Mormons and Motherhood

Recently my faith-a lot of our faiths-have been under heavy scrutiny because of this presidential election.  I've encountered a lot of anti-Mormon anti-Romney anti-woman "stuff". Malarkey.  Granted, not many of those people read my blog, but there are a LOT of people who do read that may question their role as a Mormon woman. My goal is to share what I've learned about myself on this front.
    One of the things I've heard is that Mitt doesn't respect women because his church doesn't respect women. Apparently Mormon men pressure women to be nothing more than baby-making machines.  Let me make this clear: My faith teaches, first and foremost, AGENCY.  EVERY member of my church has a choice in every single decision they make, and in ANY aspect of their lives. Yes, I did choose to be a stay-at-home mother. No one told me to be one. Not my husband, not my mother, not my bishop. I choose my life. When I became pregnant I made the decision that I would do the job that I felt was best for every person in my family, myself included.
   I'm fortunate that I have the option to go without pay.  Not all women have that choice, and I'm so lucky that I do. There are also a lot of Mormon women who have the option to stay home, but choose not to. That is just as admirable as my decision, and deserves just as much respect.
  I made a decision to commit my whole self to the raising, rearing, nurturing, and teaching of my family inside my home. I'm here to tell you that any woman who makes that choice should NEVER EVER be made to feel that they aren't living up to their potential. Being at home with my kids is HARD and it's WORK and I WORK HARD AT IT, and I'm DANG GOOD AT IT! The choice that women make to stay home to raise their children commands respect. I hope any woman who has ever felt sheepish about saying that they stay home will realize that being a successful woman isn't to be determined by anyone but themselves.
   Women who work outside the home, women who don't have children, women who pursue high levels of education, AND women who decide to stay home with children are strong, powerful, influential, and important.  My faith-our faith- has many women in every one of these categories, and most in more than one of them.  We all have a choice. We all deserve respect.  
    

We love Fall!

 

 I love that Ethan put his hat on backwards. He had this tiny little peep-hole for his face.

 

 

 We LOVED the apple orchard. This time around my camera died at the start of our visit, and the kids were in their play clothes, but I think I'm going to do some real portraits here soon. This was a good day.

Oops! We forgot our little sweetheart! The only pictures we have of her are on Joe's phone.  She's still adorable.

Kansas City Zoo

This weekend my mom was able to come out to visit us. We had a great time, and we loved having her here. We went shopping, Joe and I got to go to the  new Kansas City Temple, more shopping, played at the park, played softball as a family, hit up LOTS of yard sales (more cheap cute clothes for the boys and Joelle), and right before my mom left we went to see the Kansas City Zoo.

 The boys absolutely loved the polar bear. They said it was their favorite part. My mom tried to lift Noah up to be as tall as the bear paw, but ended up bonking his head. Poor kid. At least it's not a broken arm, eh? (inside joke)

 I told them to give me a "real" smile. Thanks boys. They liked the elephants a lot though.

 So did Joe.

 We did a LOT of walking. The zoo is fairly big; mostly because the animals are spaced really far apart. The boys got tired of all of the walking.

 My favorite part was seeing the chimps. This one came right up to the glass and just laid there.

 We got tired of all the walking so we decided to see the rest of the zoo by train. Ethan was mesmerized by it. He rested his forehead on the railing in front of him and watched the tracks go by underneath us.

 

 

The boys were pretty tuckered out by the time we were finished.

Just kidding. That picture is from our last drive to Utah, but I had to include it because it's so funny. 

In other news, Joelle has teeth! Can you see the two on the bottom? She also has 2 more on top, but they aren't her two front teeth. She has a lateral incisor on her left side that looks like a little fang coming through. it's so funny. Fortunately her central incisor on that side has finally broken through so hopefully it won't look too crazy.

She is also crawling! It's taken her a long time. There were several friends and family members who've had babies around the same time as me, and their kids are all crawling machines. Joelle is just barely (like a week ago) starting to crawl. I guess it's a good thing since our budget has still been pretty tight and we had to special order a gate for the top of our stairs. The longer we could wait to order it, the better. I've also gotten her to say a few words on command. I wouldn't say she's talking yet because it's still pretty rare to get her to say it, but I'll document it anyway. She says 'mama', but only when she cries. She said 'dada' once, and I've gotten her to say 'hi' a hand full of times.

Right now the boys are still loving preschool. I'm so glad. I don't have to feel any reservations about ABSOLUTELY LOVING IT! It's basically structured playtime for them, and structured get-things-done time for me. win win right?! The only down side it that I've been letting my boys dress themselves, and they almost never match. That may seem so trivial and dumb, but it's been a big issue for me. I've always felt like having the boys match is the best way to present them. They look nice and orderly. I'm realizing, however, that i need to encourage them to be their own person. I know it's important, but it's still hard to see them looking all uncoordinated. anyway, that's all i have time to get into for now.