Kathryn August 23rd, 2011

I love how just an ordinary day can be so wonderful.
Nothing exciting or out of the ordinary happened today, but it WAS a wonderful day, full of wonderful moments of gratitude, clarity and learning. I want to share my wonderfully ordinary day with you!

It started with the wonderful weather! It was truly wonderful to the outside in the sun!

This morning I took Joshua to his weekly swimming lesson, which is always a high-light! Joshua loves his swimming lessons and today he did particularly well. I love seeing his confidence grow, and seeing the look of achievement, satisfaction and joy when he realises he’s done a good job – it’s really priceless! I am often overwhelmed and almost surprised at how proud of him I can be when he learns or does something new.

After swimming Josh fell asleep which gave me the opportunity to do some housework. I am so grateful that I could have the doors and windows open to enjoy the weather while I worked! Housework it is not something that I ALWAYS enjoy doing but I am learning to feel a great sense of satisfaction and achievement in the work that I do. I feel good knowing that I am working, to the best of my ability, to look after my family and to make our home a happy, peaceful and clean place. I am learning to appreciate work in the home and value it.

I teach a few piano students on a Tuesday afternoon. I am grateful that Joshua spending time with his Grammy and Papi, which allows me to teach for a couple of hours, and that they are willing to give their time and energy to not only help me but also bless Joshua’s life as they help him learn and grow also.

I love watching my students learn, and seeing their accomplishments. It is wonderful to see how proud and happy they are when they realise they have done something good, and achieved what they set out to achieve.

This evening I will have a quiet couple of hours at home studying for an upcoming theory exam, feeling secure in the fact that I have a wonderful husband who is out serving in his calling, a beautiful boy who is sleeping peacefully just metres away, and that as I study I will be able to do well in my exam.

I am truly blessed to be able to enjoy many aspects of life. I can enjoy my life with my husband and son, I have been blessed to be able to continue to seek education and also to continue a small amount of work. I am blessed with the time and ability to serve others and hopefully bring a bit of comfort and joy into their lives.

Today was a wonderful and beautiful day for me. I hope that yours was too

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Kathryn August 13th, 2011

Joshua turns 2 tomorrow, and it’s times like this that you start asking ourself questions like ‘Where has all the time gone!?’ or ‘When did he grow up!?’ Of course asking those questions never changes the fact that the time HAS gone, and that he HAS grown up, and will continue to grow every day from now until eternity! … I’m trying to embrace it rather than fight it, but we’ll see how that goes!

To celebrate his birthday we had a family party. I wanted it to be low key, but fun, and something he would recognise as being special and different. We decided to have a ‘Cars’ theme as it is, hands down, his favourite movie. He would watch it everyday, several times a day if I let him! To decorate we put up a few balloons along with a Cars poster and pictures of the characters, which he looked over carefully before deciding that it was in fact ‘Cars’. It wasn’t anything much really, but I knew that he would recognise it and it was something new for him.

Then we looked at the food! We just had basic party food including popcorn, biscuits and veges with dip and fruit. I also made some foccacia bread with pizza toppings and made some racing cars. I found the idea for the racing cars here and everyone thought they were great! Super easy, but as soon as Josh saw them he knew they were cars and of course, knew they were yummy!

Earlier in the week it was Papi’s birthday and of course then, the presents were for someone else! So before the party started today he was giving the present to other people! Of course, when it came time to open presents it didn’t take long for Joshy to realise that they were for him, and that he liked opening them! He was spoilt with his presents, and he loves them. He has really started to outgrow a lot of his toys so it’s nice for him to have some more age appropriate toys, as well as the other presents he got which weren’t toys. We have a couple more presents to give him tomorrow as it will be actual birthday but he did very well for himself today!

After the presents we had the cake! Joshua blew out the candles perfectly, even if it was at the beginning of the Happy birthday song! I decided to make a Lightning McQueen cake and although I was really nervous about it, I was really pleased with the end result. I’d never made a cake like this before and so it took a little while to do but as we went along we learnt a few things that will make it easier next time! It also helped that before I even started I had great advice from the ladies at the cake shop as well as the more experienced cake decorators in our family! Not to mention a very observant and helpful husband who assisted in the decorating as well.

Joshua had such a wonderful time! He told us several times this afternoon that he was ‘happy’ and it was clear that he was really enjoying himself! With half of our extended family living interstate it was a relatively small gathering, which was kind of nice. Of course we missed all of our other family and wish they could have been here but the small numbers meant I could focus more on Joshua during the party and that it wasn’t too overwhelming and noisy for him! We spent the remainder of the evening playing with his new toys and despite being over half an hour past his bed time, he was very disappointed when he had to go to bed!

His birthday tomorrow will be a much quieter day, but we hope to enjoy spending some quality time with him. Part of the day will undoubtedly involve me spending some time wondering how I was blessed with such a precious gift. The unconditional love that exists between parents and their children is amazing. It’s also hard to comprehend how a small child can contain so much! He’s gentle, loving, energetic, inquisitive, playful, happy and determined…. and that’s just before he gets us out of bed in the morning! We love you Joshy!

• Children , Family , Food
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Kathryn July 12th, 2011

We have this photo of Dallin when he was a little boy. Apparently one day his Mum found him sitting there under the carport, he had found the chair, dragged it there and was watching the digger and truck for ages. I’ve always thought it was a pretty cute little story and photo!

Well yesterday we came home today and there was a digger digging up the footpath just down the street. We were heading inside but of course Joshy had already seen it, and when I tried to bring him inside he insisted ‘digga digga digga’… when I said no and brought him inside (because it was cold and I was tired!) he grabbed my hand and insisted ‘look look look’… So he took me outside, led me through the gate and down the footpath. We stood there for a minute, when it became painfully clear Joshy was in for the long haul!

We only stayed out there for a couple of minutes but I’m sure if I had let him he would have stayed there the rest of the day! So needless to say I think Joshy is most certainly entering the ‘little boy’ stage of life…and maybe, just maybe, becoming more and more like his Dad everyday….. and I love it! I love that Josh can be so determined and know exactly what he wants to do. (even if it’s not what I was planning on!)
I love that he can be so full of life and getting into everything and yet at the end of the day he will lay next to me while we’re reading scriptures and stories, gently giving me kisses on my cheek.
The 2 most important men in my life are my husband and my little boy, and one of my greatest joys is seeing them play together, and watching their relationship grow. Life is wonderful with my family!

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Kathryn April 23rd, 2011

Joshua is at an age now where he can ‘help’ me with many of my daily activities. He helps me fill up the washing basket, type emails, take photos, put his toys away, put his dishes in the sink, put the rubbish (and sometimes the ‘not rubbish’) in the bin. He’s starting to become my little shadow and helper and I generally just love having him with me. I love seeing him explore and enjoy life, and one of his favourite things to help me with is cooking!
It’s wonderful! Now I can use baking as an activity that Joshua and I can do together and hopefully, with some delicious results! Josh and I have a great time as I try not to care too much about the mess he makes as he help me ‘mix’ the ingredients… or that he uses my measuring spoons to scoop out spoonfuls of batter which he then proceeds to eat….

I had been thinking for a while about making playdough with my sister and her 2 yr old girl and so a few weeks ago we went over to their place to do just that! The recipe is so quick simple, and you can find it on the side of a Cream of Tartar container …. I’ve also given it to you here!

1 cup of salt
2 cups of plain flour
2 cups of water
2 Tbsp of oil
4 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
Food colouring

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until mixture congeals.

When we made it we halved the above quantities and made it in 4 different colours. Keep in it an airtight bag/container in the fridge and it should last for 6 or so months. I found you need a reasonable amount of food colouring if you want bright colours like I did. Just a few drops will give you quite a pale colour so it’s best to get the ‘bottles’ of food colouring as opposed to the little dropper packs.

It always impresses me how much the kids just love to be involved and help. I will measure out the ingredients and then let Josh pour them into the bowl/saucepan… it’s so simple and yet he loves to be helping me. Also another note… I discovered that the Cream of Tartar containers hold about 6 Tbsp… because I only had 1 container and I wanted to make 4 colours (which would have required 8 Tbsp) I just reduced the amount of Cream of Tartar in each batch…

We had lots of fun making playdough, although it did get a bit tricky when both kids were wanting to help and there wasn’t enough room!

It was good fun and I’m sure that most kids would love knowing that they’re playing with playdough that they have helped make! All you need then is some cheap cookie cutters and a rolling pin and you’re set for all your playdough fun!

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