A Berry Lovely Day

On Friday we picked 25 lbs of strawberries at a farm. Luckily we had help from Amanda and Tommy. Belle was a good picker, too. It was really fun and those strawberries are so sweet. Today I have been preparing them for being frozen for storage or turning them into strawberry preserves.

 Doesn't that just look like summer?

First Camp of the Season

Luckily Will and I both share the same love of the outdoors. We both love to camp and hike, which suits us nicely. A couple weeks ago when Will was at the gym he read an article on dads who do adventuresome activities outdoors with their kids. Since he loves being outdoors anyway, this really struck a note with him.

 So we started it off by going camping this past weekend even though it had been a rainy week before. Camping in the mud sure didn't stop us. And we had a blast anyway. It reminded me of a book my mom used to read to me when I was a kid where the theme was so what if it's raining, we can still have fun.

It was Evee's first camping trip. And my niece, Amanda, joined us last minute. We went to a beautiful state park here in Maryland.

I am a camping fiend! It is my favorite thing to do in the whole world. I love the campfire and being lulled to sleep by the sounds of a stream from outside my tent.

To me, camping is more than just being outside. It is being in nature where I feel the closest to my Heavenly Father. This is where the spirit can easily touch my heart. I can understand why the prophets of old prayed in the mountains. Being amongst His creations, the beautiful world He has created for us, draws us closer to Him.

I try to instill in my children the same beauty and wonder of nature that my own mother instilled in me. She loved the wild outdoors. Even now she lives in a cabin up in the mountains where she has to fourwheel in to even get to it in the winter, and she loves it. I hope I can pass that legacy on to my children. With Will and I having the same goal, and both our girls having a natural love of the outdoors, they are sure to continue to return to the wonder of nature again and again as they grow older.

Mother's Day at the Lake

We are such an outdoors family. By the time spring comes around each member of the Flythe family is bursting to get outdoors, and we all get a little crazy about it for awhile. We have been playing outdoors much and loving it. For Mother's Day on Sunday we took a walk around Centennial Lake. Loved it. We fed the geese some bread. Hmm... that was an adventure.

This goose did not want to stop being fed. He jumped right up and tried going straight for the bread. Will pulled Belle away and he kept following us down the path for awhile. It was funny, but I must admit I was a little worried it was going to bite Belle!

Looking over this bridge we saw a bunch of big and little turtles swimming in the lake. Very cute. Evee loved riding on Will's back. She is such an outdoor chic, too. If we leave the front door open she goes hauling for the outside and leans up against the outside glass door until she can go out.

It was a nice Mother's Day just enjoying one another's company. I truly feel so blessed to have such a special little family. It brings tears to my eyes when I picture my little family at home in my house when I am away because I am so full of gratitude for the life and the family that was given to me. I am truly a lucky woman.

A Carefree and Happy Life

Belle as an infant

Today when we went out for a walk I was thinking about the different phases of children and parenthood. I have recently noticed that Belle is really growing up. She has stepped into a new phase. As I watched her run around I remembered back to when she was a baby and realized that parenting a baby isn't too difficult in the sense that you only need to meet their basic needs. There are hundreds of different techniques of how to best care for their needs, but that is pretty much where the parenting part ends. Now, don't get me wrong, raising babies is difficult on a person. I definitely struggled with my sanity and tried to figure everything out when Belle was a baby, but I didn't need to teach her anything beyond fundamentals.

Belle loved to climb in anything no matter how small

Then they move out of babyhood and into the toddler phase of life. During this time I remember parenting skills step up a notch. This is when I had to start teaching my daughter what is wrong and right. What I mean when I say this is more difficult with parenting is that you have to then decide what you want your child to believe is right and wrong. Things start becoming just a little more complicated. Everything is not just "I'm crying, feed me." In every situation a decision has to be made of how to handle it. As a mom I try desperately to balance giving love and freedom with learning to be obedient and making good choices. It is trickier than I expected.

Refusing to walk a step more at the zoo.

Well, today I realized we just moved into another phase of parenting. I was trying to decide what the theme of parenting a child at this age is. The thought came to me is that I need to decide what kind of life I want my child to have. Now is the time where I help mold her into becoming the type of woman I hope she will be proud to be and that her Father in Heaven would want her to be. Whew! That's a hard one! There are so many wonderful things I want for my daughter, but how do I help her on her journey?

Holding a butterfly Alisse caught for her last year.

As I watched her running around trying to catch a big yellow butterfly, I thought, this is the kind of life I want her to have. I want her to feel happy and carefree. I want her to always have a life that is joyful, not bogged down by stress and worry. I want her to run and play even when she is thirty.

My little dancing queen

Then I began to think of my Heavenly Father and His role toward us as our parent. Wouldn't He want the exact same thing for us? I think He wants us to be happy and worry-free. I think we place too many burdens on ourselves. We think we have to grow up so fast. We put our kids in school when they're two and then involve them in a hundred different activities to fill their lives up with things that probably are good. But I think that kind of lifestyle keeps us frantically busy. We always have to be doing something or going somewhere. When was the last time you stopped to try and catch a butterfly? How about skipping down the sidewalk hand and hand with someone you love? I don't care if you are both 80. When is the last time you laughed until you cried? Why do we always have to be so serious? Life is meant to be enjoyed. We only have it just this one time. When we're always working toward something instead of enjoying right now, we miss it. We miss our own lives. It is good to have goals, but it is also good for life to be lived! Why do we only allow small children to be silly and play. Time for it to change! I want my life to be fun and silly and carefree, too! I am going to start living that way so I can set that example for my children. So what if I mess up here and there, at least I am happy and having fun. Will I really care ten years down the road if I missed a deadline? Even my final at school? Not really. Will I care that I didn't make dinner - even for three weeks straight? Not at all. What about if I missed a thousand appointments I set? Nope, not if I am really enjoying life. Now, maybe this method doesn't work for someone else, but I am someone who really struggles with stress. Undue stress that I put on myself. I hate it! I hate that lifestyle, and I don't want it for my children. So I am taking time for the most important things - and that is to be happy and to love. Here goes!