A very important beginning...

 My son was baptized today a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have actually waited for this day for a long year. He wanted to be baptized close to his birthday becasue he wanted two parties. We were going to have it next Saturday after his birthday but because it was going to be a bit complicated if he was baptized 9 years old, we decided to move it to today. 

It was a special day and even though we had already gone through one baptism with Perla the emotinos were still strong. It is a great feeling to see your child decide to by himself to enter the fold of God. He chose to follow the Savior and to be his disciple all his life. I am sure he still doesn't understand the entire meaning of the covenants he made today, but he has his whole life to understand it. He has a desire now, and he has the seed of faith already planted in his heart. I hope it grows to be a huge tree and to fill out his life with so much joy. I am proud of him and for being so mature to make this decision by himself.

As always I was rushing to get everything ready and perfect. I love to do that for my kids even though it's tiring for me, time consuming, expensive etc. But I still do for every occasion we get. Every occasion is special with my kids, they are once in a life time events. They are only 8 once, or 9 or 10, so I want to celebrate them on any occasion I get. 

Anyway, I got everything I wanted and set up a pretty table at the chapel. I got him a new towel for his baptism and had embroidered his name and today's date so he can have as a keepsake from this day. We had family coming and a few friends. He had asked to have a private baptism and he got that.

He was happy and chatty all the time. He enjoyed being the center of attention. Perla, daddy and myself we gave talks and the bishop spoke as well. The bishopric even got him a Lego set as a gift for his baptism. Our bishop is pretty awesome!

We spend some time with our friends and families and then came home and took a nap! :D

The returning post

This is the third restart..hopefully this time is for good...

I have regained a new desire to start blogging. I love looking back at my older posts, so I want to keep creating and writing posts. This is also a way for me to keep a journal. My kids are growing up so fast. I am also trying to spend less time on my phone and be more productive and creative with my time. 

On Sunday, October 8, something special happened, our General Conference of the church was aired in TV Vizion+. I had worked with a group of other people  to make this happend, and my excitment was to the roof. I learned  few lessons from this experience. 1. When the Lord wants to open a door, it will always be very generous. We had tried to get this going for a while now but no success. This time we had offers not from one but from two TV channels, both really good. 2. I always felt inadequate about my calling but God prepares those He calls to fulfill their responsability.

Our Perla spened most of the week sick. Thankfully, she is feeling better now and will go back to school on Monday.

My baby gives the sweetest hugs. He will spontaneously reach out and give hugs. This Sunday it was a boy at church. I wanted to take a picture of this moment because he is so sweet. He doesn't give many hugs and kisses when asked, but he will do it spontaneously. I love this so much more.

We went out on Saturday to see the fall colors. I love fall. The colors, the weather, the leaves on the ground. So on Saturday we went to a park and did a barbeque. I am not posting pictures of the older kids because I don't have pictures of just the two of them. Their cousins and a neighbor kid came with us too and the only pictures I have of our kids are with the group of kids so I am not sharing to protect the other kids' privacy. They enjoyed it very much.

That's a wrap for this week! See you all next week with another post!

Warmly,

Juliana

Lessons from my children #1

 I am going to keep track of lessons I learn from my children. There are so many and frankly I hope that I won't make the same mistakes again or won't need to be taught these same lessons again.

So last week it was a normal day! It started with Eden not wanting to go to kindergarten because he was feeling tired. I let him stay in bed until he was ready to get up and go to kindergarten. I walked with him and enjoyed talking to him on our way to kindergarten.

In the evening things took a different direction. There were a lot of crying and whining and tantrums involved. I felt horrible and discouraged. I felt like a bad mom and that I was failing my children.

We all went to bed. My husband and I prayed as we do every night. I fell asleep with my eyes wet with tears. 

In the morning I felt much better. I decided to try do things differently. Spend more time with my son, be more playful and fun. Needless to say, that the day turned out amazing and with no tantrums.

I realized that we as parents have power to change our attitude towards every situation and as a result change the situation. 

So, who is to blame about the bad day? I am the parent, the adult. I know what triggers my kids and I should try harder to help them. Be their safe place when they are having big emotions. It is not easy for me to try and be fun because most of the time their behavior affects my mood, and I am not usually willing to still be happy and fun. I am willing to put in the work rather than have the situation get worse for all of us to have a horrible day. God is our constant companion in parenting. He is the best parent. He strengthens and guides me to understand my children better and to be the best mom I can be.

Positive parenting is not easy, but it is so worth it!

Farewell until the next lesson!

Pictures of the precious boy whom I call mine!

Today is your birthday, a special day...

 Today is my baby girl's birthday! I was so excited in the morning; I couldn't believe she is already 8 years old. This is the day she was born 8 years ago. Where did time go??

The day was Friday. It started as a normal day, I started working and hubby did too. However he came home early and together with Eden they went and got candy to make a pinata for the birthday party. We had planned to have a birthday party in the afternoon. Initially Perla was going to school and I was going to decorate for the party. But we ended up being late, so she didn't go to school. I asked her to stay in her room while we blew the balloons, prepared the treats, the games etc. We were ready for the guests! We had invited cousins and neighbors. There were in total 7 kids in our house, 2 grandmas, and 1 aunt.

Initially all the guests had to come to the house through a maze. I had taped the corridor and made it like a laser maze. After everyone was sitted, Miri was the pizza chef in charge. We had a pizza bar with different toppings the kids could pick from and Miri would bake the pizzas for them. 

While eating food, I showed a video I had made with clips from when Perla was a cute, adorable baby. After cleaning the table, everyone sat for drawing time. I had bought a small canvas for everyone and had put tape to form the first letter of their first name. They were to color the canvas and when it was dry, we removed the tape and they could see their letter. This was a little gift for them to take home.

After that, I painted their faces with whatever thing they picked. The girls wanted their faces as butterflies, and the boys chose iron man and superman.

Next, we had a doughnut eating contest. I threaded doughnuts and everyone stayed in line. They were to eat the doughnuts without hands. I put the timer for one minute and in the end, we would see who had eaten more from their doughnut. It was hilarious to see the kids struggling to eat their doughnuts. Especially because the doughnuts would slide. They had a blast to say the least.

In the end we had karaoke and another contest where I had taped on the wall different years on one side and Perla's pictures on the other and they were to correctly match the picture to the date.

I enjoyed this birthday a lot, especially because last year for her birthday we were in complete lock-down. And to see my baby girl have so much fun, made it all worth the while.

She is so kind and is always looking to make new friends everywhere she goes. She is hard working and loves to help in the house. She has started writing (with some help) on her little diary. She also has a recipe notebook where she writes the recipes we cook together. She loves to make crafts and she makes them independent from me. She speaks both English and Albanian and reads in both languages, but she only writes in Albanian for now. She has started to learn piano as well this year. She has picked up quickly. She is very flexible and is always practicing her cartwheels and handstand. She knows what she likes, and she works towards becoming better at it. She won't stand if someone is speaking to her disrespectfully or treating her like a child or deciding for her. She is really good about following rules. For instance, she has never complained about wearing the mask at school and to and from school even though a lot of people don't keep it anymore or will wear it under their noses. She loves to draw and color. She is already asking for a phone (her friends all have phones) but she knows she won't get one for a looong time. 😊 She doesn't like her daddy kissing her when he has facial hair, and will demand he shaves if he wants to kiss her. She is growing up and she has her own personality, and it is so fun to see her bloom. Sometimes we get frustrated with each other but she is so quick to say sorry and so am I. She is fantastic. She is getting ready to be baptized soon. I am so happy for her. She is convinced she wants to be baptized even though she is only 8. I was 19 when I made that decision. She has a family to help her grow in the gospel. We are cheering for her; we will always be here for her. Life with you my baby Perla is so beautiful! I am just the luckiest mama to have you! 

Making frinds like my daughter does

Being a mom is a wonderful opportunity. The kids teach me great lessons. As we were waiting for the last flight to go to SLC, our kids had been awake for almost 24 hrs. They were tired but still wanted to play. My daughter saw a girl about her age and she asked me if she could go ask her to play. This girl was running around barefoot, she seemed a bit older than my daughter, and she had darker skin color. Perla went and asked her if they could play together. The rest is hours waiting at the airport filled with laughter and games and teaching each other words from the languages they spoke. My son joined the fun too. And if you were someone sitting close you would probably say that these kids knew each other for a long time. After a few days we went thrift shopping and my kids were looking at toys. My son was picking all sorts of toys, but my daughter picked only one doll. She said that she picked that one because it reminded her of her friend she made at the aiport. This was a barbie doll, with black hair and darker skin color. I just love the pure love children have. I love to see the world through my kids eyes. It is a fun filled world, filled with people to love and have fun with. 

Passengers waiting said that they had a lot of fun seeing these kids play so well together. It was amazing!

Look at them. Don't they seem like best buddies! 😀

Here is Miss P with the doll she picked at the store. You can tell from her eyes she is very happy she found a doll that looked like her friend.💓

I am glad I get to keep this memory of my sweet girl forever!

Warmly,
Juli

Friend to Friend

 This Sunday the Church showed a broadcasting only for kids. I am used to participating in devotionals, general conference, fireside etc, but they had never done something just for kids. I can't describe how much I loved this event. The length was great, only 45 min. They had a variety of activities from drawing, to rock art, to general authorities sharing messsages, other kids from around the world, and songs. The event was even conducted by children. They did such a good job! 

Usually my kids are not very focused during church events, but this time it was different. This broadcast had captivated their attention and they wished it was longer. It too wish that they keep making these kind of events for kids. The whole family enjoyed watching it together. 

Our prophet, president Russell Nelson, also spoke. Perla kept notes while he talked. He invited the children to help other, be an example and plan to do acts of sevice to others. 

We will surely remember this event. That's why I decided to write about it. 😁

Warmly,

Juli

Valentine's day and surprise snow

Dear Blog, It feels so good to be back writing again. During these past years I have come back to this blog to look at old pictures and remind myself of the sweet memories. This week I don't remember the reason why I came to the blog but I felt that I needed to start writing again. So I will start by sharing a special occasion from last weekend

Valentine's day came with a surprise snow! What a special day for all of us here in Albania. The last snow we had here was in 2017 I believe and it lasted only a few hours on the ground. This time it snowed all night. Actually I was so excited I couldn't sleep at night. I woke up and checked the snow out of my window several times. I couldn't wait for morning to come and I was also afraid that it might melt before we got to go outside. 😀

We woke up and had a good breakfast (Saturday and Sunday we indulged in good food). We tried to prepare the food with lots of LOVE. The table cloth after breakfast looks like a battle field where there is blood shed. 😋 I guess it means the food was good.

After food was snow time. Since it doesn't snow almost ever here we don't actually own any snow attire. So we had to come back home change and go out again with dry clothes. The kids had tons of fun; they made an upside down snowman. I had seen these on the internet but I didn't really think I would get the opportunity to actually make one myself. It turned out so cute. Miss P loved it so much she even asked to write about it in her journal. They played snowball fight, made snow angels, jumped in snow, and even crawled in snow. 😁

During the week we made some Valentine's Day themed crafts . I am including pictures below so I remember what we have done. 

See how I haven't mentioned gifts at all? There was so much that we did together as a family, Valentine's day was truly a gift this year. (Although Miri did get all of us our favorite treat.) I feel very blessed and grateful to my Father in Heaven because He has shown so much love to us. His name is LOVE. I thank Him for the beautiful gift of creativity. Like Him we can all be creative and should spend time creating and expressing our talents. I am also very grateful to my God for the beautiful snow. Just with one ingredient, snow, the kids had  plenty of hours of pure fun. What a blessing!! I hope you all felt loved on Valentine's day this year!

Warmly,

Juliana