Grandpa Paxman

I just found this poem on my pillow. My oldest daughter wrote it for her English class. It is so beautiful, it took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes.

It reads

Grandpa Paxman

Mom tells me the stories he told,
From when she was young and when he was old.
She remembers his soft thick grey hair,
And his voice, calm with care.
She remembers his rough dirty helping hands,
His stories were like the ones of other lands,
She remembers not an angry or mad expression on his face,
He never ever got on her case.
Those stories she tells me,
Give me an image of him for me to see.

Remember me

When I was in high school I was a nobody. And I was happy with that.  I didn't play sports. I wasn't involved with school council. I wasn't a loser and I wasn't  popular, but I had friends that could have been included in either category. I doubt there is anyone from high school that would ever say "I wonder what ever happened to Mandy Forsyth?" And you know what. ..it doesn't even bother me.  I am completely content with that.  I have no regrets with how I played out my high school years.

However, this past month or so has been rough. I've attended two funerals and a memorial, and it's got me thinking. When I check out of this life at 77, or 82 or 94 years old, how will I be remembered? I am no longer satisfied with being a nobody. That was fine and dandy for High School, but that no longer appeals to me. I want to have left a mark on this world. So what is it that I want people to say of me after I have passed from this life to the next?

So here's what I've been thinking(in no particular order...except the first one I want to be first said of me)

1. I want to be known as a woman of faith. I want there to be no doubt that I held dear my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That my faith in Him was my guiding force in all that I said and did. That I knew that I was a daughter of God and that my Savior lived, died and rose again so that I could return to live with him again through my faith in His name.
2. I want to be known as a woman who loved and loved deeply. Not just my own family, but all those that I held dear to my heart. I don't ever want any of them to ever wonder how much I truly loved them and how much they meant to me.
3. I want to be known as a woman who never spoke an unkind word about anyone. A woman who could always find the good in people and focus on that good.
4. I want to be know as a woman who made friends and lots of them, simply because I was pleasant to be around and could be trusted.
5. I want to be remembered for having the coolest house on the block. A place where my children's friends wanted to be. A place where parents knew their kids were safe and having a good time.
6. I want to be known as a woman who treasured the simple things in life and valued time spent with family and friends.
7. I want to be known as a mom who would do anything for her children and as a wife who respected and honoured her husband. 
8. I want to be known as a woman who valued community and was involved in trying to make her community the best it could be.

As I have thought through this list, I have come to the realization that I have some work to do. And I have noticed these past few weeks that my goals and attitudes have changed a bit as I have reflected on these points. I hope that by writing these down they will become more ingrained in my brain and continue to be a guiding light in the way that I conduct myself. 

If you happen to notice me acting contrary to these points, feel free to kick me in the butt and get me going on the right path again :)

What do you want said of you?

Let's do this thang

All 4 of Ella's bottles are currently MIA...that alone is scary, I hate finding a bottle that has been missing for a while with sour milk in it. GROSS! So I am taking this opportunity to end the bottle obsession. It isn't going to be easy. It's already been a rough morning. I don't anticipate it getting better today. But I'm just going for it. The kids will be off of school for the next week so I will have them around to help me distract her. Nights might be hard, but again because kids aren't in school, either Kathryn will be recruited to help out or I'll send her downstairs to sleep with the other kids. The hope is that she will get desperate enough to drink her milk from a sippy cup...hopefully sooner rather than later. And I finally found a sippy cup that she will drink milk from...a little bit, she hasn't yet finished off an entire sippy cup of milk yet, but she will occasionally drink her milk from it. I see this as a good sign. So wish me luck....I think we are going to need it.

Good advice, it's not all bad.

Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like you have really failed as a mom?  Yeah,  me too.  Today my cousin posted about such a day on Facebook and in the comments my aunt posted this little tidbit of advice. 

" Now tell us all something you did right too. Please!? Good for you being able to admit a blowout, now can you also admit the opposite? That helps keep us sane - just knowing if we did something, anything at all worth while. And if you can't think of what it is, think of what all these loving family and friends might say it was - we all know you did many good and right things too."

This struck me right in the heart.  These were words that I needed to heart too. And I need them posted in my house. ..everywhere, to remind me that even on the crappiest days, I've done at least one thing right. It is so easy to focus on the negative, on our failures and forget to acknowledge all the things we have done that were good and kind and uplifting. 

So I'm posting this here so I can always find it and hopefully don't forget it.  And I Plan to make an effort to also post something that I have done right in the same post that I write about things I have done wrong. ..balance is key.

For the Love of Milk

Mom's of toddlers, past and present, I need your help. My almost two year old loves her milk, so much so that that seems to be all she wants. When she asks for a bottle, I try to offer her something else first. Sometimes she accepts it, but most often she says no and insists on having a bottle. I can't even get her to eat at meal time most of the time. And then out of nowhere she will eat two or three helpings and I will think "Great, she likes this stuff" and then a day or two later I will feed her some left overs and she will refuse to eat it. I've come to the conclusion that she isn't a picky eater. When she does eat, she will eat just about anything. The problem is that she just doesn't eat most of the time. I know she must not be suffering much because the kid is solid. But lately she has been waking up once or twice in the middle of the night asking for a bottle. We had got out of that habit a year ago. But she just will not go back to sleep until she has had at least half a bottle of milk....I'm talking weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I know she's got to be hungry because she didn't eat anything through out the day but milk. Has anybody else had a kid like this? What did you do? Any great food and snack ideas that your toddler loved?

sincerely,
One Tired Momma

Out of Our League and Victory Without Winning.

My daughter plays on the school's Tier 2 basketball team. The team consists of 7 players, 6 of them are in grade six, Kathryn is the only Grade 7 on the team. They struggle, they are new and inexperienced, and little, both in size and numbers. Most teams they play have double the numbers and more experienced grade 7 and 8 players. They haven't won a game yet...never even came close. But they keep at it and for the most part with a good attitude.

This weekend they played in a tournament in Raymond. The other teams participating in the tournament were Stirling and Gilbert Paterson. We knew we were playing teams that were way out of our league. The first game was against Stirling. The final score was something like 57-6. Our girls were exhausted after a lot of running down the court after the other team. Not much game play was really going on. Our girls were really struggling to get their passes through, most of the opposing players were quite a bit taller and could easily snag almost every over head pass. Rebounds were next to impossible. It was a rough game.

The second game was a few hours later against Gilbert Paterson. Once again the faced a team that was bigger, in numbers and size. This team was a pretty skilled team, and at first it started out like any other with our girls running down the court after the other team and no real play happening. But then something changed. The Paterson coach started make his girls work their plays. Even when they easily beat our girls down the court and could have put up an easy basket, they would stop in their tracks, pass the ball back out to the top of the key and set up their play. It even looked as though they may have been told to make a certain number of passes before they took a shot. But it gave our girls a chance to actually play the game. To try and defend against the plays the opposing team was setting up. Our girls were still struggling to get their passes through. I don't know a whole lot about basketball, but one thing I do know is that a bounce pass is more likely to make it to it's intended target than on over the head lob...especially when the opposing team is significantly taller. Late in the game when we did manage to put in a basket, the entire gym erupted with cheers. The boys running the score clock had been cheering for our girls the entire time. With every shot put up there were "OH"'s at the near misses. The final score was something like 47-2. But it really could have easily been double that. I really appreciated what the Paterson coach had done there. And wished that I would have had a chance to tell him so, but didn't see him after the kids came out of the dressing room.

Even with the change in the way the game was played, our girls left feeling completely defeated. Kathryn was in tears on the way home, she was exhausted and sore and discouraged. I asked her about the bounce passes and why they weren't doing that, explained about how I knew that a bounce pass was better than an over the head lob and encouraged her to try to use it more in the game the next day...A game that I was afraid was going to be the worst one yet. But I was wrong.

We were scheduled to play Raymond. A good nights sleep seemed to do the girls good. They were cheerful and ready to play. The first quarter was the same as every other game they have ever played. But then, once again, it changed and Raymond started to play the same sort of game that Paterson had played the night before and our girls were clearly all using the bounce pass instead of the over the head lob, and guess what? Their passes started making it to their intended target. I wondered if all the parents had given their girls a talking to the night before about the advantages of the bounce pass. In the second half the game changed again. I noticed Raymond relax just a little bit under our own net and not fight for rebounds quiet as hard. And our girls started putting baskets up...and making them...after a couple of rebounds. You should have seen our girls faces. They were over the moon. And ever so slowly our score started to creep up. And with every basket the crowd cheered. The boys at the score table cheered. The opposing players sitting on the bench cheered. The Raymond parents cheered. We cheered. It was awesome. With less than 3 minutes left in the game we were at 16, and I said to Tansley, "wouldn't it be great if they could make it to 20, but I don't think they can do it in 2 minutes". The final score, 44-24. It honestly brought me to tears. Then the girls came out of the change room looking like they had just won the tournament. Kathryn told me that the Raymond team had crashed their change room and they all had a little celebration.

Hey Comets! You guys rock! Thank you for giving our little Novas a little taste of victory! That is honestly how they felt. Kathryn said to me as she drank from her Powerade that had been awarded to her as player of the game "This is the taste of Victory!" They left that tournament on top of the world. What a difference from the night before. Thank you for the wonderful show of sportsmanship! That is true class. You made a difference in these girls lives this weekend. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Christmas Miracles

What a Christmas we've had! We had a very eventful and busy December. One night when returning home late, we discovered something had been left on our door step. It was the first of twelve pixie gifts that we would receive for the twelve days of Christmas. This was all very exciting. We have plenty of pixie-ing but never been on the receiving end of a pixie. The kids loved the anticipation every night wondering what the next gift might be, when it would come, and who was doing it.

We also played the roll of pixie and found a Christ Centered 12 days of Christmas that we used to pixie one of Tansley's friend's family. We included the scripture to read and the challenge for the day. We thought it would be a wonderful way to share our faith in Christ with another Christian family. The girls had so much fun being stealthy. On the last day, we delivered the gift in person on Christmas eve. 

Christmas eve was spent at my sisters house in Barnwell with most of the Forsyth clan. Oh what fun to sit and talk and laugh for hours. So much fun was had, the highlight of the evening was of course the cousins nativity pageant as Grandpa read the Christmas story. As my brother put it, equal parts Christmas and crazy.

When we got back to Milk River late Christmas Eve, we had one more pixie task to take care of. We had gather some fun and meaningful gifts for the family of Kathryn's classmate that passed away last June. We had planned on just leaving the big red sack full of gifts on the doorstep to be discovered on Christmas morning. That was the plan. We did not plan on the neighbourhood full of dogs sending up an alarm when we approached the house. We did not plan on the Father coming out to check out why the dogs were all in an up roar, and finding Kathryn and I crouched down behind their truck. So we handed the sack of gifts over, told him we had hoped to leave it on the doorstep for a Christmas surprise. Wished them a Merry Christmas, shook hands and headed home. Didn't go as planned, but satisfying in a different way. 

Christmas morning was wonderful. The kids were up at 7am, which is earlier than usual, but not anywhere as early as I remember getting up and trying to wake up my parents. Kids were thrilled with their gifts and everybody was satisfied. 

Christmas feety pajamas, except James, he doesn't like that sort of thing.

Here are a few highlights:

James super hero monster trucks

Baby doll carrier for Ella

Car mat that I made to fold into a messenger bag for James

Doll house made from an old dresser for Ella from Kathryn and I

Dino finger puppets for James

A chair that I recovered for Ella with awesome fuzzy purple fabric

Platypus pillow made by Kymberly for Tansley

A warlock cape I made for Kathryn

Fancy pillow cases I made for Tansley

A night cap and slippers made by Tansley for Kathryn

A super huge insulated slurpee cup for Daddy from the girls

A cat stuffy/neck pillow I made for Kymberly

After presents were opened and played with, I got to work on our breakfast feast. We always have pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, whip cream, fruit, oranges, chocolate milk, eggnog, orange juice, and hashbrown patties. When I was finished with cooking the bacon and sausages, I started to drain off the hot grease into a tin can. I paused when the kids crowded around me and told them all to step back because if the grease  splattered it would hurt a lot. "what would happen?" one asked. I told them it would burn them really bad, the kind of burn that hurts for days, the kind of burn you don't ever want to feel. So the stepped back and I continued, but when I set the pan down, the handle knocked the tin can of hot grease all over both of my hands. I ran to the bathroom and put my hands under cold water. Luckily, this time of year the water comes out of the tap ice cold. I held my hands there until I couldn't feel a thing and then twice that long again. I had no idea, what was burnt and how badly. My hands were completely numb and hurt from the cold but I was afraid to take them out of the ice water to find out what the damage truly was. After some time I took my hands out long enough to discover that the palm of my left hand and the back of my right hand were both burnt. I wrapped a dish towel with ice around my left had because it hurt the most and then I held that hand on top of my right hand and sat through breakfast like that, every once in a while using my right hand to feed myself. Later my the pain in my right hand far surpassed that in my left, I wonder if my babying the left hand because at the time it hurt more could have made that much of a difference. Later in the day Brother Ken Brown came down to assist Daniel in giving me a Priesthood blessing. I was told that my hands would heal quickly, in the Lords time, that the Lord needed my hands to do the work of mother and wife, but also that He had a work for me to do.(Healing comes at a price, a price I am willing to pay). I spent the day with my hands wrapped in ice. By bed time my left hand was only a little tender, but my right still hurt. I went to bed with ice wrapped around it. I woke up in the middle of the night and got rid of the ice pack. This morning my left hand doesn't even look like it got burned, and my right hand has a funky colouring and is a little tender, but I can use it with out discomfort. It is seriously a miracle. These burns should be excruciatingly painful. When it happened I thought for sure that my hands would be wrapped and out of commission for the rest of the Christmas break. 

I full of gratitude for a fabulous Christmas day, for all the gifts that have been given this Christmas season. For the gifts that we were able to give to others. The gifts that others gave to us. But most especially, for the gift of  His Son, our savior Jesus Christ. I am grateful for healing and a Heavenly Father who is aware of me, and cares for me. Because none of this could have happened with out Him. 

Merry Christmas!