parenting | the paquettes

Archive for the 'parenting' Category

Nov

stumped

Categories: Christianity, parenting and Rilyn

Rilyn asked what a ‘Christian’ was because she heard the word on the radio in the car.

I told her that a ‘Christian’ was someone who wanted Jesus to be King of their life and they realized that they are a sinner and need Jesus to forgive their sins.

She then asked what a ‘sinner’ was.

I told her that ‘sin’ was any wrong choices and that we all are sinners. (She told me she wasn’t a sinner so I immediately knew this conversation wasn’t going to be ‘her coming to Christ’ moment.)

She wanted to know how I sin so I told her “one way mommy sins is when I get angry at you or daddy.”

She then asked me if Jesus was a sinner and I told her “No. Jesus is the only person who has never sinned.”

She then thought for a moment and said, “What about when Jesus tipped over the table in the temple (John 2:14-16)? He was angry then and you said being angry is a sin!”

I told her we will talk about this later with daddy. How do you explain “righteous anger” to a 4 year old?

Sep

the poopoo princess gown

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Ella and parenting

As I was napping today, (“How could you take a nap with 3 kids?” you ask. Well because I am just now getting over strep throat which I’ve had since Monday night and my dear sweet husband has worked from home the whole week so he could take care of me and the kids!!! I know I’m totally spoiled by him!! Thanks babe!) I was awoken by Ella running in my room and screaming “I poopoo’d in the potty mommy!!” Now this is something of a feat because we have been trying for her to poopoo in the potty for the past 6 months (oh the joys of potty training!). I got out of bed and looked at James and asked, “Is it true?!?” “Yep!” he replied and we both looked lovingly at the Disney princess nightgown….

You see, we have been racking our brains trying to find something to bribe Ella with for her to poo in the potty. Chuck E Cheese, ice cream, wrapped presents, and wearing ‘big girl panties’ all were laughed at by her. Until one day last week I was noticing how Ella and Rilyn love wearing their nightgowns to bed each night. You see, they only have one nightgown each and they beg and plead to wear it each night and they are heartbroken when I tell them it must be washed before they can wear it again (because really, that could be a long time with my laundry skills). So I decided to buy one more Disney Princess night gown, (because you can’t beat Disney Princess in my girls eyes), and that would be the bribe. James instituted my plan this week since I was bedridden and he did it brilliantly because he added a twist. He brought out the oh so beautiful nightgown and told both girls this was a nightgown that only the girl who went poopoo in the potty last could wear that night. He looked at Ella, “Did you go poopoo in the potty today?” Ella goes right into tears. Rilyn pipes up, “I did daddy! Oh I’m so excited, what a surprise! I get this nightgown!” Ella goes right to the potty but to no avail. She is in too much distress to even push out a pebble. 😉 Rilyn wears the gown for the night and Ella is heartbroken. (Hooray! Just where we want her!)

And that leads us to today where we decided to leave Ella naked from the waist down and keep reminding her of the gown. Well, here is the picture to prove it worked! (At least it worked once. Hopefully this will continue!!)

From September 2008

So what did I learn from all this? If vanity worked now, James and I are in for it big time when they hit puberty!!

Aug

The toothpaste sermon

By Julie P. 3 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Family Nights, parenting and the girls
Tags: can't take it back, family night, honesty, what we say matters

We “impress” our children everyday with who we are, what we think, or what we do. These moments may come to our children through our words, but family moments contain more power and lasting effects when they come through instructive events our children can observe.

On Monday nights we have “Family Night” where we have family devotions and our girls are actively engaged in learning. Tonight James taught about making our speech pleasing to God using a tube of toothpaste. After hearing a lot of ‘poopoo words’ to each other lately, I thought the girls needed to be reminded of how powerful the tongue can be.

Here they are with their tubes. The girls were allowed to squeeze all of the toothpaste out of their tubes.

Then daddy told them to put the toothpaste back into the tubes.

“That’s right! The very same thing is true of the words we speak. Have you ever said something that hurt someone’s feelings and heard them say, “You take that back!” You can’t take it back, can you? Once you have said it, it is said. You can’t put the words back in your mouth any more than you can squeeze this toothpaste back into the tube. That is why we need to be very careful about the things we say. The Bible says, “He who holds his tongue is wise.” Proverbs 10:19

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:14 Once we have said it, we can’t take it back, so let’s make sure that our words are pleasing to God.

If you would like more info. on family nights, check out http://www.heritagebuilders.com. This family night was taken from the book An Introduction to Family Nights Tool Chest by Jim Weidmann and Kurt Bruner.

Jul

3 months!

By Julie P. 2 Comments

Categories: Asher, parenting and Rilyn

Asher is 3 months old today! What a blessing he is to our family.

Rilyn is a sweet sister and is becoming a little mommy to him!

(he is half her size!)

reading time!

Rilyn and I had our first ‘girls night’ last night b/c she is needing some individual time. Something about the age of four, it is all about ‘me first’ and Asher is taking up too much of my time as far as she is concerned! So, we went to the Ceramic Lodge in Round Rock and painted plates! I can’t wait to pick them up next week to see the final product. She had a great time doing what she does best-art! (she drew herself on the plate-what a precious keepsake!)

Apr

Potty Like A Rock Star

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Ella, Embarrassing, parenting and remember when

Ella started becoming interested in potty training at 23 months. Four months later, we are still working on it, but slowly progressing. I don’t think she will be fully trained by Asher’s arrival, but she is doing good!

(The reason she is doing her pout is because she doesn’t want to wear the ‘rock star’ glasses mommy is making her wear b/c they go well with her shirt!) 😉

Jan

Complicated

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: parenting and Silliness

So James is still trying to figure out what is too complicated for Rilyn to understand…he tries, and he wants to always be truthful, but some things are better left for when she is a little older. Example follows:

(Rilyn and James are in the car alone on their way back from a ‘date’.)

Rilyn said to Daddy: “I always want to be at home with mommy and daddy forever.”

Daddy to Rilyn: “You will live in your house for awhile, but then you will grow up and move out on your own.”

R to D: “I don’t want to, I want to stay with you forever.”
D to R: “Rilyn, this isn’t our true home, our true home is heaven. You can’t live forever at home.”

R to D: “I don’t want to go to heaven, I want to go to my home.”

D to R: “Home is yucky compared to heaven.”

R to D: “I’m going to tell mommy to clean my home so it’s not yucky.”

D to R: “Rilyn, you either go to heaven or hell.”

R to D: “I want to go to hell then.”

D to R: “But hell is a bad place where there is lots of booboos, and crying and lots of fire.”

R to D: “I don’t want to go to hell-I want to go home!!!!”

(Rilyn then comes in the house with tear rimmed eyes and I ask James, what happened in the car????)

On a lighter note, Ella told her first knock knock joke the other day, well, it was half a joke but it still made me laugh.

Ella: “Knock, Knock.”

Mommy: “Who’s there?”

Ella: “Baby Jesus!!”

(She proceeds to bust out in laughter) 😉 Oh, I love my girls!

Sep

Family Night

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Christianity, Family Nights and parenting

So James and I are trying to make Tuesday night in the Paquette household ‘Family Night’. Our purpose is obviously to be together as a family and have fun, but also to teach the girls the Bible and God’s truths from it. This week, we learned about Noah and the girls had lots of fun playing in the ark daddy built them.

Aug

lessons learned and then learned again

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Ella, parenting and Rilyn

I should of known…Rilyn did it once, even Ella has done it before. I’m talking about putting them in a skirt with no bloomers on to take their nap. I can see the ‘mom cringe’ now…so yes, Ella took her diaper off while she was supposed to be taking a nap. Not only that, she peed all over her sheets and blankets and decided to take apart the diaper. So when I finally walked in, (an hour after I put her down I started hearing noises), there was pieces of diaper cotton stuff all over the crib and the carpet where she was in the process of throwing each cotton piece out. She even took out the diaper liner which was on the floor too. geez. When will I learn?

On another note, we went to a neat water park today, Scott B. Mentzer pool in Pflugerville. It was way fun! Rilyn is starting to cop a ‘tude these days when she really wants something. Here is her trying to tell me that she wants to go to the park now(!) Oh goodness, the teenage girl attitude is already coming at age 3!