The Super Snap!

 I knew it was going to be a great morning with Liesl when she came out wearing her Wonder Woman power outfit.  

She always makes an entrance with powerful 3 year old punching moves and a glisten in her sparkly blue eyes.

At the breakfast table, she took her super human powers to a new level--

We had just finished reciting our current poem, "Carry On!" by Robert Service, so the room was charged with energy.  

"Okay, Wednesday's Child," Dad calls out, "What song are we going to sing?"

Xai was quick on the uptake, acknowledging his role on this day, called out: "Our Father has a Family!"

So we started singing, Biesinger style.  It involves a lot of snaps and claps and a very dynamic energy.  Caught up in the emotion of the entire morning, Liesl leaned over to Hyrum who was sitting next to her and whispered fiercely in his ear, "Watch this!!"  

She brought her pudgy little arm around with her sweet fat hands right next to his ear.  Arm trembling with the effort, she rubbed her finger and thumb dramatically together. After a few seconds of heroic effort, it happened.

She SNAPPED her fingers.  Kind of.  :D  But she was SUPER proud.  And so were we!

Our favorite little super hero is coming into her own powers, one power at a time.

Busy, Books and Bangs

We have been reading and discussing “Dare to Lead” by Brown as a family (older kids and parents) and discussing it. Actually, I bribe them to participate: all those who read it are able to attend a discussion at a local restaurant. We read a section a week. I have really loved it. And I think they are too.

One thing we are focusing on this week is the burden of perfectionism and being kind to ourselves. This has so much application: numbing, anxiety, stress, unrealistic goals and expectations accompanied by negative self-talk when they aren't met, numbing addictive behaviors, etc. I have appreciated the perspective and being able to use it this week. Just yesterday I stopped a lot of impulsive eating and snacking because I thought, “What is really driving my desire for food right now?”

Also, Brown emphasizes that “clarity is kindness.” Not being rude or abrupt. Just clarity in expectations, communication, expression. I have been able to use that in my communication with the kiddos. If something is not worth communicating clearly, it must not be worth saying or expecting. Voila!

I am working like mad to get all the costumes and props ready so that we can start rehearsing with them. It is a HUGE task, especially since I am trying to keep up our C4! Class (which was particularly amazing this week thanks to the unleashing of so many of the kids and their personalities with opportunities to present and share). They are truly inspiring each other and creating that safe and energetic environment of learning that I know can happen when operating on the guiding principles I have always used with groups:

-let the kids lead and teach

-ask lots of questions

-get them involved in different learning styles

-lots of group activities and challenges

-create a safe environment of love, respect and decency.

We have some kind of animal wandering our property making loud banging noises...like on metal. I am not sure what it is!

Quinn is working crazy hard. He is trying to spread out his appointments, but people are coming in with offering $500 rush fees! I trust that he knows what he is doing. He does take time out for us. He came to Piper's track meet with all the rest of us to support her in Alexander (she took 12^th place with about 60 girls!) and went to the youth activity last night. He is a good man. We are both a little crazy with stuff right now. Do we live on a farm? Kind of :D.

Baby Walking, Conference and Sports :D

September 23, 2021

“It smells like snow!” the kids yelled excitedly as they came inside yesterday. What a great way to kick off autumn! Quinn, Lily and I just got back from Alaska, where they are enjoying the tail end of their fall and it was magical. How beautiful for balmy, humid Ohio to make that transition so quickly after we returned :D.

Penelope has graduated to walking solo. All over. All the time. She has that cute little wobble and walks with her hands above her head most of the time too. Precious and absolutely adorable. I am so grateful that I can be a stay-at-home mom to capture these moments...and for kids who like to capture them on camera as well!

My “f” key is trigger sensitive this morning so I apologize for any ones I miss. Yikes!
Yesterday we received our dressers in the mail that I was so excited about!!! Until I found out that they required assembling :(. Fortunately, Hyrum is the man of assembling things well and we worked together on it, fixing up one and getting the second ready.

Piper has been enjoying competing in cross country, although she pushes herself a little hard mentally afterward. Hyrum is LOVING football (no surprise there). Hava is enjoying keeping up with her older two siblings with her school load. Maia has blossomed in her responsibility and maturity and loves math now that we found “Prodigy” which turns it into a video game, lol. Xai continues to be a treasure with his spontaneous hugs and snuggles and willingness to be a great helper. Eli is a storm cloud of emotion most of the time.

October 4, 2021

Had a great time watching conference!

Reminded to repent daily. God told me to repent of not being hopeful. So that is my new thing to focus on, hope!

I also need to be kinder to Maia, poor dear. She is SO like me!! I am hard on her like I am hard on me. I need to stop and love us both more purely.

I loved the conference talk that was about the bike team of England changing be degrees. I think that one and the one about repentance were the two to help me answer my questions. I also got the impression to not take so much on and just let it flow :D.

Yesterday Quinn mentioned that he misses our family choir practice and going on Sunday walks. Huzzah! I love them both. As we prepared to go, Liesl said to Daddy: "Are you so excited for me to tell you funny stories on the walk?" She is such a dear! Piper and Hyrum ended up going with Liesl, Quinn and I. The cats followed, which was kind of funny. (One ended up staying up at Dad and Mom's.) As we walked along our forest paths, Piper and Liesl would run ahead and try and shake trees over each other to make the drops fall on them, making them “rain buddies.” It was a beautiful misty day after the rain, the perfect activity between sessions!

Last Friday Hyrum scored a touchdown during his football game! This is particularly significant because up until this game, his team had only scored one touchdown all season. And they scored seven goals in one game! It wasn't enough to pull into the lead, since they had been down by over 30 points, but it still felt like a win to have all that momentum at the end and actually be performing and succeeding! I was so happy for them.

On Saturday, Piper came in fourth place for cross country!!! She is doing so well and sticking with it. It makes her happy and I am so proud of her!

We accidentally left Xai home in all the rush to get off to Conference at the church. (We were in charge of opening up the building for people to watch it there.) Fortunately, he found our neighbors and had Oma and Opa at home to go home to. Super sad and scary, though! We turned around and headed back to get him as soon as we discovered he wasn't with us! Normally we do a “kid check” (like a roll-call) but we were so busy ordering some Dominoes pizza as we left, we forgot. Never again, I hope!

We had fun playing our family football game in between sessions. Lily was a powerhouse as always, bullying through tackles and making some great catches. Quinn's always a pleasure to watch for me with his pure athleticism :D. Hyrum made some great catches and solid tackles—especially against his friend, Lance, whose family joined us. Eli and Xai had fun tackling each other back and forth,...except for the time Bro Ausseressess picked up Eli and carried him into the endzone when Xai was trying to tackle him. (Xai had a valid point. That was his only tackle up to that point and it meant a great deal more to him than the rest of us realized.)

Piper brought back a kick-off return all the way for a touch down. Hava made several catches and did some great runs, getting tackled pretty hard. One time she got clipped on the ear, which was still recovering from being infected, poor dear. She sat out for a bit, but then carried on. Maia did awesome, dragging four defenders with her during one particular catch. So fun!

Penelope has been doing a great job being “Franken-baby!” She took her first steps about a month ago, and just took off about two weeks ago, walking all over! The first longer time of walking was to get Lily's phone. She just needed the proper motivation, I guess? Silly modern little girl. She is super fun to watch and she loves her new-found freedom.

Liesl and Eli still love to snuggle to sleep at night. They are adorable and put me to sleep more often than naught. Eli is super excited to decorate the house for Halloween. He is all about being scared. Halloween is not my favorite holiday, as I don't care for all things ghoulish, but we will try to make it cute (for me) and decorated enough to satisfy him. He insists that we need to have a descending spider to scare people so I've conceded to put one up in our back basement room. Yikes! I am sure that will NOT be fun for me, but I'll try to do it for Eli! At least it's not ghoulish. Why can't he love a cute holiday like Easter?

I've almost finished my first children's book. Maybe I will publish it soon? For the most part, I have been prompted to let go of pretty much everything in the community and let it run itself for a while. Not sure how that is going to work, but it is the strongest prompting I got from General Conference: slow down and don't plan a whole bunch outside of the home. Over and over again, I got the impression to do this, coupled with counsel to not worry about the distractions or expectations of the world. Just to trust God.