The ones about the Rothacher Home Archives - Page 105 of 107

Awe, the memories they made

June 13, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Memories...good, bad, awkward, fun, silly, painful, deep- all have a special place in God's perfect, absolute, complete, flawless plan!
This past weekend, my family and I took a trek up to Fayetteville to hang out with my parents, niece and nephew for a couple of days. After the tasking of simply (hehe) getting packed and out-of-town the adventure began! Traveling with a potty training (almost) 3-year-old, a napping 1.5-year-old and nursing 5 month old while was a task; attempting to keep everyone from melting down by stopping for 3 potty breaks, grab a snack which was then tossed with happy meal toy (that had been collecting in a bucket) to the back of the van over our bags, stroller, and stuff- 4 hours later we arrived right on time for their bed time. But we still needed to eat dinner and get in some Much needed play time with the cousins! We all met the chicken's and ducks the grandparents bought at Easter time in honor of all the grandkids. The girls played with naked barbies and chased remote control trucks. We attempted to set up camp with our three little ones who are very set in a routine. Maggie's sharing a bed with someone for the 1st time. Izzie was scared to sleep in a room with her cousin in a strange new place. Jamin passed smooth out from exhaustion never to be heard from again until 6:30 a.m. Poppie ran to get a pillow to lay with Izzie until she went to sleep. And night 1 was over.

After a long night of trying to keep everyone in their beds we woke up EARLY. The day was packed with tons more playing, grocery shopping, lunch at Chick-fil-A (AMAZING every time!) and my mom and I got ready for the party (that's what we call any gathering with food and friends).

Party'n with family was fun. Catching up, telling stories, eating steaks, mac-n-cheese, and duck booty cupcakes, snapping pictures, and laughing!

(these pics of the girls were captured by my cousin Lisa- THX!)

El Shaddai showed up this weekend- my God is all-sufficient!

Filed Under: Being a Help-Meet, Parenting, The Ones about...Stuff Tagged With: chickens, cousins, dinner, ducks, El Shaddai, exhaustion, kids, memories, perfect plan, sleep, sleepover, travel, trucks

1st Story Time

June 8, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Tuesday this summer we will be going to the public library for story time with Ms Mary! We choose the early time due to Maggie and Izzie's nap schedule so we will end up going with several local daycares. There were ~100 kids 3-years-old to about 6th grade. This class is open to toddlers but already 3s were probably the youngest in this group.
Maggie and Izzie did fairly well; even through Ms Mary explaining the rules, schedule, and expectations for the entire summer. By the time the story reading actually began it had already been about 30 min of me trying to get Iz to sit down. She is usually pretty loud so I was proud that she never had a melt down even though she stood the majority of the time. Thank goodness she was only as tall as most of the kids while seated. Maggie really enjoyed her self once the story started. She tried inching her way to the front (we were sandwiched between daycares). Both girls being around so many other children and attempted to make new friends the whole time.

Intrigued!Notice the blur...not sitting very stillOur friend, Emily from church is wondering what Mags is doingCrawling, non-stop moving Izzie RuGet'n comfy

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: books, daycare, preschool, reading, rules, squirmy, story time, toddler

Kid’s Book Club

June 7, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Yesterday, the kiddos and I went to the White Hall (or any) public library for the 1st time! A friend from our amazing Sunday school class met me there with her 3 kids and showed me the ropes. While her 3 and Mags ran into the children's section and peered of rows and rows of books, Leann and I signed up our kids for the summer book club where you read 10 books with your toddler/preschooler per week to get their name in a drawing and I got my 1st library card. Don't get me wrong, I've used my mom's as a child but after heading to college there was no need, hello- college campus library. After a full card of info, a failed attempt at using my driver's licence as a form or ID/verification of where I live, another failed attempt at using junk mail for verification, and 3 references later, I had my card! After all the paper work the adventure began.
I'd forgotten how much fun a library can be. Endless amounts of books. Shelves of movies. Desks full of computers. My reader (loves to look at and have books read to her), Maggie was in HEAVEN! My non-reader (squirmy worm, look at the book when I feel like it), Izzie loved it because their were bigger kids there, a riser for children to sit and read on (she climbed) and a Giant Clifford dog for hugging! Great place! Angel, my friend's oldest, had been walking Mags up and down the ales of books telling her all about them and showing her just a few favs. I then got to show Maggie her section trying to give a simple explanation of how all of this world of wonder worked. She then got to get a 'shopping' basket from the front desk and select 10 books to check out for the week. What books did she pick you ask? 9 Curious George books and 1 called Aaron's Hair. She has been a huge fan of that "silly little monkey" for a long while now but these books are a little different from the movies and small board books we have at home.
When we got home and began reading them I noticed a basic plot in every one of the CG books- George disobeys the Man in the Yellow hat, makes some really bad choices followed by one good choise, and ends up walking home a hero with no repercussions. WHAT? I'm sorry but that's the opposite of what I'm trying to teach my children day in and day out. If that wasn't snareled-nose enough; Aaron's Hair is about a boy who has hard to manage hair which leads him to one day tell it, "HAIR! I HATE YOU!" HUH? I continued reading after trying to skim past that part attempting to excuse it. The hair jumps off the boy's head and proceeds to run all over town where it tries to grown on other people in random places on their body. Aaron, in an attempt to get his hair back, keeps instructing these individuals, "tell the hair you don't like it" which leads the people to yell, HAIR! I HATE YOU!" When I realized this would be the theme of each encounter I no longer read the words I just quickly went through each page talking about where the hair was going/doing. The only reason I kept reading was to get to the end where there would obviously be a moral...you guessed it- NOPE!
This adventure (which we will continue to journey through despite this rough week of book selection) has taught me once again that no matter how beneficial, fun, memorable an activity with my child it will always demand my discernment as a Christian parent. I let my guard down. This is such a "good" place and reading is such a healthy thing, I thought to myself. You should never expect godly behavior, ideals, or basic lifestyle out of something/someone who is not a Christ follower (and even more scary, some who hold the name Christian). God has entrusted me with these amazing little blessings. I am responsible for what they are exposed to, taught, and even their actions at this age. It's a high calling; with blessings, fun, laughs, miracles, joy, but not without tears, exhaustion, aches, stress, and LOTS of mistakes hopefully followed by learning. We will check out all kinds of books and use each one to have discussions about the chooses, language, attitudes, etc good or bad, that comes up in that time.

A few more pics our our 1st trip to the public library

You notice all my pictures of Maggie are slighly blurry right now. Can't get her to slow down.

I'd LOVE feedback! **comments available below!**

Filed Under: Parenting, The Ones about...Stuff Tagged With: books, preschool, public library, reading, toddlers

I have to sacrifice WHAT?

June 5, 2011 by Jules 2 Comments

It's important for us to teach our children at a young age responsibility. Maggie, my 3-year-old, in 17 days tear :'O( LOVES "chores" or "jobs" that are hers. We've gone through spells of bossiness between her and my younger daughter (18 months apart) so we had several lessons on what her "job" was as a big sister and what my job was as the mamma. Every time I reminded her that something wasn't her "job" she'd ask with a smirk, "what IS my job?" to which I'd respond with her list again or I'd ask her to tell me.

Maggie also has many "chores" throughout the day.

*Lunch and dinner she always sets the table: place mats for all, her and Izzie's (and any added little guests) plastic plates, little forks, sippy cups, as well as my prized fiestaware for adults, big silverware, and canned drinks. Izzie is starting to help with this one and LOVES it. She needs a bit more guidance for placement but getting better and Maggie thinks it's great to help her, since she's sooo experience ya know.

*Sorting laundry is something she helps with as well. Then she puts away things down stairs (i.e. kichen towels, her panties, burp clothes, and bibs) as well as upstairs items (i.e. clothes and big towels), if she happens to be up there with me (usually a chore I do myself).

*Unloading the dishwasher one of the 1st "chores" she was given. She was thrilled to be such a big help to me. Her job? Put away the silverware. She was meticulous at this. Originally sorting by type and size alone until we got new silverware which added the benefit of color sorting, Sweet! Just like any other person, this got boring...I guess. Now she often cons her sister into helping her which leads to mixed types/sizes/colors and sometime just up-side-down. Not a big deal, right? To you non-OCD types.

This was just one hurdle I had to overcome in able to allow my children to assist me as well as for me to be able to teach them valuable lessons on stewardship, service, and plain-ole responsibility.

What are you sacrificing in order to train your children? Leave a comment- lets chat about it.

Filed Under: Cleaning, Parenting Tagged With: children, chores, clothes, dishwasher, job, julie rothacher, laundry, OCD, responsibility, set the table, silverware, towels, train

Why does my child like this?

June 4, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

When moving out of my family's home in 2002 and heading to college my access to cable was cut off which carried over into marriage and parenthood. I've never missed it and I think I actually have more fun and accomplish more without it. Don't get me wrong; we often feel out of the loop in silly conversations but we do rent redbox movies, own dvds of favorite flicks and several tv show series we've received as gifts so we're not against sitting and staring. It can be great mind numbing entertainment that requires no though or energy! We also really enjoy no commercials, watching at our own pace and choosing what we view. *exhausting rabbit chasing...

I really wanted to pose the question:
What's the deelio with children's programing? Especially those that call themselves "christian" programing. Today's Saturday mornings cartoons were brought to our family via the ghetto antenna, attached to a converted box, attached to our tv. This is not our customary way of Saturday Morning Cartoons but this morning was one of those audible mornings. Oddly enough, the antenna upstairs and downstairs pick up totally different channels (only 1 of which is worth watching). If we do use the antenna it's in my bedroom as an emergency babysitter (thank you curious george and super why!) while I shower. This morning we chose to use the one in the livingroom...

Now Sunday School Monsters on the other hand...what are we teaching in the precious name of Jesus. Borderline blasphemy. You should NOT be teaching church-isms as biblical principles! Shame on you!!! No wonder we have thousands of drones running around thinking because they are good people who go to church they hold the name Christ follower. Let's stop making modern-day, bible belt pharisees!

Gina's Kids Club- Sorry, I gotta say it, "WIERD!" When was this produced? Why does my child like this? The webpage is pretty 'with it' but the show itself- cheese! Thank you none-the-less for entertaining my children with simple, child-like purity!