was the coolest thing to him!
(Easter 2009)

I asked Will one day where the new baby was going to sleep. He said: " in a cage". I guess we now know what he thought of his crib.
(Winter 2009)

I was playing with Will one day. He was pretending to be a robot, so I decided to be a robot too, but he said:
"no you can't be a robot you are a princess"
I said:
"what do princesses do?"
He said:
"they just dance"
(Winter 2009)

We drove by a horse pasture the other day and Claire said:
"I really want a horse. If you don't get me a horse mom I will fire you... ... I mean I will fire Daddy!"
(Winter 2009)

We were talking about where we should go out for dinner one night and Shawn mentioned a new Terriakyi Sushi place. Claire got very excited and said, "Yes! Sushi! Shushi! Please! Please! Please! I love Sushi!" We soon found out she meant a Slushee (like a fruit drink) not Sushi. She does not like Sushi.

Claire: "Mom, I can't make my bed. Will is making me have too much fun." (July 2008)

Will's newest fixation is robots. Yes, we saw WALLE, and that's about when it started. Will can't quite say ROBOT though, so he says "Beebot" instead. It took us awhile to figure out what he meant, but now it's very cute - beebot! (Summer 2008)

William at age 2 still doesn't say too much, but some times he gets on a kick and repeats things over and over, and recently he has found bird poo very interesting. I don't know why, but when we go on walks lately he stops at every white spot on the side walk and says "bird poo- ewwww yuck" this happens over and over and over and over on our walks. I never realized there was so much bird poo in the world! (Summer 2008)

I recently walked in on Claire singing a song she made up to her brother. This is a rare occurance, so I thought I'd better write it here to remember that even though they fight they still love each other. Here is the gist of the song imagine in a very high drawn out soprano:
"I love youuuuuuuuu. You are my frieeeeend because you love to play with meeeeeee and you love to go outside with meeee. I love YOUUUUUU!"
She repeated this over and over and Will just sat there listening seeming to know the song was just for him. I will have to show her this when she is mad at her brother for playing with her "stuff". (Summer 2008)

Claire: "Mom, when I stretch my nose up my nostrils look like bunny ears." (Spring 2008)

Claire had a cough one morning. When she woke up she said:
"My voice is crooked" (Winter 2008)

Claire toes aren't just toes. They are "Weeny Toes" because they are so small compared to everything else. (Winter 2008)

Claire: "Mom, don't step on the cracks or you will get boy slime." (Spring 2008)

Claire (in disgust after we had a carpenter ant problem): "Why did Heavenly Father have to make ants on the Earth?" (Summer 2008)

Claire: "I want to be a cowgirl and a mama when I grow up, and I will have 6 babies and they will all be girls." (2008)

Claire (smiling): "Mom, I can't stand it, I'm so NERVOUS for Christmas" I asked why she was "nervous" and she explains how she can't wait to see what Santa brings for her. I finally figured out that she meant excited not nervous and couldn't wait for Chritmas . (Winter 2007)