Power of Moms

Me, Saren Loosli, Shawni Pothier, my friend Danette, and April Perry

In between weekends of photo shoots, I nabbed the opportunity to go to the Power of Moms retreat here in Gilbert on November 19th. I learned so much in one day - the day was uplifting and so encouraging.  Motherhood isn't easy and I have my own share of troubles and just trying to learn how to be a good mother day by day.  A few things I realized while at the retreat: one is that my kids are perfect for me and I am good for them.  And that as long as I am trying to be righteous and teach them to really know Jesus Christ I am on the right path.  I am a person and I have needs like my children - physical, mental, social, spiritual, and emotional, and that to be a good mother, I need to take care of myself first (April's "Mommy is a person" phrase really resonated with a lot of people), and that it is important for me to grow in all those areas mentioned while raising my children.  We spent the morning talking about taking care of ourselves first, and then family systems in the afternoon.

I was glad to have read the Entitlement Trap by Richard and Linda Eyre a couple of months before -- the gals running Power of Moms talked about those systems described in the book.  If you have been an Eyre fan for years like me, you are already familiar with the family legal system and the family economy.  Still honing those family systems in our home - but for starters, one concrete thing I haven't gotten to do is to get our family rules/motto framed up and displayed in a prominent place in our home:

I am not sure about the colors yet though.  Or if I should do canvas.
Everyone picked these out together - a close runner up was: endure (in place of do).  "Play" is Maddie's addition to the family rules.
Our family scripture is 2 Nephi 5:27 (Kevin's pick and favorite - won the votes too) - "and we lived after the manner of happiness".  My all-time favorite 1 Nephi 3:7 - "I will go and do...." comes in super close second, so I am still having my kids memorize that one.

While there I ran into my BYU roomie Catherine and dormie Peggy. Catherine was my Spring roommate at Heritage Halls (Maeser) and Peggy was one of my dormies at Deseret Towers-U Hall.  It was so good to reconnect with old friends!