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All in the Family…

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This is us…we are SO NOT PERFECT in every way, shape and form!! This is literally the BEST PHOTO we have taken as a Family in months!! It is really terrible to say that, for more than the obvious reasons–yes, the seven year-old is really giving the bird, my daughter is giving me bunny ears, I am giving some sort of lecture causing me to look like I am trying to make duck lips at the camera!! All I can do is laugh and say I will take it, because it’s the best I am going to get without more tears, yes, there have been tears over trying to get a photo of this beautiful and crazy, motliest of crews.

The sun was starting to set and it was the perfect lighting to capture an amazing photo of the family, or at least I thought so…”

The kids has other plans in mind, and the friend selected to be the photographer decided to be a clown at the same time.

We were having a wonderful Sunday in the park…until I tried to get a photo of everyone in the perfect light…

This is Us…


So I rounded up the kids and “forced” them to come line up for a picture after a halfhazard game of baseball using tennis balls and metal bats…it was more like chasing balls than baseball, but we all had fun and we got a little vitamin D and some exercise, which is always needed, so overall a great day! They were even happy to eat the sandwiches Brian made and everyone was smiling and having a good time. The sun started to go down a little and I noticed the light was perfect for photos, so I told everyone to gather up and let’s take a photo in the beautiful light of the sun. It’s the only thing I want out of this day that has been mostly about them getting their way, but then they start to wine that they are hungry–“What?!?!” ” How can you be hungry I say.” We had literally just finished eating and played baseball for maybe 15 to 20 minutes which mostly consisted of battting and pitching practice and a few good wacks at the ball. You can tell by the smiles on Katie and then Ameerha giving the bird, yes that is a middle finger sticking up on the seven year-old, that they were completely thrilled to be in this photo. I cannot wait to share the others that were taken. This was literally the only one of the whole family. It’s actually the best one we have taken in months I am so deeply saddened to say. It is not for a lack of trying. Katie is beautiful and won’t let me take photos of her face, but I see her taking selfies all the time–what the heck??? I will post the other photos we took that day on my Facebook page; My Not So Mormon Mormon Life, so everyone can see what I am talking about! I don’t know WHAT I was thinking handing my phone over to a man named Booger to take a photo of our family and I actually thought and somewhat expected that because he is a grown man tha the could manage a photo with all of us in the frame. I mean the name just says it all, doesn’t it? I should have known better, but oh well, I tried to be nice and give him the benefit of the doubt, but you will see what I mean when I post the other photos. He was clearly trying to be funny! There are photos of part of us, mostly with eyes closed, then one that cuts me out and then one of only me and another of Brian’s feet, it really is funny, but so darn annoying! I will post them soon for a good laugh but right now I Sam practicing trying to be a better disciple of Christ and boy oh boy does Thai man make it difficult—I mean I am having a hard time being nice to him and everyone around when I encounter him and that is just not me!! So I am meditating even more now than ever, trying to find peace and keep my nerves from rattling me to death, but anyways I’m trying to be better, and be more loving and kind and patient so I have to find better ways of dealing with all the people who make me want to rip their heads off and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine…see, that easily I can be deterred…I am so going to work in this this week!!

Whores, Thieves, and Liars…and that’s only three of my kids this week…

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This photo is appropriately titled “Ray of Hope” and I chose it because even though this has been one of my most difficult weeks, I know that if I have hope, and faith, and continue to pray and put all of my trust into Him that I can change myself and be an example to my children of how a child of God behaves.

I’m not kidding when I say one of the worst weeks as a parent I have had. I am not sure if they are acting out because I am working again and I haven’t been home, if they are just so inundated with inappropriate words, actions, and media all day that they think it’s normal, but last week, I was home sick and sleeping in bed with a fever and stomach virus, and it seemed that they chose this time for all hell to break loose, literally!

As if it weren’t enough that I was already getting phone calls about certain children skipping class and getting bad grades. One of them decided a few weeks ago that they didn’t have to go to church every Sunday, that every other Sunday is sufficient, and of course, becuase their father doesn’t attend regularly and isn’t a member of the church, they get away with it. Then my biological beasts want to rebel and say it’s not fair and our peaceful Sunday morning turns into a war zone with shouting and profanities, so I stopped fighting it and fast forward a few weeks and the lack of church participation has definitely taken affect in our house.

So as I was sleeping on this particular Sunday of last week, I was awoken to arguing amongst the kids and had to settle a fist-fight between two of them that I still don’t know what it really was about other than teenage hormones and raging attitudes of entitlement. It ended with accusations and pointing fingers and tattling on each other over social media postings and messages I had not seen. I normally monitor their social media activity pretty regularly, but in my new busy state of both working and taking online courses to obtain a degree, they have decided to take advantage of the lack of attention and one of our children decided to proposition others and was using language so vulgar it made me blush and I was embarrased just reading it. Not to mention the mere thought of what the 25 plus photos and videos that I could not access contained, but knowing how sexual the conversation had become, I could only imagine, and I didn’t want to imagine ANY of these things coming from my child, and this was one of the children–not even one of the teens!! I will get to them in a moment…like I said, this particular week, and really just the first two days, were especially trying both mentally, spiritually, and physically. I don’t think I have cried or prayed so much in a single 24-hour period ever.

So we removed a bedroom door, took away phone usage privileges, and grounded the child after talking at length about chastity and virtue and self-respect. It’s really hard when you haven’t raised a child yourself and have no idea what they may have been exposed to and what has been taught is acceptable to them, but I have hope and I know they aren’t bad kids, they just have bad habits and a lot of inappropriate behaviors have been shown to them as acceptable and it may take a while to overcome it all, but I know that we can.

I know that they want to do good and be good, and I know they have potential to be GREAT! I often say I would not ever want to be a teenager trying to navigate this world today and I am so glad that I didn’t have social media around when I was a kid or I probably would have gotten in WAY more trouble than I did because I was always too easily influenced by others as a kid, so I totally get it!! I just wish they weren’t so secretive and talked to us more about these things they see other kids doing that seem like a fun time or a good idea, until someone gets hurt or in trouble, but I don’t want to go too far off on a tangent…back to last week and the trouble with me being sick…

Sunday was bad, but Monday, the kids went to school, mostly, and I stayed home sick in bed with the stomach virus and fever and barely moved other than to use the bathroom. It was not a pretty time for me. I felt so awful I could hardly walk. When the kids came home from school, I asked for some water and I could hear chores being done. Then one of the teenagers, who shall remain nameless, came and asked for my car keys because they needed something out of the car, so I told them to get them from my purse. Twenty minutes later, Their dad is calling me asking where I am at because he thought I was sick in bed. Confused and disoriented, I start asking him why he thinks I am not sick, I am definitely sick and upstairs in bed. Then he says “if you are in bed, where is your car?” I IMMEDIATELY KNOW THE KIDS HAVE TAKEN IT and I start calling them to which they are not answering their phones, and so this contninues until I call the police to report the car stolen and while I am doing that I GET A CALL FROM THE HIGHWAY PATROL TELLING ME THEY WERE IN AN ACCIDENT!!! Their dad tried to get mad at me for calling the police instead of being mad at them for stealing the car!!! I WAS SO MAD AND ALSO WORRIED NOW WONDERING ABOTU THE ACCIDENT, but it was minor, so back to being extremely mad, also, sick and now have to crawl out of bed to go deal with the highway patrol and my errant children. NOT FUN! So they all got grounded, phones were taken away and priveleges again revoked for the week, then we find out that because of the Coronavirus or Covid-19, they will be granted an early spring break for this week…and I have the week off becuase I was supposed to chaperone the now cancelled sixth grade trip to Sly Park. Guess who did nothing for their Spring Breaks–my kids. Because I am that mom who sticks to what she says and follows through with their discipline. How else will they learn?

A Full Moon

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The Full Moon and other Happenings…

What a week the full moon has brought us!! Did I mention I have four teenage daughters and a teenage son?!?! The full moon tends to bring about some very confused hormones and attitudes and behaviors and this week was no different! There are so many days, so, so many days I get down on myself for my own hormonal rages, or temper tantrums due to pain or whatever angst I am going through, but I have really been working on being a better disciple of Christ and working on being a better mom by being a better example to my children of how to cope with stressful and painful situations and how to make things better rather than worse, but I tell you, I was not prepared for this past week and the waves of emotion and turmoil and joy and excitement and sadness and disappointment and despair, you really would have thought someone was dying…

I am supposed to be the calm and steady rock, but I didn’t know if everyone was going to survive. Add to the hormonal chaos a pre-teen who was perhaps feeling like she wasn’t getting enough attention, so she had to do something terrible at school and get sent to the principal’s office, then we had to deal with a telling of a lie over the incident, and add to teh mix two birthdays mid-week of two of the hormonal teenagers and then add all the jealousy and horrible feelings that come from one person feeling like the other person got something more or better or whatever, no matter how hard you and everyone else tried to go out of their way to make each girl’s day special, it never seems to be enough.

One day they are happy and sweet and wanting to feed the missionaries and have them over for dinner and the next day, I can only get 10 out of 12 to get up and go to church. I thought there was going to be an actual fist fight over it as the Bishop and one of our Stake Presiden’t were there to visit prior to our Ward Conference taking place later that morning. I forgot to mention we also had a double slumber party for the double birthdays, resulting in 12 children over the weekend, instead of six, so as they are arriving to talk to my children, who had been repeatedly warned to be ready for church by the time they arrived, it took at least 15 minutes to get them all to come downstairs in various stages of dress and half-awake stupor.

I love my children and I want to give them so much, but sometimes, I just want to take so much away and scale things back to a much simpler place and time. These kids are growing up in a world that is forcing them to know things they don’t understand and it makes for such a tumultuous ride. They are faced with so much information at their fingertips and communication devices I could only dream of as a kid, but now am so thankful I didn’t have them to distract me from making friends in real-life and learning how to play and communicate and work things out in person, instead of growing up in a world where cyber-bullying and creating fake images of yourself run rampant, I am so happy to have grown up without these things so I can teach my children to ignore those things and to use social media and the internet to spread good and not more negativity in a world that is dark and ugly enough. I hope we can all find beauty and happiness in something each day.

~ My Daughters and I ~
Sacramento Temple ~ Folsom, CA
Photographed by Valeri Anderson Photography ~ Sacramento, CA

I am so thankful to be grounded in the gospel and I hope that I have given and continue to give my children a strong enough foundation to navigate their way through all of the worldly noise and distractions. Even after all of the fighting and yelling all week, I couldn’t help but smile to myself and be proud of my little missionaries, always inviting and bringing their friends to church and youth activities. They might not realize it now, but I know they are laying the foundation and planting a seed in those friends and as I looked at them all in my rear-view mirror and had to laugh at what a motley crew I was taking to church, I was also proudly humming the song “the Armies of Helamen” as I was thinking these are today’s stripling warriors, right here in my car. Maybe this convert mom is not doing so bad after all…

January 28th, 2020

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This is me and my blended family. from top to bottom, left to right, Brian’s son Jason, 15 is in the tree, Brian’s daughter Emilie, 12 is hanging from the tree, next is my daughter Kaitlynn, 16, followed by my niece Ameerha, 7, Brian, my friend, roommate, and Father figure to my children, His daughter Brianna 14, I am behind her, and finally, my daughter Tyler, 18.

We are not your typical Mormon family, in fact, not all of us are Mormon. I say none of us are really Mormon, because that is just a nickname, but I digress already…I may do that from time to time, jumping from subject-to-subject because that is how mind works, sort of like a word association game, only I can never quite predict what will come to mind. Most people are pretty consistent in their thoughts, but mine are all over the place. So this blog will be about me and my life and all the trials, joys, success, and failure that encompasses it.

Sometimes it’s messy and loud, and sometimes it’s so quiet and smooth it freaks me out, but one thing is for sure. My path has been guided by my Heavenly Father and He has led me to this place, so I will try to remember this always and be humble and thankful that I have His gospel in my life to help me lead my children in this loud and distracting world that likes to tear people apart.

Now for some of the juicy details…Brian and I are not married, but we live together raising our children. We were friends when I became unable to work at my former career as an event planner and director of a small educational non-profit almost four years ago, and after about eight months of not being able to work and dwindling my savings, Brian was gracious enough to take on me and my two children, so that we could raise our children with a mother and a father and I could take the time off needed to work on my health and helping the children to learn appropriate behaviors, house rules, learn to do chores, homework, reading daily, and I invited his children to church activities and we have always had the missionaries over regularly for dinner and visits. I am a convert and was baptized when I was 17 years old, against my parents wishes, though they did not express that until after they gave me permission. I will save the full story for my next blog post. So I am a member, my daughters are both members, converted about 5 1/2 years ago, around the same time that I received my temple endowments and starting attending the temple regularly. Now because I living with Brian, even though we are not involved romantically, I am currently unable to get my temple recommend. This is temporary and I am working towards becoming self-reliant so that I can move out on my own and begin moving on the path towards exaltation once again. I am still obedient to the commandments and try to be as good of a disciple of Christ as I can, but living with a person who is not a member, and not religious at all, can make for challenges in the home.

The good news is, he sometimes comes to church with us, so I know we are rubbing off on him. All three of his children living with us have been baptized, and my niece turns eight this year and is also talking about being baptized. So I know that good things are happening in my life and around me, so I feel my Heavenly Father is pleased and I will continue to strive to be better each day.

Next week I will dive more into the kids and some of their antics and how they have “blended”.

As Tigger would say “TTFN, Ta Ta for now”!

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

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This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

  • Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
  • Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

  • Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
  • What topics do you think you’ll write about?
  • Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
  • If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.