January 2012- Back post

January was full of fun stuff. I was in a good mood in January and I wasn't quite back in school yet.

The first week of January we went to Kansas City to hang out with Tyler while he was there interviewing with a hospital. It was a short trip, but a lot of fun. We thought we would spend some time visiting the new temple and also the art museum. We couldn't do anything but drive by the temple and the art museum is closed on Monday. So here are our pictures from outside both of those buildings.

These are the statues outside the front door of the art museum, they are soldier-ish looking figures without heads. A little odd.

We also hung out at a big mall and rode the carousal.

Marissa was heading to ballet one night and had cold arms. I made her some arm warmers with my old (clean!) socks. It works :)

Owen is cute.

We went geocaching with Nathan. That is when you take a GPS thing and go hiking to find "treasure" containers that people have hidden at specific coordinates. We went out to Little Prairie Lake, even though I think it isn't called that anymore. We had a good time, but Marissa wanted to keep everything we found.

Did I mention we had such a mild winter? We did. This is the beginning of January, we only have jackets on, and there isn't a snow flake anywhere. That is why we have so many outside activities kinds of things. We went to the fish hatchery at Meramec Springs. We brought all the leftover dog food that we had from Puppy and fed it to the fish. They really like dog food!

Well, I guess we did have a little bit of snow. This lasted for about a day. So we got out our sleds and went down the gentle slope by the deck. It was rather slushy.

William and Marissa both have been losing teeth. One morning they happened to both lose a tooth. We all had ice cream afterwards and it was a nice way to start the morning :)

November 2011- (Back post)

So I just found some pictures that I forgot I had. I thought some of them were just fantastic, so forgive me for "back blogging". These are from things we did last year in November.

In November, I ran a half marathon! It was a lot of fun, except for the running part. But besides that, it was such a fun trip! Our group had a great time driving down to Arkansas, going out to dinner, talking in the hotel, and then after the race we were all relieved and excited and exhausted together. So here are some pictures of my hotel room. It was so pretty! Also, I put up some really gross pictures of my toes after the race. Sorry, you were warned. I lost three toenails in the process, but thankfully they are all grown back now.

Marissa likes dresses, not just in November, but really all the time. We happened to go dress shopping and this dress was her very favorite, but a little too frilly for our needs. Our compromise was taking a picture of her in the dress.

Marissa and William had a piano recital in November. They both have been playing for several years and they both enjoy it a lot. They have two recitals a year.

We also had a visit from our cousins! Tyler, Sarah, Lily, and Ivy came out for Thanksgiving. It was a great trip. Tyler and I ran a 10k on Thanksgiving (less than a week after my half-marathon and at a loss of another toenail). The kids all wanted to get in on it too, but we decided to have our own race at our house. We ran around the block a couple times.

We also went to Imo's (of course). And we hung out with Puppy!

Does anyone read blogs anymore? If you like leadership books, but pretend they are parenting guides, you might like this one.

 I am trying to be a better person this year by reading. I am currently reading Dare to Lead by Brene Brown and thought some of you might like to hear a little bit about this popular leadership book. 

I just finished the first section today and instead of waiting until I am done reading the book, I thought I would review by section. 

Although I have a graduate certificate in leadership and I have worked in leadership positions for most of my career, I always relate leadership skills back to parenting. I believe that is where you are most needed as a leader and where make the most difference in someone else's life. A parent's perspective is the one that I will be reviewing this book from. So be warned! 

Brene "defines(s) a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential." See? Parenting! She concludes this paragraph with this statement, "we desperately need more leaders who are committed to courageous, wholehearted leadership and who are self-aware enough to lead from their hearts, rather than unevolved leaders who lead from hurt and fear." Yes, absolutely! 

Second one is titled, Courage is Contagious. She says that vulnerability is "the emotion we experience during times of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure." As I read through this section, it was clear to me that what I identify as anxiety is what she identifies as vulnerability. Some examples of vulnerability she lists are a first date after divorce, starting a new business, apologizing to a colleague about how I spoke to him in a meeting, waiting for a doctor to call back, giving feedback, and firing someone. I think we can all relate to these types of experiences, I know I can and many of them have given me anxiety. She mentions that these experiences can cause us anxiety, but to me, it is the whole point. Just normal feelings that we can work through. In fact, she says that pretending we don't have vulnerability or aren't willing to experience it means "letting fear drive our thinking and behavior without our input or even awareness, which almost always leads to acting out or shutting down." I love that! In other words, we can work through this stuff and these feelings. In fact, we have to to be able to really live in our lives. And we can teach our kids how to work through these feelings too, that it is okay to feel and confront those feelings. 

Another highlight in this section was a brief discussion on psychological safety, which is really a state of a culture that allows people to make mistakes and not be penalized for those mistakes. It could be not being teased or ridiculed or humiliated. It also lets people ask for help without those same responses. It produces confident in the members of the group to give feedback and suggest solutions. Some things that get in the way include judgment, unsolicited advice giving, and interrupting. Instead focus on listening, staying curious, being honest, and keeping confidence. The leaders of the group can be honest about struggles, but can still remain calm and let members ask questions. 

In conclusion of this section, Brene sums it up with "adaptability to change, hard conversations, feedback, problem solving, ethical decision making, recognition, resilience, and all of the other skills that underpin daring leadership are born of vulnerability." 

Parents: Be vulnerable with your kids. They don't need you to be perfect, but they do need you to show them to navigate difficult situations and be gentle when they make mistakes. Make sure they feel safe with you to have those difficult conversations, and start young. It doesn't get any easier as they get older. 

Its been a long while

I haven't blogged in a long time. I thought I would write a note to my faithful followers that I have not disappeared entirely.

Currently, I'm working on my second master's degree. This one is in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Almost done with my first year. I'm still homeschooling my kids and I love it. Hopefully they do too! I am also the 1st counselor in our ward Primary; it has been a great calling. If I have some free time, I love to read, I try to keep painting, and I workout as much as possible.

Here is a quick update on my super awesome kids:

William is in 5th grade, still loves to read and play chess and he plays soccer and basketball, is in his 5th year of piano lessons, and is a Webelos in cub scouts, but is soon moving on to Boy Scouts. Marissa is in 3rd grade, loves to read and dance, she also plays soccer and this year tried basketball as well. She is in gymnastics and in her 4th year of piano. She loves going to Activity Day Girls on Wednesdays and has made some great friends this year.

I guess that is all for now. Hope this finds all my friends and family well and happy!!

A new month, new funny things that happen.

Well, it is April. It hasn't been too terribly long since I blogged last so I guess I'm not doing so bad! I can feel the end of the semester coming, everything is where it should be, and I feel like I can breathe a little and write in my blog.

I think I left off last time right about at my birthday. I had a birthday! I won't say how old, because I'm soo old. No, not really. The day will come when I will wish I was still 32. So to celebrate those days, I'm happy to say that I just turned 32 and it really doesn't feel that different from 31, or even 27, except that I'm so much smarter. And I have the bonus that I'm about to graduate with my master's degree. Overall 32 isn't looking so bad. So my mom made me a birthday cake and here it is:

Here is a picture of my favorite cat helping me with my homework one night.

William and Marissa also started a tumbling class at the local gym. They both really enjoy it, even William, who is the only boy in the class. Here are some pictures from their class:

Marissa is rather crafty, and I mean that in a good way. She often likes to make things and here are some of what she has done lately:

New dress for Baby Day.

Some flowers from American Girls book.

This is Marissa yesterday when she tried to straighten her hair. It is much less curly than usual, but not quite straight. She wanted to trick her gym teacher so she wouldn't recognize her. I told her that probably wouldn't work, but she was determined to try. She tried again this morning also to straighten her hair. Maybe I should stop straightening my all the time, I don't want her to get the wrong idea about curly hair.

Here are some pictures from when we were getting ready for a kid's art show. Marissa entered her painting like Monet's waterlilies and she also made a new one that looks like a mosaic. William entered his blue slug (see picture below) and also he painted a cat. I will put up some pictures from the art show later.

Just looking "Like Mama".

This one is a picture of some clay animals that Marissa and William made. William made that blue slug all by himself and it is sooo cute!! I put it up on his shelf. Marissa made the unicorn with some help from me.

Marissa and William are also doing soccer right now. They really enjoy it, although William is much more into than Marissa is. Here are some pictures from practice, with more to come later from games:

Also the sky has been awesome lately. We went up to the campus observatory to see Jupiter and its moons last month. And also Jupiter was right in line with Venus and the moon for a few days, so we were out every night looking at them. Here is one shot we took:

On Saturday we went up to the new Kansas City temple for the open house. We went on a bus with some other people in the ward. Besides being car sick (or bus sick as Marissa tells me) for the entire trip, it was a great day. We also stopped at the Liberty Jail and took the tour.

This just made me laugh. Marissa was sitting behind me and then started watching a movie in front so she stuck her head in between the seats right next to me.

Last week we also went to our homeschooling skating party. William and Marissa are both getting a lot better at skating. They had a great time, especially since the place was almost empty. They skated right next to each other almost the entire two hours. And I got to roller blade the whole time! Sorry, no pictures.

Okay, last event. Easter!! On Sunday we dyed Easter eggs, aren't they pretty? We get eggs from a farm, so they are brown. They aren't exactly bright, but I think they are lovely. We also made dinner: an awesome ham, my egg florentine, and baked potatoes. Since I had been car sick all the previous day, I didn't eat much, but the couple of bites I had were so good. Then Monday night we went to the bishop's house to have an Easter egg hunt. William and Marissa brought way too much candy home, but they had a great time making crafts, playing bingo, and decorating eggs, not to mention playing with good friends.

Update on the Fairbanks clan

I know I said I would blog and since the person who has been lately taking up a lot of my time happens to be out of town this weekend, I find that I have time to blog tonight. So this is some of the stuff that we have been doing the last few months. I'm sure there are other things I need to add, but this is the most recent stuff.

William has been doing a lot of origami. So much. Here is one picture of what happened when I left him alone for an hour after lunch.

I finally had to put a cap on the origami after they filled at least four grocery bags full of folded paper. They also tried to sell me their wares frequently in an effort to earn some money. I'm glad they learned how to do it, even if they have used so much paper in the process.

So I also finally got around to taking a Christmas photo. One day in February we happened to all wear Christmas-y kinds of things to church, so I did a quick photo session before we ate lunch. It wasn't great, but we were hungry and time was short. Too bad I can't post all of them, some are quite funny.

I know I already posted this picture, but it is worth mentioning again. These are the cookies that my mom helped William and Marissa make for me for Valentine's Day. My mom really excels on Valentine's Day. They always come up with very cute and lovely things for me. Thanks!

Next we come to our brief visit from the winter fairy. We really have had a night mild winter this year, which I appreciate since I have to drive so much. But I was really sad that we didn't get to sled like we did last year. So I was very happy when at last we had just enough snow to build some snowmen, make snow forts, and even sled down a big hill at the park.

This is just a picture of my cute cat, Owen. I actually have a lot of pictures of him sleeping because he always looks so funny. So this is one of him sleeping on my bed.

Here is another one. It reminded me of princess and the pea. How many cushions are under there?

We went to the zoo last month since we have had such great weather. The butterflies were a hit again. William and Marissa were wanting them to land on their fingers, but of course, that was unlikely and there was a sign that said not to touch them anyway. It was a great day though!

New baby elephant back there.
They both used to fit in this hole so easily! When did they get so big?
The hippos were putting on a show.

Several weeks ago William went to a chess tournament. He started playing chess this past fall. I can't remember why exactly he started playing, but he loved it right away. He started doing chess club with other homeschoolers and learned more about how to play. I don't really play, so the fact that he beats me doesn't really mean much. But he is talented at it. This is the last regular game of the tournament before he had to go into a tie breaker.

Yeah, he won! He did really well. The boys in his group were pretty evenly matched, all of them would have beaten me!

He was so proud! And the next week his picture ended up in the local paper. He was so excited! He couldn't stop talking about it.

A couple weeks ago, the planets aligned!! The moon was hovering right around Jupiter and Venus. We went up to the observatory and looked at Jupiter and its moons. The next night we just looked at it with binoculars off the deck. It was pretty cool. You could really see the spots on the moon, not so much Jupiter's moons, but still cool. Even Owen thought it was cool.

So this week, we got some new shirts from Uncle Tyler! William and Marissa were very excited about it!

William has been using the cheese cutter the last couples weeks. He wanted to help in the kitchen with lunch the other day and painstakingly cut these little cheese squares for me!

We went rollerskating this weekend with a friend. It was so fun! Here are some pictures from our adventure.

Well, it is late. Wow, even later than I thought it was. I will more fun adventures to blog about next week, I'm sure! Thanks for reading!