FHE

Yesterday, We had Family Home Evening. Most of the time it is so hard to get Alex to sit still or listen, but ever since we started Joy School back up, he is more willing the pay attention. The topic yesterday was "Prayer". The reason for this is because the other day Alex really wanted to play soccer more, but it was dinner time, so I told him may be if you pray for it Heavenly Father will let you play more after dinner. So, he prayed and asked, "Let me play more soccer today." unfortunately, we didn't get to play more soccer. So, the purpose of the lesson was to help Alex understand that answers don't always come right away, but they do always come, not always when we want them or how we want them, but they do always come. So, I then reminded Alex that we did get to play soccer the next day. He got really excited about praying after that and wanted to say a prayer right then. So, we let him. After the prayer we then said our testimonies; Alex gets up and says, "I like to bare my testimony, I know the Church is true, I thankful for prayer... amen"

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears; Oh my!

Each month we have a field trip for the kids and last month we went to the zoo in Tucson. It was a lot of work keeping all the kids sane. They were having too much fun playing with each other as well as point like crazy at all the animals.
Alex really liked the giraffes and the elephants. Surprisingly we didn't have a hard time leaving those though. I think he really enjoyed the space, because he definitely used it.

School

Alex is doing a Joy School this year, and loving it. I love to see him learning. Before School started I was starting wonder if he was colored blind, because every color was blue to him. No matter how much I worked with him on colors. I have seen improvement since School started; he is doing a lot better at recognizing his colors. He knows purple, green, blue, gray, yellow, brown, red; and I am sure that he knows more. His favorite subject in School is math... he loves to count, and he is very good with numbers. I guess he gets that from his Daddy. His least favorite subject is English. We have the kid trace letters, and Alex does not like doing that, recently if he doesn't finish at school, I have him trace the rest at Home and since starting that he has been doing very well tracing his letters.
There is five kids in the Joy School and the teaching responsibility switches between the four Mom's (there is a set of twins, that is why there is more kids than Mom's). So I teach once every other week. We meet twice a week.
I love teaching, I have a lot of fun planning the lessons. I am teaching this week, and my theme is "Fairy Tales". I am pretty excited about it. I am hoping that I have enough material.

The Lean, Mean, Cleaning Machine

So, The cleaning is going good. My house has been clean for over two weeks now. If you do some cleaning every day, each day will get easier. Not just because the more you clean the more you get used to cleaning, but also because you don't have to clean as hard if you keep it up every day.
What I have found is that if I am productive, Alex is more welling to be productive. Ever since I have been doing good keeping things up around here, Alex has been doing really good at picking up his things, and even my things. The other night he cleaned up his toys, with the help of Derek and I cheering him on, and then he went and put my shoes in my closet. He has been a great help.

The Freeze

We survived!
We woke up one morning to find that we had no water. Because it was so cold we decided to start our day off with a nice cup of Hot Chocolate, only to find that our gas was off. Our gas company's supply was down, so a certain part of the town had their gas turned off. Thankfully we have family in town that let us stay with them. At first the water companies pipes were frozen and they were just waiting for the pipes to unfreeze, the next day we find out our neighbors have water when we still don't. Thankfully Derek and his dad were able to unfreeze our pipe with no problems. We had water for about an hour and then our company started having problems again. So, we were once again saved by family who had water and heat. We were so blessed that we had a place to go. Others didn't have a place to go, but our ward really came together, and everyone helped everyone.

The Answer for Mom's

Ok Mom's!, I have found something that works for me. You know how you use the reward system on your kids, well, it works on us mom's too when it comes to cleaning. If you want to do something fun for yourself, say that you can't do that until... as rewards you can use arts and crafts, play WII, dancing, you can also use things that you need to accomplish outside of your home, such as going grocery shopping, or going to the Library with your kids (that one you can use on your kids as well, so they get their things done). I also have found that having Alex help is productive. If you think about it they just want to help anyways, and that is why they get things out when you're trying to clean... they think their cleaning. With Alex, he really likes helping me vacuum, as well as sweeping (so we got him this little dust pan and broom), and for some reason he really likes cleaning the toilet. He is also very good at cleaning windows if you just give him a rag and spray the window for him, he just goes with it. But the big thing that really helps me ahead of all the rest is at the beginning of the week make a list of the things that you need to get done around the house that week. Mark the things that you need to do every day, such as unload and load the dishwasher, pick up the front room. Then using a different color mark the things that you need to do that specific day. Then as you get them done check em' off. Remember this though, it is important to take little breaks, if you need a little reward between things then do it, but don't use the big rewards until the very end. During the breaks as little rewards you can use chocolate, or paying a quick game with your kids, because they need little breaks too, and sit down time with you. Of course this is just a week worth of experience for me, so it may change. I'll keep you updated.

It's Been a Long Time!

Life has been busy for us crazy Kerr's. It can get pretty rambunctious with a two year old. Alex is a very smart little boy and knows how to get around things. Any suggestions on how to keep a house clean while having a little someone undo all the work would be appreciated?! We have been trying to get the house in order this year, and we have finally gotten the office to a manageable state. Our next big project will be getting ready for our garden again this year, we also wanted to plant grass in our back yard, as well as put a storage shield up. That is the biggest problem right now; there is no storage space anywhere, and so I can never get the house to look the way I want it to look.
Derek is busy with work, and sometimes has a hard time with it... just because he wishes he could have more time with Alex and me. Alex has a difficult time letting Daddy go off to work in the mornings and has a difficult time going to bed at night because he knows that it will just start all over again.
Here is a picture from Christmas.