What a great idea Amy Roskelley had when she invented this simple plate. I saw this in a magazine a few weeks ago.

We have been conditioned to put a large piece of meat on a plate and add a roll and small portion of vegetables. When in reality it should this way, large portion of vegetables and small portion of bread and meat. After seeing this, when I dish up a plate of food, a picture of her plate pops into my mind. I think she is onto something.
Teaching our children proper portion sizes will help it become natural for them to eat this way.
Amy, owner of superhealthykids.com was quoted in the Utah Valley magazine below.

One of her habit changes was not so much about the food she served her children but the plates she served it on. Amy found that she was better able to teach proper portion sizes by giving her kids sectioned plates.”A balanced meal should be half fruits and vegetables,”Amy says. “I didn’t want my kids to grow up with mac and cheese as the main part of their meal with a couple piesces of broccoli on the side.”
And then she took the sectioned plates one step further.
” I thought, ‘It sure would be nice to have pictures on the plate,’”Amy says. ‘That way the kids are the ones to say, ‘Hey mom–I need more vegetables on my plate,’”

Even if you don’t buy one of these plates, it is a good idea to teach our children the message, and maybe even have a picture like this on the table for a while as a reminder.

The picture to the left was taken in high school. Top to bottom, Lorna, Colette, Davina, and me.

This is Colette, Me, and Lisa on a high school ski trip.
We have been friends since we were 15. We have gone through the same stages in life together. For sanity sake, when our kids were little, we would meet every week at a park in the winter and a pizza place in the summer. (Seems backwards I know but I live in Arizona). As the kids got older we would meet for lunch once a week. We found that once a week was just what we needed to get advice, get things off our mind and catch up with each other. We also made sure we fit in one girl trip each year, usually to Calif. This was always the highlight of my year.
You all know that a vacation with the husband and the kids is really not much of a vacation for the mom. In fact, I just ran into a young mom of 5 and she said she just got home from a vacation. She said she needed a vacation from her vacation! I can relate. The reason girl trips are so great is that you are only responsible for getting yourself packed. The agenda is shopping, movies, out to eat and of course lots and lots of talking. If you have never been on a girl trip you should try it. We have even gone an hour away and got a $100.00 hotel room and split it 4 ways, so cost doesn’t have to be an issue.

Here are my friends as they look today. Lisa, Colette, Lorna and Me. Do we look better now or with the Olivia Newton John headbands?

In the book The Five Languages of Love by Gary Chapman you can find out what ways help you feel loved. At the end of the book there is a quiz that you and your spouse can take. These are the answers.
Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch
Different people feel love in different ways. One might feel love from compliments, one from gifts, one from doing nice things for the other. Everyone interprets love a different way. Once we find out the way our spouse feels love, we can be more effective. Instead of giving them love the way we would want it, we give them love how they want it.
For instance, one of my love languages is acts of service. I would love it if someone cleaned the kitchen, cleaned my car or ran an errand for me. This would show me that I was really loved. If I were given a gift it wouldn’t mean as much to me. My other love language is words of affirmation. If I get a card that says really nice things I keep forever. This might be the complete opposite of someone else.
A clue to finding out what someone’s love language is to see how they show love to you. I have a daughter that loves to throw parties, decorate and buy gifts. I can assume that is how she would like to be treated in return.
The book is to help you find out what the other person’s love language is, so you can show them love in their language not yours. My husband’s language is quality time. He just likes to hang out with me. He doesn’t care if I am serving him or buying him stuff. Because I know his love language I make sure that I don’t get too busy and ignore him.
When we are not showing others love their way we are just spinning our wheels.


For those of you who’s love language is words of affirmation you are going to love this idea. I gathered up all the cards and notes that people have written me and I put them in a scrapbook. Now whenever I need a little boost I can go to this book and see all the nice things people have said about me.

Since John Edwards is all over the news, I thought I would show you a picture of him with my husband. Last year Kyle did a bike ride called Ragbrai. It is a 7 day ride across Iowa. When he got to Hampton to spend the night at his aunts house, guess who was also staying there? John, his wife, kids and entourage. John had come to ride a few miles of the race for publicity. Kyle wasn’t a supporter of John Edwards but thought is was fun hanging out with them. He gave John the bracelet he is wearing and told him how the bike ride worked. It was funny because Kyle’s aunt and uncle had to leave to go pick up their son in law at the airport, who was coming home from the Iraq. Kyle was left there by himself with the Edwards group all morning.
Kyle was on the computer working and Edward’s little boy Jack age 7 came up and said that he needed the computer. Kyle said I’m using it right now but he could use it when he was done. A few minutes later the little boy came back and said I NEED the computer. Kyle said hold on…..Jack’s dad was running for the President. There were yes men all over that jumped when John or the kids said anything. The kid wasn’t used to someone saying no to him. Finally Kyle finished up and let Edwards son on the computer and guess what he did? He got on webkins and started playing. Can you believe that?
Lance Armstrong was riding Ragbrai, so Trek, Lance’s sponsor brought over new bikes for the whole family. John was scheduled to ride with Lance that afternoon.
The kids were so excited to try out their new bikes that they kept asking Kyle if he would take them for a ride. Their dad was too busy so Kyle ended up taking the kids for a ride around the neighborhood.

I made 45 homework packets each at the beginning of the summer. My daughters still have one left. I thought I didn’t make enough but the number worked out about right. Some summers are busier than others. Here they are working on the packets on the airplane. I have hopes that it keeps their mind in a learning mode.

http://mytimetoblossom.blogspot.com/2008/05/summer-homework.html
At one time in my life I thought it would be fun to homeschool each child, one year each. I thought it would be a good time to bond and teach them all the things I love and believe.
I did a semester with my oldest. It wasn’t what I had hoped. I did learn something from those months though. Instead of me teaching them during the school year, I decided I could teach them in the summer. The best of both worlds. This is how my homework packet idea started.
When the kids were little we would do gymnastics, piano, read and memorize poems. I taught them to read and memorize math facts. Two kids were doable. After 3 it got to be too time consuming for me so I created the packets.
I made packets appropriate for their ages. We could still read stories, do gymnastics, and learn songs together but they could do their packets alone.
I only have two kids left in school. Their summer routine is 15 min. piano, 15 min. packet, 15 min. cleaning job (clean anything they want in the house), and their bedroom and bath clean. When all of this is done they can do whatever they want the rest of the day. It sounds like a lot but it is only 1 out of 12 hours each day.

“If you are not taking care of yourself, body, mind, and spirit, the people in your life don’t get the best you, they get what’s left of you” Lorraine Cohen

When I coach women I find lots of them that do too much for everyone else and forget themselves. I hope something in this post can help you to know, YOU ARE IMPORTANT AND YOU ARE WORTH IT!!

I have learned that when I am a person that can do everything myself, people will let me do EVERYTHING, even when I’m exhausted.

When I don’t have an opinion on the restaurants, vacations, and movies I go to, guess what? Other people pick where they want to go. It is my own fault when I end up at a sushi restaurant when I hate sushi.

Women don’t have any problem buying new clothes, classes and camps for their kids but some don’t save any money for clothes, classes and girl trips for themselves. If you don’t think you are worth it, your children will begin to think you aren’t worth it either.

Have you known women who think they are worth a manicure or a new outfit? Everyone else knows they deserve it too.
Don’t you want your husband and children to have one of those mom’s and wives that think highly of themselves, have opinions and think they deserve a nice life too?

People get treated, how they treat themselves.

You can only love others as much as you love yourself.

Think you are worth it and others will think you are worth it.

Have an opinion and others will admire you for having one.

Jewel has a song called Stronger Woman
My favorite line in the song is
Well tonight, I’m going to be
The kind of woman I’d want my daughter to be

We have to model the kind of person we want our children to be. We want them to know that women and mother’s are important. We want our daughters to treat themselves as an important valuable person, not grow up to be martyrs or doormats. When we are respected by our husbands and children when they grow up they will expect respect as well.

Here is the chorus of Jewel’s song.
I’m gonna love myself more than anyone else
Believe in me, even if someone can’t see
There’s a stronger woman in me
I’m gonna be my own best friend
Stick with me till the end
I won’t lose myself again, never, no
Cause there’s a stronger woman
A stronger woman in me.

Last Oct. a cousin came to stay with one of my kid’s friends. This girl hadn’t eaten candy for 10 months. She made a deal with her dad to not eat candy for a year for a cash reward. My girls were really impressed with this idea. On Jan. 1st my girls came to me and asked if I would do a similar deal. My son hadn’t drank any pop for 3 years since his track coach told him how bad it was for runners. So all 3 decided to do the deal. No pop and no candy for 1 year for a cash reward from mom. I knew I couldn’t do it, so I figured I wouldn’t go broke doing the deal. I thought the kids might learn some valuable lessons, even if they could only do it for a month or two. They would learn that it was ok to try something different, to not do things when everyone else was doing it, how to conquer peer pressure when their friends were trying to get them to eat candy, how to put off immediate gratification (pleasure of candy), how to have a very long term goal. It seemed like a great idea to support. 2 of my kids are still in the contest. Whenever they go to a birthday party, school or church activity they give all their candy to me. I am shocked at how much candy is given out to kids!

Team Hoyt
WOW! What a story. This video is truly inspirational. It’s about a VERY loving and dedicated father. Get out the Kleenex:)

Anita is incredibly creative and fun and I did enjoy the video, but I started thinking about how this is a very real parenting style. I have been around moms like this. It is exhausting for the mom, and the kids totally tune out. It is true that a mom’s work never ends, but do our mouths really need to run like this all day? Picture having to watch this video everyday. How long would it take for you to start ignoring her? How capable is a child that has to be told everything to do and micro managed on every aspect of his life? It actually cripples him.

I remember a friend of my daughter commenting on the fact that my two little girls could make toast and a peanut butter sandwich at age 3 and her 13 year old brother still couldn’t make a sandwich. My style of parenting is a more hands off approach(except for lots and lots of hugs). The concept is….anything the child can do for themselves, I let them do. Some of the things this includes are: keeping track of their own appointments and carpools, reminding me about their activities (not the other way around), making their own appointments, doing their homework and reports by themselves, waking up and getting themselves ready for school, learn cooking and start doing their own laundry at age 8.

Do you know children whose parents were depressed or disinterested and the child had to become the adult? I don’t carry it THAT far. But the principle is still there. The kids will rise to the occasion. If we give them responsibility they will become responsible.

My theory is that I am raising a child to be completely independent by age 18, with every skill necessary when they are thrown into the real world. This means they need to have self management, be able to cook, clean, shop, manage money, earn money, manage time, be a hard worker, know life skills. If I do everything for them, I get tired and they learn very little. If I am always doing everything for them, when they move out and don’t have me around to help them, they won’t know what to do or even how to think. I know it might sound selfish to have your children do so much but I have seen the results. I would rather have them doing too much for themselves now and find the real world easy than the other way around. I think my older kids can tell you that there wasn’t much of an adjustment period when they moved out. They felt like competent adults at age 12. This method develops confident, competent human beings. Instead of me being a worn out micro managing mother who nobody listens to, I have more time and my kids become independent. Which method do you prefer?
Authors note:
I don’t want to come off looking like I’m the perfect mother. I do think there are many styles of parenting. The comments from my grown kids were this. Mindy said “I agree that I was very independent, but I also wished growing up that I had a mom that took care of me more. But, maybe that’s just me, and I definitely wouldn’t not be who I am today if you were any different.” And Jade said that she didn’t like going to the grocery store as much as I made her go. Maybe the real point of this post is to remember to have moderation in all things:)

I haven’t put very much about my kids on the blog but I feel like I wouldn’t be a good mother if I didn’t acknowledge my son and his big year. He is such an example and teaches me how to be a better person. I really look up to him. He aims his goals high and achieves them one by one. What a blessing it is to be able to associate with a person like him.
Here he is with a friend at high school graduation. He had a 4.1 GPA. It was cold, rained on us the whole time and was held outside. (NOT fun!)
This was after getting his Eagle Scout Award. If you aren’t familiar with scouting it takes years and years of work and service to get this award. I was amazed at what it takes to get this award. Here he is standing next to my mother after graduating seminary. This is 4 years of religious study. He also just got his Duty to God award.
Jacob ran track and cross country. This was as hard on me as it was for him. I could hardly handle watching him in such pain. We live in Arizona and it wasn’t unusual for them to be running in 110 degree weather. Ouch!He finally quit playing in his band. Besides him blowing the roof off of our house, I enjoyed hearing the boys writing, singing, laughing and performing their songs.
I can go on and on but I won’t. I can’t take any credit for his accomplishments because he just came this way.
Your nickname “Jakey my Joy” is so fitting, because you were truly a joy to raise. I’m going to miss you when you go off to ASU. I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!