California McMillans

I was playing some music videos for the kids, among which was Phil Collins' Easy Lover.   Scott's like, "This was made a long time ago." I said, "Yeah, the 80's." "There were helicopters back then?"  He asked. "You're funny,"  I said. "No, seriously,"  he started.  "There were helicopters back then?" Nice. I feel I need to educate the kids on quality music.  They already like Coldplay, so that's cool.  Tyler wants to learn some of their new stuff on the piano, so tonight we went over Hymn for the Weekend.   Then I did Paradise for Kira.  It's her favorite song.  Yeah.

I have been thinking about doing a simple remodel for our kitchen.  I am not willing to spend a ton of money at this stage of life for the mere fact that I don't want to worry about things getting ruined.  Friends have installed ikea cabinets, I looked at them last time I was at ikea and liked how they looked.  They seemed perfect for what I was looking at.  Granite is simple enough which could be done in a day or two and lastly new appliances. Well, I was going to start the project, then I realize I just want to do it.  I would rather have my kitchen in one piece.  I would rather have that time to spend on the kids.  I would rather not drag Danny through something that I am certain he doesn't want to be a part of. So i realized I was perfectly content and it was such a nice feeling. I am even content with my family room that is simply good enough.  It isn't decorated exactly how I want but Kira is starting to turn our home into a mattress jumping trampoline zone so rea

I'm a great parent. At least in my head. In the eyes of the kids, I'm the worst parent.  Compared to other parents, I think I'm in the 50th percentile.  My latest endeavor was a program to teach Scott to clean up his clothes from off the bathroom floor. Sometimes I throw them in his bed.  Once I put them in his backpack so he took them to school.  I was hoping that he'd open up his backpack, see his dirty choners and be so embarrassed that he'd never leave them on the ground again.  But that failed. This time I told him that if he didn't pick them up that I'd hide them.  He shrugged and said he didn't care.  So I hid them.  After two days he started asking where his clothes were, and he had apparently missed the laundry cut-off.  I told him he could buy back his clothes for a dollar each.  I wanted him to feel the pain of losing money to a lame cause but he said, "I have a lot of money and I have a lot more coming to me."  Wow.  I know

I have spent the week researching home schooling the kids.  I have the most amazing friends who took time out of the busy days to talk to me, to meet with me, to just answer questions or let me talk and process my thoughts and ideas.  The past couple of months I feel like I have been so much more home bound than usual.  I used to love going to the gym to work out and talk and process ideas and life with friends.  Since I started working, I have spent the mornings with blake and parker, cleaning the home, prepping dinner.  I think some of it is that I get social interaction at work or outside the home. Sometimes I think it is dealing with the emotions of my parents deaths and the toll of caring for them.  Sometimes I wonder if staying home is a form of depression.  Probably.  The funny thing about life and emotions is you never quite know why your body reacts or craves certain things.  But getting to the gym and being with friends in the morning was so healthy for me.  Something that I

I have been studying the Book of Ether this week for Gospel Doctrine.  The past couple of months I have gotten lazy with preparing.  So this week, I really tried to repent, improve and study.  It is just incredibly amazing how the Lord opens up the scriptures to you when you truly study them.  The book of ether actually talks about crying unto the Lord and I feel like that is a lesson that is so powerful.  When we cry unto him either in prayer, or by how we ponder and dive into the scriptures, he can speak so much more powerfully and clearly. The book of Ether has so many lessons in it. It is another testament of the book of mormon.  It is incredible to me how the Lord truly testifies through the mouth of witnesses. It is about a journey to the promised land or a life back with him. It is about building vessels to get there.  We are the vessels.  What we must do, how hard we must work in order to return to him. Ultimately, it is a story of the constant need of a Savior.  The

We have had the flu going around the past couple of days.  It started with Blake throwing up on Thursday night, me going in the spare room to sleep with him and getting sick the next day.  Danny getting sick Friday night and the Kira and Scott throwing up in the middle of the night on Saturday. So today, I decided to stay home with the kids from church so we didn't pass this around to everyone at church.  Even though we were at a ward party the day before.  I hope people don't get this. The kids played so nice all day.  That is rare for us. And it was like a magical day!  Danny went to church in the morning. Kira and Tyler colored and played games.  Then the kids would go from one kids to another playing various games, coloring, cards, etc.   I think it helped that Scott laid on the couch too sick to move most of the morning and Kira was probably lethargic from the night before. We are doing the advent of #lighttheworld that the church is doing this year.  Essentially yo

More and more people are homeschooling.  It is something that years ago was something that I had 0% interest in but as time goes on I become more intrigued.  The past year I have found myself listening to my friends or even strangers telling their story and reason to homeschool.  I feel like it is a road that is becoming more popular and the reasons are vast.  I feel a yearning to learn more, to explore and to be open minded to the idea.  It is a desire that keeps growing in my heart and in my mind. My kids generally like school, like learning and like their friends.  Everything that school should offer.  This year, I have found sports and activities fill our afternoons.  As the kids get older, I find our time together becomes more limited.  I have a 5th grader who has been bored for the past couple of years and I feel like this year is the first year that the culmination of boredom has really hit him.  He goes to school and is bored.  Maybe it is hormones or the age, but part of it

We are so lucky to live within an hour of a temple that has a visitors center.  They put on the musical scrooge this week.  Last year I really wanted to go see the nutcracker but it was sold out, so this year I made sure to get on early and get tickets.  I also decided to get tickets for Scrooge.  We went for a family and it was fun. Scott is playing Scrooge for his class play, which is very low key but fun for him to see the real production.  We got a last minute babysitter for Parker and went to the temple.  The parking was CRAZY!  I wasn't expecting that many people at all.  I dropped off the kids to find their dad in the line, which thankfully they did and then searched for parking. They did a good job at the play.  It was a good production.  It was a little long for the kids and maybe adults but we all had a fun time and most importantly seemed to get something out the message.  Tyler said, "I wish the spirits could visit me so I could be nice."  I laughed.  I to

Since I started to coach again, Danny and I looked into the different options for child care.  Last summer Rebekah took care of our kids most days.  She was awesome and would bring them to the pool, watch the baby and bring them back home until I was done.  With starting Aquabears, I realized I needed someone in the fall as well.  It gets a little more tricky since the kids are in various activities and I need someone to drive them to their sports and pick them up. There is always a surplus of teenagers, but not all of them can drive and that is really what I needed. Danny and I looked into getting a foreign au pair through cultural care au pair.  A couple of our friends have used the au pairs and it seemed like it would be a good solution for our family.  We thought it would be good for the kids to have someone who they were totally comfortable with and was almost like an older sister.  Especially Kira who seems to get the most anxiety when I am not around. I called them to look

Mike called me in the summer on a long shot to see if I would at all be interested in coming back to Aquabears.  I had been thinking about going to Aquabears for the Fall program with Scott and thought maybe that would be a good solution.  He needed someone for the Senior group and their beginner group.  I told him I would do 2x a week for the seniors and do the 8&unders. Scott swam with Russell and Steve, who are awesome.  It was fun to see him try new events.  He was really good in the 200 free.  He swam it twice in the fall and both times I think had anxiety leading up the event for week, but did it and realized he can indeed swim more than a 50.  Rec swimming is so intense in some ways.  The kids get up and race, race, race.  It is a lot of pressure to win and race.  USS takes some of that pressure off and it is more about the journey, trying new things and long term development of the kids, which I like.  There are pluses and minuses to both and a definite need for both.  He

Kira has been going to gymnastics for about 10 months at Black Diamond.  She really liked it and then went through a period that she was scared to do anything.  She was scared to try new things, scared to be without me, scared to go to school.  I am not sure what it was the result of.  Her therapist at school said she would funnel all her fears into one specific thing but it really changed her.  I don't know if it was experiencing my mom and dad dying, me going to work, Tyler being normally mean to her.  Probably a combination of it all. We live in a relatively new community that is about an hour from the City.  That means that most people commute.  It also means that a lot of kids programs are not as developed or available in Brentwood. We went to the only gym in the City.  Unfortunately it was about 20-30 minutes from our home, depending on traffic. She liked it and the teachers were really nice.  When I started to work in Walnut Creek and Clayton and Scott started to swim in