"Caring for your Family - How do you let them know you care about them? What do you do as parents to show your children they are loved? "Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children." (Family Proclamation, paragraph 6)"
I spent my day with a sink full of bleach water and my children's toys; the laundry; trying to get my 6 year-old to read the story he's supposed to be reading for Language Arts (all he has left for the next week is Language Arts and Math and he thinks because he watched the movie of Peter Pan he doesn't have to read the book!); a crabby 1 year-old who didn't want to take a nap; an 8 year-old who needed a day off of school; a 3 year-old who thinks he needs to watch movies all day long and I'm trying to recover from a sinus and ear infection.
I don't do all of these things because I want to do all of them. I do enjoy the "clean" smell of bleach, but cleaning all the toys and doing extra laundry so we don't have another bout of pink eye (another joy of serving my family...eye drops 3 times a day in the 3 year-old's eyes...now that's fun!) isn't always the best.
I love my children, but do the simple things I do everyday show them that? Will they look back as adults and realize how much I loved them because I washed their toys? I do have to admit that growing up when I was sick my mom would change my sheets and make my bed while I was in the bathroom. I remember getting back into the bed thinking how much she loved me to have done something to try to help me feel better. It probably seemed fairly insignificant to her to do that for me, but even to this day I LOVE getting into clean sheets when I don't feel good even if it's me who has changed them.
I hope the things they remember about me and about how much they love them is the time I spend with them. My children love to cuddle, and I love to cuddle with them. They each like to do different things with us. Our 6 year-old is very into sports and he LOVES that my husband throws the football around with him. When the weather was nicer in the fall he would get through his lessons as quickly as possible so that he could go have lunch with his Dad and throw the ball around. Our 8 year-old loves to have her hair done, not just by me; she likes to go get her hair cut during "girl time" at the Salon. And our 3 year-old and 1 year-old well, they like attention and books...and being sung to.
We have dinner every night as a family, we read scriptures and have prayer. Very rarely do we run errands by ourselves. We always go as a family. I want my children to know how much I love them and value their presence in my life.
Doing the things I do to make our home run are very important and chances are they will remember them, but I want them to remember the special things that really solidify to them that I love them. Like clean sheets.
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I made Phillip pose for these pictures....he wasn't happy. He was hungry (we ate dinner at 4 and this picture was taken at 8:30), he was tired, and he had wanted to be home for a couple hours.
KatieJo is VERY proud of her outfit, which isn't terribly surprising because it has pink in it. She had a great time in dance class, and we enjoyed watching her. She also has pants that go under her leotard for her tap number. 
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