Family Looking Up

Christmas should be a time of happiness, joy, generosity, and excitement, but often it is associated with of anxiety, stress, and sometimes depression.  Some people worry about money, family, the commercialization of the holiday, and the need for the “perfect Christmas.”

Today we discussed some ways to make your Christmas a little less stressful and some new traditions you may want to add to your families holiday season.  

We talked about the importance of traditions with Niki Olsen on episode one and Christmas is a great time to start those.  We want you to remember that circumstances change and we have to be flexible with our traditions.  We also have to make sure that the traditions are manageable.  Don’t do so many traditions that you don’t enjoy the holidays.   

Some traditions that Camille does and loves are “Christmas Adam” which is celebrated on December 23rd.  She also loves to get her family a puzzle to work on together, and they always watch While you were Sleeping, A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful, and A Christmas Story.  Me and Andrea also added National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (not appropriate for young children) and Elf.  

Andrea loves to go on hayrides and sing Christmas carols, doing the 12 Days of Christmas, and making homemade eggnog (recipe below).   

Beth loves doing secret Santa for a family in need.  We also do a Christmas Eve breakfast where we invite people over who don’t have family in town.  All three of us enjoy acting out the Nativity on Christmas Eve and getting the kids Christmas Eve pajamas.  

Although Christmas is fun and full of traditions we have some hacks that may help it feel a little less stressful.  Some helpful hacks are to plan ahead; write everything down so you know what you need and want to do.  An app that Andrea uses to track gifts is called the Christmas List.  You can find it at the app store.  She also plans all of the things that Elf of the Shelf will do for the whole month.  Camille suggested being intentional about your traditions that you bring into your family.  She also started giving her kids only one gift and then they do a big family gift.  There are a ton of printables on Pinterest that you can print for free.  A major theme was that the more you make it about others, the better the holiday is.    

I’d Marry that: Food Edition

Egg nog ice cream, peppermint cool whip, oreo truffles, chex party mix, giant ginger cookies

Giant Ginger Cookies

4 ½ c flour

4 t. Ground ginger

2 t.  Baking soda

1 ½ t. Cinnamon

1 t.  Ground cloves

¼ t. Salt

1 ½ c. shortening

2 c. sugar

2 eggs

½ c. molasses

¾ c. sugar (for rolling dough in)

 

Combine all dry ingredients.  In a stand mixer put shortening and 2 cups of sugar and beat until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs and molasses.  Add flour mixture.

Shape dough into large balls.  Roll the dough in sugar.  Place 12 cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet.  

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 11-13 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned and tops are puffed.  Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes.  Transfer to wire rack and let cool.

Oreo Truffles

• 1 package (15.25 oz.) Oreos (any flavor, double stuffed or regular both work)
• 1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
• 12 oz. white melting chocolate (*Not chocolate chips, but high quality melting chocolate- I used Baker’s bars)
• 6 oz. semi sweet melting chocolate for topping (Or sprinkles, or Oreo crumbles)

Place the Oreos (filling & all) in a food processor (in batches if necessary) and process until fine crumbs are formed and large chunks are gone.

Mix in the softened cream cheese until very well combined and the dough becomes sticky.

Roll about 1- 1 ½ tablespoons of dough into a ball and set aside on a plate or in a container that you can fit in the freezer. Freeze the balls for at least 30 minutes.

Baker’s chocolate bars melt really well in the microwave and are ideal for dipping. (Chocolate chips, not so much.) Place the white chocolate in a small microwave safe bowl and heat for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until melted.

Andrea's AUSTRIAN Eggnog (not Danish)

1 gallon milk

5 small cartons whipping cream (whipped)

16 egg yolks

5 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla

Beat powdered sugar and egg yolks together.  Set aside.  In a large pot (if you have a large double boiler, use it!  I make mine in a large electric roaster with an inch of water under the cooking pan.) Heat milk until almost boiling.  Then add egg and sugar mixture. Cook until eggs are cooked (I have no idea how hot this is-- this is a FAMILY RECIPE PEOPLE!) Cool.  Add vanilla and whipped whipping cream. Mix all together.   DRINK AND ENJOY!

Listen for fun traditions and helpful Christmas hacks.

Today we are talking to Gretchen Smoot.  Gretchen Smoot holds a BS in Business Administration and Economics from the University of Florida and an MS in Economic Development from Utah State University. Since 2006 she has worked in  the real estate industry in Utah . She has been with Century 21 Everest Realty Group as the Director of Finance since its inception in 2009 as it has grown to be the largest Century 21 office in the world for the past three years. She and her husband have four small children and enjoy spending as much time as possible in the mountains of Utah. She volunteers extensively within her religious community and is passionate about finding ways to help others! A favorite quote is "No one ever injured their eyesight by looking on the bright side".

 

Growing up Gretchen’s husband’s parents did not talk about money.  They wouldn’t ever talk about money and then all of a sudden they would make large purchases.  One day, while they were dating, Gretchen was going over bills, her husband realized people had to pay for power while she was paying my bills.  This was the complete opposite of what Gretchen grew up with. Her family growing up was broke.  They had a large paper route every single day.  EVeryday they would throw papers after school while they were doing homework in the car.  There wasn’t money for big expenses. Then her parents got divorced, and the money problems continued. That is when she decided she didn’t want to have those money problems when she was older.

 

She and her husband have learned to work together to balance their finances.  They decided early in their marriage that  they weren’t going to go on vacation without the cash to do so.  Her husband is the spender in their marriage.  Her husband taught her to be ok with spending money and she taught him it is ok to not spend money.

 

How to create a budget

 

Many people do not know what their net is each month (meaning how much money is in their bank.) You need to know what deductions are going out.  Are your withholdings right?  Are you on the right health plan?  So you know when the dollars come in they are truly yours. Next  look at your fixed expenses (mortgage, utilities, etc.)  Then find out what is discretionary.  The rest left over is your debt reduction.  You have to plan for your known-unknowns (car registration, christmas, birthdays.)  People don’t tend to plan for those things.  She has built into her budget an average for those things.  If you want to increase the amount you can bring into debt reduction, then there are three things you can ask: 1. Can you bring in more money? 2. Can you change your fixed expenses (refinance your car, refinance your home) 3. Can you change your behavior in terms of your discretionary spending.  IF you can change it from “this is my budget” to “this is my financial plan” it makes it a lot more fun.

 

So many people think of the word budget as a negative thing.  Gretchen tied what they were doing to a monthly reward.  She recommends making a visual to track your progress.

 

Gretchen and her family had their struggles financially, but seeing a budget as a financial plan helped to take some of the stress out of them because they knew every dollar had a home, and those homes were very purposeful to help them accomplish the goals they wanted for their family.

 

Gretchen reviews her family budget at least once a week and they review their budget together once a quarter. Camille mentioned that when she uses a budget she feels like she has more freedom because it gives her freedom to spend.  

 

In the United States the number one reason for divorce is money. Some people will have financial infidelity, meaning they are not being honest with their spouse about their money.  It is important to talk about money amongst couples.  Set your goals together.

 

It is important to allow yourself not to be perfect.  It is a budget and not a commandment.  Give yourself an opportunity for wiggle room.  Allow yourself to make mistakes, and know that it is not going to happen overnight.  It is a long term process.

 

Gretchen recommends finding a program that works for you.  She uses Excel.  The LDS church has a great and easy tool for how to use a budget. You can find that at https://providentliving.lds.org/self-reliance/finances/financial-calculator?lang=eng. Gretchen also recommends Dave Ramsey and using loan calculators.

 

Kids and Money

Gretchen wanted their kids to have a healthy relationship with money.  They wanted their kids to know that money is not bad.  Money can be a great tool to bless and help others if it is used properly.  They provide all the necessities for their kids (clothes, backpacks, etc.)  Anything that is extra their kids have to provide for themselves.  If the kids are invested in it,  they care more about it.  She wants to help her kids see that money is a tool to do things you love.

 

Gretchen’s kids do chores, that they do not get paid for.  If they want to earn money they do additional chores.  She does not give them an allowance. She pays her kids according to what is age appropriate for the kids,  what fits in her family budget, what they trying to earn for, what is their motivation, and how hard  they are working.  She pays the kids every week.  She tries to explain that they don’t get paid every time they work because that is the same way mom and dad get paid.  Their cash is stored in an envelope with a ledger that tracks the money.  It helps them understand the tangible value of money.  If the kids forget their envelope at the store, they don’t get to buy what they want.  She explains it to them by saying, “mom and dad don’t take out loans, and we don’t want you to take out loans.”  It is a way to teach them to be prepared and to not take out loans.

 

They have tried to teach their kids that just because you earn a dollar it doesn’t mean you spend a dollar.  They require their kids, for every dollar spent, 10 percent goes to tithing (giving) 10 percent goes to savings, and they can spend the rest.  As long as their choices aren’t harmful or inappropriate, they are allowed to spend their money any way they want.

 

Mom Squad Challenge:  Physically sit down and write down a goal for your financial life.

 

Learn how to get control of your finances and teach your children to be smart with their money.

We are talking today to Molly Claire.  Molly Claire is a certified Life Coach specializing in motherhood and offers special programs for newly divorced moms.  She focuses on the unique challenges moms face from time management and productivity, to the worries , guilt and overwhelm that can wreak havoc on personal well-being.  Molly's emphasis on mindset and the way it impacts every aspect of our lives offers a coaching process that helps her clients make eating changes from the inside out.

We start the episode by asking Molly to explain the CTFAR model:

Everything we do in our life come all stems from the way are thinking about our life.  The way that we think creates feelings, and our feelings drive our actions, and our actions drive our results.  For example: thing to lose weight.  Lets say you have the thought, "I will never lose weight."  When you think that, it causes you to feel hopeless.  When you are feeling hopeless you end up eating more and work out less. Which proves that original thought.  Molly uses that model to find out why we are feeling frustrated. We need to get a new perspective to create new feelings in our life.

First trap of Motherhood: Mom Autopilot

Mom Autopilot is an automated state that we run on.  It all starts when we brought home the our first child.  All of a sudden we are responsible for every need of another human being. What happens is the mom autopilot helps you get through sleep deprivation and colic, however over time it becomes not so useful. Beasue we get in the habit of taking care of things for our kids that they don't need us to do.  We might put more things in our to-do list than we need to.  This isn't just with our kids.  This is in our communities, in church.  Wherever people ask things of us and we take it on immediately. The way this shows up in motherhood is taking on the problem of solving our kids emotions.  Think about the last time your kids come to you with a problem.

One of the other traps is the trap of believing that we are responsible for making our kids happy.  When we can shift into a place that it is totally normal for our kids to have emotional ups and down and it is not our job to fix it, then we can allow that space for them to be upset and we don't have to be upset.  If we can let people have their emotions then we can respond to situations better.  Kids are going to have negative emotions about half the time. We can choose how we feel.

Trap: Attaching your kids success to our happiness

We feel good when someone compliments our kids.  As moms we feel with many more negatives then positives.  Motherhood is a thankless job.  We have to be our own cheerleaders.  It is easy to get a feel good when someone says something good about our kids.  We make it mean that we are doing a good job when they have a success. The problem is when our kids do something terrible, then we feel like a failure.  We feel inadequate.  Separate our how you show up as a mom.  For example: It is important to me to teach my kids to be kind to other people. But my kids decide what to do with that teaching, whether they actually are kind or not. So we need to draw the line between what is our responibility and what is our kids responsibility.  When we can let go of taking credit for our kids success we can let go of taking credit of their failures and allow them to take credit for their own success.  We can let go of trying to control them, because control never works anyway.  Kids will take more ownership of it.  We can't create success for our kids anyway, When we see failure as part of success it makes it so much easier.  The founder and CEO of Spanx attributes her success to her dad.  Everyday he would say, "what did you fail at today."  We don't have to think of failure as a negative thing.  When we can think about it that way with our kids it is not as upsetting.  The more failures they have, the more success they can have.  It is so freeing.  It will also help your relationship with your kids.  If we are taking ownership of their failures, then we will be desperate to have them not fail or cover it up.  They will feel that.  If you feel really loved, it is much easier to love your kids despite what they do if you aren't worried about their failure.

Trap 6: Victim Mentallity

Think about so much is asked of us as a mom.  We start having a dialog in our head that we have do so many things, and it is not fair.  Falling into a victim mentality is when we act as if, and think as if, we don't have a choice.  But we can realize, we always have a lot of choices.   Recognize your choices and the more you do that, you will feel less like a victim.  This helps us realize the WHY of why we became a mom.

To learn about the rest of the mom traps, read Molly's book: The Happy Mom Mindset

To learn more about Molly, visit her website at Mollyclaire.com

 

Mom Squad Challenge: Remember to recognize your choices.  Think today about where you are succeeding.  It is easy to recoznize our failures, but today ask yourself where am I succeeding and focus on that.

Beth's book recommendation: The Shepherd's Song by Larry Barkdull

 

Happiness in Motherhood with Life Coach Molly Claire. Episode 004

Ideas for After school Snacking 

First, find out if they are eating school lunch.  You can also let them snack after school and then move dinner back.  Another option is to eat dinner early around 4 and eat a snack around 7.  Lastly, Cheyna suggests packing your kids with a 200 calorie snack and have them eat it before they get home

After school Snack Ideas

Serve your kids lower calorie snacks if dinner is close. If your kids are eating carbohydrates their body will digest them very quickly. Peanut butter is a great snack that  will last a long time.   

Other great snack ideas

High calorie snacks (peanut butter, no bake cookies, peanut and banana sandwiches, string cheese) will stay in your kid's system longer.  No bake cookies are a great option.  Beth's family calls them "Grandma Millward Cookies."

Grandma Millward Recipe

1/2 c milk

1/2 c butter

2 T coco powder

2 c sugar

Place everything in a saucepan and Cook to soft ball stage

Take off heat and add:

1/2 c peanut butter

Mix all ingredients until melted

Then add:

3 c oats (either instant or non-instant)

1 t vanilla

Place by spoonfuls on parchment paper and let cool.

Dealing with a picky eater

Don’t make food a bad food or good food.  Keep all food the same!  Cheyna recommends the book, "Feeding with Love and Good Sense," by Ellyn Satter.  She recommends you don’t push food on kids.  Sometimes kids get labeled as a picky eater and they live up to the name. When we force kids to eat a food, it becomes a battle.  Kids can go 1 or 2 years without eating a food before they will eat it again.  Some research shows it can 20 exposures before a kids wants to try it.  Keep putting the food on their plate and let them choose what they will eat.  At the dinner table, give them 1 or 2 things they will eat.  If they won't eat anything for dinner, you can give one other small option (maybe a piece of bread.)

Snacks for teenagers

You want the snack to be high in calories.  Offer them a  fruit with a protien and fat (for example, cheese and trail mix, some chocolate, yogurt, and no bake cookies.). Great idea: Have a sandwich bin in your fridge, with all the fixings to make a sandwich.  So when your teenagers come home hungry and are looking for something, they can quickly fix a sandwich.

Drinks

Cheyna discussed diet soda vs regular soda  Artificial sweetners gives your body a false sense of sweetness.  There has been a link between artificial sweetners to larger waiste circumference.  If you have diabetes it would be better to drink diet, but she recommends non- diet drinks.

 

Milk

Recently there has been debates whether milk is good for you.  Cheyna highly recommends drinking milk.  Your body can only absorb 300 mg of calcium at one time, milk has 330 mg per one cup and 8 grams of protien and is fortified with vitamin D ( vitamin D needs fat to be absorbed,)

Weight loss

  We asked Cheyna if it is calories in and calories out that determines your weight loss.  Cheyna explains Macros:   Macros are the three different food groups that provide calories to the body. 1. Protien: signals you are satisfied first.  So add protiend to kick your hunger early. 2. Fats: stay in stomache longer (stomache won’t empty as quickly.) 3. Carbs: digest quickly.  You can manipulate your macros so you don’t get hungry as quickly

Social Media and Body Image

Social media lumps heatlh and beauty together.  We need to separate those two.  When your doctor says you need to lose weight, he/she is not saying you are ugly.  We need to give an example to our kids that we are working out to be HEALTHY.  If we want to lose weight and be healthy, we need to be consistent with exercise and eating healthy.  There is not one specific bad food.

“If you don’t take time to be healthy you will be forced to make time to be sick” Unknown 

We need to keep up on our health, but not be obsessed.  Social media can be positive,  it  celebrates all different body types.  We need to celebrate our different body types too.

Another book recommendation: Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works" by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

Cheyna's Mom challenge: Really think when you are about to eat something, if you are really hungry, and if you are, think about what you really want to eat. Plan your meals.  Sit with your family and plan together what you are eating.

In this episode we talk to Cheyna Palmer, a registered dietician about how to encourage healthy eating habits for our kids.  We also discuss the struggle of kids and snacking and address the problem PICKY EATER.  Cheyna talks about different diet options for moms and the importance of distinguishing between health and beauty when it comes to food.

This week on Family Looking Up we talk with author and Professor Josi Russell about literature and its impact on children and families.  We explore ways to help all family members to enjoy literature more and how to help use stories to teach and create meaningful conversations with our families.

Josi Russell is an Associate Professor of English at Utah State University where she teaches Literature and Creative Writing.  She is a writer and has five published novels, one of which, The Caretaker, was a finalist for the Utah Book Award and for the Whitney Award.

Josi’s number one tip for what parents can do to help kids have a positive reading experience and learn to love reading?  Parents need to read.  She said kids will love what you love in many instances and letting them see you read and enjoy books is the very first step.

What if parents and/or kids really hate sitting down to read?  Are audiobooks an acceptable replacement for the reading experience?  Josi said that she believes in immersing kids in story and if that is through audio books then that’s fine. “What you are trying to accomplish here is a love for story and a love for narrative.  I would say give them all the options you can including audio books, picture books, chapter books, novels, anything you can to foster that love of narrative.  Once they get that they will find their own most comfortable path.”

The Scholastic 2017 kids family reading report was referred to which showed that children who are read to hear millions more words than children who aren’t due to hearing words that are not in the everyday vocabulary of their parents.  As far as audio books are concerned, this would apply to reading or to listening.

When dealing with a parent who really dislikes reading, she tells them to find the type of narrative that they enjoy whether that be sports stories, oral stories, family stories and communicate those to children to help them develop a love of story and the world of the mind.

Josi said that if you can get kids to love story, then they will find the series that they love to read.  There isn’t one magic series for everyone because we all have very different intelligences.  If you help them to have a love of story then what they need in school will follow because they already have that passion and a confidence.

Speaking of reading out loud to children, she said that it is the best thing that you can do with children.  First because of the literacy and second because it brings closeness with your child which they crave and need.  Read for fun rather than reading for a literacy goal.  If they enjoy the book with you then the literacy goal will intrinsically follow.  

When picking great literature to read with your family look for “family strengthening themes.”  Those are the “big ideas” or themes “that will strengthen your family and give your kids a road map beyond what they see already around them.  Beyond the mirror, it gives them a window into new experiences and things they may face.  Some of those themes are the great themes of literature, such as sacrifice, where a character gives something up for another character.” Forgiveness, change, and redemption were others Josi talked about as wonderful themes to look for.

How do we deal with finding books that we find appropriate for our kids?  First, we read the books ourselves to find what we want them to read.  Other than that, it’s hard to find good lists that mirror what we really want our kids to be exposed to.  Talking to friends who we trust and trying the books they recommend can be a very good resource for finding good literature.  At the end of these show notes there are lists from each of us at Family Looking Up as well as from Josi Russell on favorite books divided up by age.  One other resource available to parents is Amazon reviews.  A lot of content information can be gleaned as parents read reviews of books sold on Amazon.

How do we help kids deal with coming across content in literature that they are uncomfortable with?  The best thing that parents can do to help?  Be talking with your kids about the books they are reading.  Be used to having literary conversations with our kids about the books they are reading.

If we are having those literary conversations and find out about things they are uncomfortable about reading, then sometimes we need to advocate for our kids in appropriate circumstances.  We wouldn’t want our kids to watch a sexually explicit movie, but we oftentimes hold literature to a different standard.  We need to be in tune with how a book is affecting them and still be the parent.

In Josi’s book Caretaker, there is an overarching theme of family and sacrifice that follows the lead character, Ethan Bryant.  In her writing Josi has been inspired by the good people that Josi has met in her life. She is also inspired by the big questions of “what would you do if you were in this circumstance?”

Josi’s books are very family friendly. She has made a conscious choice to keep them that way because she says that stories are powerful and in our society we do not recognize the power that stories have.  Going through life and encountering stories that seemed to have more power to her than to others.  She saw how she would be devastated by certain stories that would stay with her for a long time.  This led her to understand as she writes that she has a strong respect for the power of story and if she is giving the world a story, she wants it to be one that matters and that anyone can read and come away with something positive from it.

To learn more about Josi Russell go to www.josirussellwriting.com.  All of her books are also available at Amazon.com in E Book and print version.  The first two books in the Caretaker Chronicles, Caretaker, and it’s sequel, Guardian, are available in audiobook as well.

To see our favorite book lists, as well as Josi's favorites, visit our website at http://www.familylookingup.com

How to help kids love literature and how parents can use story to teach and have meaningful conversations with our families.