The Entitlement Trap

I have heard wonderful things about Richard and Linda Eyre's newest book and their retreats at their home in Park City.  I am always wanting to become a better mom and parent and they have amazing advice and information to help any parent.  Their new book is coming out called "The Entitlement Trap: How to Rescue Your Child with a New Family System of Choosing, Earning, and Ownership"  


Here is more information about the book and how you can pre-order yours today!


NYTimes bestselling authors, Richard and Linda Eyre have written an exciting new book called The Entitlement Trap and they invite you to join them in the cause to stem the tide of entitlement that is causing so many problems in today’s world.


August 22nd is National Entitlement Awareness Day. On this day, we invite you to help us spread the word about The Entitlement Trap and pre-order it yourself. You’ll get a book that may very well change the future of your family and your children - plus you’ll get a chance to win some exciting prizes.

By pre-ordering the book (following the links at the end of this page), you will:

• Pay about $12 rather than the $18 the book retails for after its official release
• Be one of the first to receive the book (you’ll get it September 6th, the very day booksellers get it)

 If you have a blog and want to go the extra mile and receive an extra prize, please blog about the book and the giveaway on AUGUST 22nd (you can simply share THIS LINK on your blog) .  Can you imagine the power of 100′s of mom bloggers all blogging about the same important issue on the same day?  If you do a blog post on the 22nd and send the link and your mailing address to eyres@powerofmoms.com, the Eyres will send you your own special signed copy of the book. You’ll receive the book on September 6th, the day it is released.  If you’ve pre-ordered the book, you’ll end up with two books – one of which will make a great gift!

http://entitlementtrap.com/giveaway.htm

One Surgery Down, One to Go

Today was the day! Caitlin had her first surgery to start the process of removing her birthmark (a congenital melanocytic nevus). It appeared on her right shoulder about 3-6 weeks after she was born. We were recommended to a plastic surgeon, Faizi Siddiqi, down at Primary Children's back when we were concerned about it. We decided to keep an eye on it and haven't done anything with it since. As she grows though, it grows with her. She's become very self conscious of it and gets embarrassed easily with swimming suits or certain shirts where it would peak out of the sleeve. This seemed to be the perfect year to get it taken care of since we have met our deductible and co-insurance.

We met with Dr. Siddiqi about 8 weeks ago. We decided to go the route of putting a tissue expander in her arm above her birthmark for approximately 4 weeks. After her skin is all stretched out they will go in and cut out her birthmark and cover it with that extra skin. They had to special order the tissue expander to fit the exact spot that will be removed, therefore it took the 8 weeks to get scheduled for the first surgery. Caitlin was getting anxious about the surgery coming up. Every time we talked about it she told us not to because she didn't like thinking about it. They have pre-surgery classes that you can sign up for. I kept putting it off thinking we didn't need to go or that I didn't want to take 3 hours out of my day to just go to this class...but at the last minute I decided to take her this week. We picked the older 3 girls up after school and headed straight down there. It was so worth it just to ease Caitlin's mind. Before she was insistent on not wearing their p.j.'s...not after the class. She was worried about them putting needles in her arm before she got asleep...not after the class. They explained everything to the class by letting them see and play with doctor "toys". She was so calm for the remainder of the week that it made it all worth it! Caitlin was also super excited about the slushees she would get and the movies she could watch. She was a trooper!

We started heading down to SLC at 6:00 am and checked in at 6:45 am. Her surgery wasn't scheduled until 8:15, but we needed to check in early enough to get all the paper work done. I think Caitlin wanted it to be done quickly, she kept asking when we were going to go in for surgery. Finally they came. They gave her some "happy" medicine to calm her down in case she was anxious when they got to the operating room. We said our "See ya Later's" and she headed down the hall. About an hour later they were done and I went back to see her. She was still kind of out of it and it took her another couple hours to come to. It's always scary to see them out of it and not acting like themselves, but she quickly became the happy talkative Caitlin soon enough.

We will be going back in 2 weeks to insert more saline and then once a week, for the next 3 weeks, after that I will attempt to do it at home. We'll see how that goes! :)

Sorry if this grosses some of you out - this is what a tissue expander looks like. Kind of odd looking...it's like a rock was put under her skin. These next 6 weeks should be interesting! :)

Falling Leaves

We decided to go for a drive up the canyon to take some pictures after the 4th session of General Conference. We had heard the leaves hadn't really changed, but we decided to go anyway for a fun Sunday drive. We headed up to Snow Basin and found a short nice trail that went along the bottom of the mountain. I was going to bring my tripod to take some family pictures, but Ken talked me out of it. I teased him that without my picture taking that in 50 years nobody would even know our children existed. :) I don't want to forget any moment while our children are growing up. I had a few pictures of me while growing up, but nothing like my girls will have. It's also for my sake because I forget things so easily...I don't want to look back and forget these important years, I want to remember every little thing we did. Somebody will be grateful for my efforts one day. :)
We had a nice little walk through the trails and got some great pictures. It was a perfect day for it, the temperature was about 78 degrees. All the leaves hadn't changed yet, but enough for us to get some fall photos out of them. We'll maybe have to try in a couple weeks and take my tripod to get some family ones, since we haven't taken any since Sophie was born. Before entering the trail Ken noticed a sign warning us of rattlesnakes. The minute he said something out loud, Caitlin wouldn't stop thinking or talking about it. She was so worried that a snake was going to come and get her, she even started stomping around making loud noises so they wouldn't think twice about coming her way. It reminded me of Parent Trap...too funny!

We headed back to the car to eat some granola bars (since we hadn't had dinner yet). The girls all seemed to have a good time. After we got home my sister, Brande, called and said they were heading home from Logan and wanted to stop by to see our house. So we jumped back in the car and headed over there to meet them. We had a nice short visit with them before they had to make their way home.

Delayed Project Complete!

Over a year ago my friend, Jen, and I went to JoAnn's Fabric to buy some Halloween material for pillowcases. Remember my Christmas Pillowcases? I bought this fabric a month before, right after Halloween, when it was on the best deal. We just barely pulled it back out and completed them this week. I'm surprised I even knew where the fabric was considering how crazy things can be during a move. I've wanted this to be a surprise for the girls on the first day of October when they come home from school to find their new pillowcases on their pillows. Ashlan (being almost 11) has been very curious and asking lots of questions...."where are you going?", "what are you doing?", "is this for a special occasion?", "is it for my birthday?", "is it for Halloween?"...etc. All the other girls haven't had a clue. It's the easiest pattern and they look professional too, considering the one person who's not a seamstress. Two holidays down, many more to go!

Moving On....

It's hard to believe how fast this past week has gone. We had 2 weeks after we got home from vacation to pack up the house and be out. I dreaded that moment. I kept thinking how I didn't want the day to come...maybe even to change my mind about moving. Of course, it was a little late for that. :) We still hadn't found a place to move to yet, so I continued my phone calls after vacation. It was about a week before we were suppose to be out of our house when I found a rental home. This nice couple wanted a 1 year lease. I had called before vacation and then again after we got home. The wife called me and said that they would let us rent for 6 months. They said we seemed like a nice family and that it wasn't fair that nobody would give us a chance. It was a little further East than I would have hoped, but it felt good and right when we walked through it. I was grateful that they were kind enough to see that we would take good care of the home. We had to come in and do a good cleaning on the home though. I'm not sure it's been thoroughly cleaned for the 16 years it's been here...in my opinion, it was disgusting. I never knew I was such a clean freak. :)

We were suppose to close on our house Wednesday, July 14th, however it didn't work out as we had planned. There were problems on the buyers end with their lender. Each day would pass without knowing what the outcome would be. The buyers' agent kept assuring us that they still wanted the house and they were worried that we would think they didn't want it. In the meantime we were debating whether or not to even move on the original move date, Friday, July 16th. Why should we have to be out of our house before we even need to be? Part of me wanted to stay a little longer...but we didn't know how much longer it would be. It could have been 2 days or 2 weeks. We realized that we'd have to go back and re-switch all our utilities and that didn't seem reasonable. We also had everything packed up in boxes and we had neighbors and ward members lined up to come and help us. So we proceeded and hoped that it would all work out in the end, after all everything else had fallen into place up until this point.

Friday morning I took the girls out front to take their pictures. Every first day of school or birthday I would take them out in our garden on our rocks and take a picture of them. I wanted one last picture in our perfect spot.
We went and grabbed a U-Haul so we could start loading all the boxes and light stuff that we could do without help. I didn't want to be that person that expected the Elders Quorum to do it all - we just needed help with the heavy stuff. :) It took Ken & I about 3 hours to load the truck. We only had 1 1/2 hours before the muscles were coming and we had to be back, so we hurried over to the rental house to unload the full truck. We made it back just in time! We were grateful for all the help that we got, we couldn't have done it without all those guys that volunteered to spend the afternoon giving service to the Adams' Family...in 100 degree weather. My sweet Relief Society President (and friend) whom I've worked with for the past 2+ years insisted on bringing us dinner that night, even after her whole family came to help us move. I was truly touched by her kindness that day and it still brings tears to my eyes. I wish I could have put her cute and amazing little family in a box and taken them with us. :)


It turns out that there was nothing wrong with the buyers qualification, it was the lender who was putting blame on the buyers' bank. After they decided to switch everything to a new lender on Friday night the 1st lender came back and promised they would close on Tuesday morning...almost a week later, which was better than what it would have been waiting for the new lender. We went in and signed the papers Monday night, July 19th and everything went through as promised by Tuesday night. We had originally asked for 48 hours after we close to be out of the house, so we didn't have to have it all cleaned and ready until Thursday. We still had quite a bit of stuff over at the house. It was kind of nice to have that extra 5 days to clean and also that I didn't have to stress about getting it ALL out by the deadline. Ashlan and Caitlin had Arts in The Park over at Chelsie Meadows Park, so I would drop them off and go clean and load up the van with more stuff. After we knew the closing of the house went through we decided to try to get the house ready sooner than Thursday, we knew they were anxious to get in as they were also put in a bad spot and having no where to live. So Ken and I made a trip to the house without the kids Tuesday night to load up the rest of the house and garage. Ken was having a harder time than I was, probably because it was his last time over at the house, however I was coming back in the morning to clean. That night I also took off the vinyl letters on our mailbox that said "Adams" and I put up one for the new people...that made it official. It was no longer our house.

I dropped the girls off in the morning at the park and headed over to the house with Ellie and Sophie. I took some pictures of them playing one last time on the swing set.
I finished cleaning the house and making sure it was just right for the new family. I know I probably did more stuff than I needed to, but as silly as it sounds, I wanted our house to know that it was loved one last time. I can't help but feel like our house (yes, it's still MY house) is a person...it was part of our family these past 10 years and it will always be apart of our memories. We will miss it A LOT!! I got one last picture of the girls sitting on our stairs inside. They weren't all in the best of moods, but I managed to get 1 good picture. :) As they were getting in the car I ran through the house one more time to make sure I didn't forget anything and to also give it one last touch with my Scentsy spray. I couldn't help but get emotional. It hadn't felt real until then, as we could go back to it whenever we needed to. This was it, no more. I drove off trying to control my sobs and trying not to let the girls see me. Definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to do!

Offer Accepted

It's been really slow over here with the house selling. We have had a total of maybe 10 showings since we put it up. It had almost been 3 weeks since we showed it last when we got two showings within a day. Wednesday morning, June 9th, (which is exactly 2 months from when we put it up on the market) we got a call that an agent wanted to show it at noon. So after cleaning the house I grabbed the kids and headed to Wal-Mart for a few groceries. By 3:00 that afternoon I got a phone call from my agent, Betsy, that they wanted to put in an offer. They needed to get going on it pretty fast since he was leaving at 3:00 am for his job as a trucker. After negotiating 2-3 times we came out with a price that worked for everybody (for the most part). Obviously you want as much money out of a house you can get, but this economy pretty much stinks right now.

At first I wanted to refuse it, but Ken suggested we pray about it before we make a decision. I couldn't think straight because I was crying too hard, but Ken was sensible and prayed about whether it was right for our family and THEIRS. I was being selfish and was only thinking of our situation. This is what we wanted in the end, to be out of our house by July so we could start the building process of our next home and be in by Christmas. It was helpful to me to hear later from our agent that the couple is really excited to move in. I wanted to be able to pick and choose who moved into my house. I wanted to ask them the 20 questions and make sure they fit the image of the family that I wanted to move in. Unfortunately, you can't do that. We have felt at peace about it though and that is the one answer that I needed.

I definitely have mixed feelings about it. I knew this day would come, but I didn't know it would be as hard as it was the night we signed the contract. It would be hard no matter if it was this offer or the next, I just needed to separate myself from my house and the memories that I have had from the past 10 years. We will greatly miss all our friends, neighbors and ward members that we've been able to associate with...especially my girls. I am sad that everything my girls have known will change in the next month. On the other hand we are very excited to start the next chapter in our lives. We hope looking back in 1 year we'll see how Heavenly Father's hand has guided us to where we are suppose to be. We will officially be out on July 16th.

15 Months Old

Ever since Sophie started walking a couple months ago, she has been on the go. She also has developed quite a personality along with her freedom. Here are some things about Sophie at this age that I don't want to forget:

• Makes silly faces all the time - different ones everyday.
  
• Loves to climb the couch.
• Loves reading books.
• She has found her voice, especially when she wants something. She yells with her very loud voice so EVERYBODY can hear, no matter where we are. Dinner time is the worst when she sits right next to Ken and I and we can barely eat because she's screaming in our ears.
• She's a very picky eater. Some days we'll find something she likes and the next she doesn't like it at all.
• If she's chewing something in her mouth and you offer her a drink she spits out whatever is in her mouth.
• She gets easily distracted, you can't bother her while she's eating or else she won't finish.
• She only has 3 teeth.
• She loves to dance when music is turned on.
• She knows a bunch of sign language: more, eat, water, baby, bird, dog, thank you, and please.
• Her most used word is "Hi", she says it all the time.
• She's gotten to be impossible at church, we may have to start taking turns to take her home for a nap.
• Her favorite treat is a Popsicle.
• She loves to cuddle.
• Give her a paper and a crayon/pencil/pen and she is content for a while.
• Phones are her favorite thing to play with.
  
• Her sisters can make her laugh the hardest.
• When you say "Bye" she blows you kisses.
• You can often find her standing on her head looking through her legs.
• She LOVES her naps and bedtime.