Values Parenting Blog

GRAND babies!

2011-12-17T22:49:00.001-07:00

We are about the luckiest grandparents in the world to have two new Grandbabies within 18 days of each other on opposite coasts of the USA AND to be able to visit both of them within days!

Bennett Richard Eyre was born in San Diego on November 18th and popped into the world at 9 pounds 8 ounces with one arm above his head, aka Superman (and he probably will be saving the world someday)! He is absolutely adorable and we had three fun filled days with that cute family! McKay kept us laughing, Lyla kept us running and Cubby kept us delighted! And what a joy it was to see little Bennett talk to the angels in his sleep...as all babies do, but these angels were really special. Lots of smiles and rapid eye moment!

Kristi and Noah were magnificent troopers as always and we wondered how in the world they were going to survive with that little mob and all it entails. But they will....with flying colors!

Sadly I left my computer home and the blog APP on my Ipad crashed so I'm now writing with a different program from Anita's computer in NYC....our next stop!

On December 15, which was their baby's due date we had been praying that little girl would wait for us because she was due that day and we didn't arrive until about 11 p.m. that night. The next morning when I got out of the shower (we were staying with a neighbor's house who had left for the holidays), Dad/Rick came in from a run and was reading a text from his Iphone about 9:30 a.m. which said "Pushing"! I about jumped out of my skin! They had sent an email at 2:43 a.m. saying that they thought Anita was in labor and that they would be heading to the hospital in a couple of hours. We hadn't checked email yet so we were astounded and over the moon excited. She was born just after 10 o'clock. Talk about SWISS PRECISION! It couldn't have been better timing! We grabbed a cab to the hospital and by the time we arrived this is what she looked like:

She weighed in at 8 pounds 7 ounces which is huge for a first baby! Anita had gone with a completely natural child birth at the birthing center and according to the doula, was incredibly amazing! She'll probably be sending the details so I'll leave it at that. A very hard labor but SO good to see that darling little girl safely into the world! We came just in time to see her making her first "footprint"!

Tal and Anita survived that day and night at the hospital with flying colors and we had some precious time to talk. Look at this Antia walking out of the hospital this morningl! In Utah they wouldn't let us out in anything less than a wheelchair!

Dad/Rick had the fun idea to pick them up first class. When in New York..... We all liked the car and our nice driver Max who, in accordance to Tal's directions didn't go over 10 miles per hour all the way home...and missed every bump and pothole that was humanly possible!

We got Tal and Anita as comfortable as we could, although I'm sure it was a LONG way home for Anita after only about 27 hours after giving birth!

We were the proud guardians of the sleeping baby!

TIME TO CELEBRATE!

Home at last to their amazing new apartment. Couldn't be a more perfect place to bring home a new baby! !

Anita was pretty happy to hit the bed after all that commotion and to bring this little girl home!

Welcome to the world little Annina Eyre! You look pretty happy to be here! We couldn't be more delighted to have you join your extraordinary parents New York City! "Heaven lies about us in our infancy." (William Wordsworth)

Uprooted trees

2011-12-16T15:30:00.001-07:00

Figuring out how to send blogs from my Ipad! Yikes! I need one of our kids by my side. Let's see if this uprooted tree in the park next to the Looslis house during the recent min-tornado will go through. This is one of several thousand that were lost in Davis and Weber counties!

Downed trees

2011-12-15T23:13:00.001-07:00

Annual Children for Children Concert

2011-12-09T17:32:00.001-07:00

Children can do a world of good for other children at Christmastime with just a little direction. Given a challenge, they are truly amazing! For years when our children were home one of our traditions at Christmas was to hold a Children for Children Concert. The kids would ask their friends in the neighborhood and from school to get a talent ready to perform at concert on an assigned night during the holidays at our house. When the night arrived kids showed up with their parents and grandparents for the big performance. We saw everything from a simple one-minute piano solo to kids who could had beautiful voices (and some...not so much, but they were earnest), to kids showing their artwork to kids who could tap dance.

The parents were then asked to think of their admission to the concert as a generous contribution to a great cause. With their contributions our first year we helped to build a simple cinderblock school for children their age in Bolivia. Every year the kids discovered a great cause to support and were so proud to feel that they could actually help by participating in the concert.

This tradition has rolled on to some of our children's families as soon as their children became old enough to organize the event. They have taken a good idea and made it abundantly better! Last year our Arizona daughter Shawni who has a five year old daughter Lucy, with a rare syndrome which means she may lose her sight had their older siblings organize a Children for Children Concert to raise money for The Foundation Fighting Blindness. The kids excitedly crammed their home with people and their concert made a nice sum of money for this good cause.

Another daughter Saydi who lives in Boston sent websites to the parents whose kids were invited to the perform in the concert. She asked them to go through the websites for three stellar humanitarian organizations with their kids so that the kids could vote on which good cause they wanted to support with their efforts to participate in the concert. The kids got involved, voted and Mabuhay Deseret Foundation won. This is an organization that does free surgeries for cleft palette, cataract and other important surgeries on children who would otherwise be permanently maimed or blind. Interestingly Saydi and her husband Jeff spent six months in the Philippines working with this organization when they were first married. The parents involved in that concert loved having their kids see the needs of kids in desperate situations that they could help by sending money from their concert.

Last week our oldest daughter Saren completed a Children for Children Concert with a much larger group than would fit in a living room because an old Methodist church just around the corner from her home in Ogden had just been transformed into a community center. Before she turned the reigns over to their oldest son Ashton to conduct the program, she introduced their fifth annual concert by explaining “the cause” which was to support orphans in Bulgaria where she served as a missionary many years ago. She has since gone back to Bulgaria with Deborah Dushku who helped start an organization called One Heart Bulgaria that has been supporting orphanages there for about ten years. She showed a three minute video of the beautiful children in the orphanages that she saw there. The heart-wrenching video was accompanied by a recording of Kurt Bestor singing “The Prayer of the Children. As always, a tear jerker! See the video on Saren’s blog post here.

The pictures below will tell the story. The kids usually do a nativity scene at the end and since there were almost 200 people in attendance, there were about 25 shephards and a multitude of angels. The audience was chuckling watching Joseph be sure that each shepherd saw the baby Jesus up close and personal!

Those kids raised $1677 which was matched by a foundation which meant that they earned $3354. That is enough will support two orphanages in Bulgaria for a year!

The hard part on these concerts as parents is to stand back and let the kids really do it! Of course there needs to be some reminding and some wind in their sails, but letting the kids do the calls, plan the program and conduct the concert is the key to helping them feel the real joy of giving something really meaningful to children in need at Christmas instead of feeling the often insatiable need for getting!

Gold Prize Winners

2011-11-30T15:42:00.001-07:00

This week we finally managed to make connections (after several tries from both sides) with the amazing couple who won the gold prize for the give-away that we sponsored during The Entitlement Trap pre-sales era. The prize was dinner with us at a fun Park City restaurant. I think we were actually the winners! We had so much fun getting to know this extraordinary couple.

On January 3rd Sarah and Gabe Granata are moving with their four little children ages seven to about 18 months to China! Unlike others in their company, they will be living smack dab in the middle of a Chinese high-rise community surrounded by only Chinese speaking friends and neighbors which is only a few minutes from his office rather than 90 minutes each way if they were to live near other Americans.

They are debating whether to just throw their kids into Chinese schools with the help of a Chinese tudor after school OR to home school them for the rest of the year and then throw them in when they start again next fall. Dad/Rick’s suggestion of course, was to throw them in and let them swim. My feeling would be to get them acclimated for a few months and then sent them off to a Chinese school in the next school year. I think we weren’t too much help on that one. You might ask why not put the kids in a private school? The problem is the tuition: $22,000-30,000 per child.

They are excited about their adventure!

Two and a half hours simply flew by as we were amazed at this couple’s courage and stamina. Go Gabe and Sarah!

THE RICHNESS OF AUTUMN (thanksgiving 2011)

2011-11-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

Juxtaposition of cool air in my nostrils and hot sun on my back
Slanting, revealing light, deeper shadows, flaming foliage
Surprising snow skiff or frost some mornings

Autumn, always the favorite season
And now the season of our lives
Our axis tilts slowly, and stretches our mortal year across nine seasons

A long, growing spring through school and mission and marriage
An early summer of new babies and politics and another mission
A midsummer with full-bloom cacophony of conceived children and books
The lush late summer’s Eyrealm missions and marriages
Indian summer of central three-campus kingdom and orbiting satellites
And now full autumn, rich and boundless
Then fall, more as a mellow invitation than a lowering threat
Followed by early winter’s renewed energy and new snow
And finally the reflective soft silence and reward of deep winter

We love the sixth season because it is now, the last third of the second third
Late enough for perspective but early enough for energy
We wait to see if country or church will be turned by our friends
Bright leaves, some flying in the wind and some still on the tree
I am the eyre or seer into the eyes of our nine noble ones
Family members 40 and 41 set to enter this estate as grandchildren 22 and 23
We float on new volumes and audiences to the domains of daughters and sons
Wrapped in each other’s oneness, flying far and then homing again and again
To the warmth of three campuses that become physical legacy
Fresh books on entitlement and spiritual solutions
A little early snow from a surgery shoulder and a bungled back previews winter and
Enhances returning equine and athletic appreciation

Abundance abounds and giving lags receiving so we get constantly and gratefully more behind
(Only our ever-indebted liabilities can balance His ever-given assets)
Our thanks-giving forms in the mould of our inability ever to repay

Next to Him, it is you we thank
Friends and family who see our hearts and know our love
This Thanksgiving of 2011

Richard and Linda (the north lake, the central mountains or the south desert)
Saren and Jared + 5 (Ogden), Shawni and Dave +5 and Josh (Phoenix),
Saydi and Jeff +4 (Boston), Jonah and Aja +4 (Maui), Tal and Anita +1* (NYC)
Noah and Kristi +4* (San Diego), Eli and Julie (D.C.) and Charity (San Francisco)
*new one arriving any day

Last TOFW in Phoenix

2011-11-08T12:06:00.001-07:00

It’s been a fun ride to be with the Time Out for Women organization the past couple of years after we wrote A Mother’s Book of Secrets together…but alas, you need to produce a new product for Deseret Book in order to keep going and Shawni and I haven’t exactly had time to write another book this year! Time to go on. Still we’ll take what we can get and meeting such amazing people with incredible talent has been a stellar experience! Nice to do our finale in Shawni’s home town and be with 2700 stalwart women and 400 terrific girls (who had their separate meeting).

This one was in downtown Phoenix which is a pretty awesome place! It was fun for Shawni not to have to pack a bag!

The girl on the left and the mom with the adorable baby (Mercy River) are sitting by Matt Baldwin, who wrote a great book this year and is a therapist. He also happens to be my sister Lenna’s neighbor. Small world!

Our hero Cindy Packard who started Care for Life with her husband in Mozambique (where Tal and Anita spent part of their honeymoon and who are now on the board) was there with her good friend Mary Ellen Edmunds who gave a wonderful talk.

One of the most fun things about TOFW is that they are starting to do Time Out for Girls for girls 12 and older. How great was that to have Elle (right) and her friend McKenna be able to be in the same building with us? They sneaked out to hear our talk and were so excited and just plain cute!

And just to add the icing on the cake, all of Shawni’s sisters-in-law and her cousin came to support her.

So many beautiful women, young and old were there for a day away from the hassles of life.

Here is a darling grandma (center) with all her terrific daughters and daughters in law! BIG family!

Here are some of our favorite “Time Out” people including Hilary Weeks (right) with her velvet voice and clever presentations, thought provoking Matt Baldwin and darling Kris Belcher, who lost one eye to cancer at when she was a 7 month-old baby and the other several years ago. Her tribulations are beyond belief but what a woman! She could be a stand up comic in Las Vegas without blinking an eye (oops, excuse the pun). She is able to laugh at herself and keep us laughing too, even though her circumstances are so tragic! She has never seen her four year old since he was an infant.

We got a chance to meet Kris’ dog Nadine this time. Even though she looks like a panther in the picture (dont’ know what all that shine is) she is a perfect companion for Kris!

Ah, life has it’s eras and this has been a great one!

The Entitlement Trap via Glenn Beck

2011-10-30T16:33:00.001-06:00

We thought you might like to see an 8 minute clip from a 20 interview that Richard did with Glenn Beck in NYC last week. We applaud Glenn for taking the timing time off of pure politics for a few minutes to talk about how important it is to raise less entitled kids who will become more responsible adults. Here is the clip.

Fun Radio Show…Join us on October 25

2011-10-24T10:19:00.001-06:00

I’ll be doing a radio show with Johnny Tan tomorrow morning (October 25th) on The Entitlement Trap. It will be from 9-10 Mountain Time and they’d love to have any of you call in who would be interested in asking a question or making a comment.

The number to call is 347-327-9995. This guy has written a book called My Mama’s Kitchen and is a real champion for Mothers! He says he’s had 9 wonderful women who have impacted his life and he is really interested in the power of moms (sound familiar)?

Hope to hear from some of you!

Great Kids Make Great Communities

2011-10-23T22:22:00.001-06:00

Great Kids Make Great Communities

Put a great Judge, a fabulous organizer, seven hundred and fifty parents and community workers who love kids together at the Grand Wayne Conference Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana and you have a terrific force for the good of children and youth!

Judge Charlie Pratt, who is revered and inspired by everyone who knows him has been running an annual Conference on Youth for parents and community workers in Fort Wayne for 22 years! His passion is helping kids in difficult situations and their counselors, supporters and parents to succeed. This year the conference was called "Great Kids Make Great Communities".

We became more and more impressed with Judge Pratt as he gave a thoughtful speech about entitlement as he introduced us and offered a beautiful prayer at the beginning of the conference and again at lunch thanking and asking for help from a higher power for their success. He was humble and unassuming...the last thing he would want is for anyone to think he was important. He helped cleaned up the board room after the event and was the last one out. He even helped me look for my phone, which I lost at lunch (and is gone forever. Shucks!)

Richard and I with Judge Pratt:

The event included three keynote speakers of whom we were delighted to be one (well actually two) and several workshops. Ideas from The Entitlement Trap were fun to present to a very receptive audience.

As we sat at book signings during the day we were blown away by the stories of the good people who stopped by: so many parents who had fostered countless kids and adopted the ones who fit into their family and a cute young dad who said his life turned around when, as a 16 year-old African American juvenile, he was told by a police officer that within ten years he thought he would probably be in prison. In actual fact, in ten years he had taken that man's job! His name tag said "Detective" which comes after much training as a police officer.

The other keynote speakers were amazing! Clay Roberts told us how to make a difference in the lives of young people and had us reminisce about who had made a difference in our life as a youth. It was very compelling!

The last speaker, Tricia Downing, was an amazing woman in a wheelchair who walked us through her life, first as a first class bicyclist, and then after being hit by a car on her way home from a long ride (shades of Jonah), was told that she would never walk again. The story of her journey of recovery which included never saying "I can't" was incredible! After many years of unbelievable will and effort she participated in the Iron Man race in Hawaii (she swam backwards and used two different kinds of bikes operated with her arms in the other two events). I guess I'll just go ahead and quit whining about the pain and numbness in my leg!

With thanks to Megan Kelly, the incredible organizer of the event, we learned so much about the "salt of the earth" that day.

BCRANK (Beaver Creek Ranch at Narnia Canyon)

2011-10-06T09:58:00.001-06:00

Time to take a break from all the minutia of launching a new book, which feels a lot like having a new baby….. take a deep breath and enjoy the wonders of nature!

On Monday as we listened to the weather and heard the inevitable was coming….SNOW!

We’ve had my kind of autumn at BCRANK. Hot air, cool breezes, then a cool snap and sudden brilliant reds, oranges and yellows. Summer is glorious in our neck of the woods. Also short. Autumn is nothing short of spectacular…and even shorter. So I put on my five-finger walking shoes and took the “long walk” (five minutes) to our little slice of heaven, a series of beaver dams that keep us mystified thinking about these incredibly industrious nocturnal animals. We’ve never seen even one beaver in all the years we’ve been here, but their insatiable need to build, build, build, have created a wonderland in our backyard. In addition we have fields of cattails and a little old structure we have nicknamed “The Pony Express Station”, having no idea if that was really what it was. Romantic thought though.

There’s nothing like ‘a walk in the woods’ to revive your soul and gird up your loins for a winter that lasts about nine months. So here we go:

Here is the evidence of the “night shift” of the beavers:

The path leads to the glories of autumn.

A path to “ye old pony express station” from years gone by:

Someone has found a place of rest!

Home again….bracing for the S word!

Time Out for Women….Logan

2011-09-18T20:43:00.001-06:00

What fun we had this weekend with our friends from Time Out for Women…henceforth known as TOFW! This isn’t the entire “cast” but we are so privileged to be on the same program at Utah State University with “Mercy River”, Emily Freeman, and Michael Wilcox!

Also our amazing friend Mariama Kolon who we learn from every time we hear her extraordinary story and her supportive friends who wear the most incredible clothing! Sweet Christiana on the left along with her husband and son from Ghana were Noah and Kristi’s dear friends at BYU. when they were in school together. They came to our home for Thanksgiving one year so it was a fun reunion. Such terrific people!

We met old and new friends and so many who have supported Dad and I through the years. Below is a mom (second from the right) with her daughters and daughters-in-law, there together enjoying their mom’s Christmas gift to them…tickets to TOFW.

Our supportive sister-in-law Karen came to be with us along with sensational Saren who missed our talk because she got stuck in the Logan Marathon traffic but enjoyed the rest of the day with us!

What could be more fun than going back to my alma mater and presenting a talk with our darling Shawni on the very stage where, as a music major I participated in countless concerts in orchestra and concert choir performances while I lived there for four years. Never in a million years 40 years ago, could I have “thought up” this dream!

Deliberate Couples Produce Great Families

2011-09-12T11:33:00.001-06:00

Isn't it ironic that in order to drive a motorcycle, or operate a car you have to go through a long process of reading instructions, practicing and training, but to learn how to "drive" a marriage or to "operate" children there is basically no training and certainly no instruction manual? Sure we can find help from counselors...at a huge cost when a marriage is in crisis or a child is out of control but why wait for that to happen? Spending the time to think about goals for our marriage relationships and to organize some specific, measurable family systems that will make it much less likely that we will need those counselors later is a crucial need!
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Last weekend, in order to help with that problem, PowerofMoms.com held their first ever Retreat for couples. The Power of Moms has held many wonderful Retreats just for moms but as they get ready to launch a companion website - "The Power of Families" - it was exciting to see them get going on working with dads AND moms who want to be Proactive Partners and Deliberate Parents! An outstanding group of 80 parents arranged for grandparents, friends, neighbors and good samaritans to take their kids to soccer and baseball games, music lessons and choir practices so that they could feel the power of a lot of deliberate couples in the same room, figuring out how they can do their most important job as spouse and parent better!

The founders of Power of Moms, Saren Loosli (our daughter) and April Perry, along with their husbands Jared (who created their beautiful website with his magnificent mind educated at MIT) and Eric (a Harvard Business School graduate with ideas pouring out of his head) along with a little help from the Eyres had fun presenting ways to empower families.

On Friday night, attendees were given specific methods to get our to-do lists and goals, dreams and ideas in order through a program created by April called Mind Organization (based on David Allen's international best-seller, Getting Things Done). It was thought-provoking and freeing. Instead of feeling burdened by sometimes literally hundreds of projects, emails, calls and demands, April taught us how to feel the freedom of knowing what to do with all the opportunities, emails and papers that fly at us daily and how to prioritize in order to relieve the stress.

On Saturday, parents had the chance to discuss how to create better Partnerships in Parenting and were introduced to ways to set up Family Systems that work: A Family Legal System (laws and discipline), a Family Economy (so crucial in today's society filled with kids who feel entitled to have what they want right now without having to work for it) and how to create a Family Culture that helps kids feel pride in being part of something that is bigger than themselves and something that will last, even when they have left home.

It was an exhilarating weekend, not only for the attendees but also for Richard and I as we rubbed shoulders with so many good parents who are raising the next generation with power and purpose!

Eric and April presenting their ideas with Saren taking pictures in the background:

Saren, April and Tiffany Sowby, the event organizer:

Two generations of deliberate parents! Megan Stewart and husband Wes came with Megan's parents Bryce and Mary Croxford who still have young children of their own.

The Entitlement Trap

2011-09-07T21:07:00.001-06:00

For authors, the birth of a new book is a little like the birth of a new child. You have waited for it for months, and you are so glad to finally have it here!

That is how we feel about the release of The Entitlement Trap.

The book is now in bookstores everywhere and selling briskly!

We are hoping to get it on the bestseller lists, because that is how so many people find out about books (by seeing them on the lists) and that alone will get the book into the hands of tens of thousands of parents who NEED it. And we see this book as a cause.....as a real answer to the biggest problem many families face--the entitlement attitudes of their kids!

Please pick up a copy for yourself, for your friends and family members, and anyone else you think needs it! Get it at your closest bookstore or buy it on line. Look at www.EntitlementTrap.com for more information. Barnes and Noble is a good place to buy because their price is reduced, and they report results which go into the determination of which books are on the bestseller lists!

Thanks for your support......and for joining us in our cause to eliminate entitlement attitudes and to save America economically......one family at a time!

Winners!

2011-09-02T18:45:00.001-06:00

Our fun give-away is over and the winners are below. Thanks to all of you who participated by pre-ordering The Entitlement Trap and getting the free download of the honesty adventure in the Alexander’s Amazing Adventures series. We think your kids will love it!

We so appreciate all our friends who are part of our Valuesparenting family and support us through all these crazy book adventures! “Selling” is not our thing so your support is treasured. One last thought: even though the give-away is over, The Entitlement Trap can still be purchased on Amazon HERE for $11.44 instead of $18 if you order before it debuts on September 6th.

Congratulations to our winners!

Premium Prize Winner
Julie Oliphant

Gold Prize Winner
Sarah Granata

Silver Prize Winners
Teri Ross
Amy Bjorkman
Barbara Christiansen
Larissa Call
Melanie Burgess Easthope
Angie Pegram
Lori Gertsch
Emily Rubino

Final Day

2011-08-31T08:37:00.001-06:00

Although you can continue to order The Entitlement Trap until the book is released on September 6th, tomorrow (Wednesday, August 31st) is the last day for pre-orders for the give-away prizes. We look forward to handing out the prizes! In case you still want to pre-order which automatically puts you in the running for prizes take a look HERE. Winners will be announced at Eyrealm (as well as many others sites) on Thursday September 1st! The pre-orders have been terrific and Penguin is pleased as punch. The big online stores aren’t giving us numbers so it will remain to be seen if the book will debut on the best seller list. We’re crossing our fingers but not holding our breath!

Thanks SO much to all of you who have supported the premise of this book and have pre-ordered! This cause to stem the tide of kids’ feelings of entitlement is rolling forth!

Gripping, Thoughtful and Funny Posts from NEAD

2011-08-24T18:14:00.001-06:00

We had a wonderful response from our bloggers/website, facebook and twitter friends on Monday for National Entitlement Awareness Day! Thanks to everyone who participated and please know that it’s not too late to post on your blog, facebook, website, LinkedIn, Google+ or twitter accounts. The giant giveaway HERE goes until September 1st so if you feel the inclination to share by sending that link to your friends, please DO!

There were so many outstanding posts that we thought we’d share just a few with you! Maybe the most poignant was from Chrysula who linked to the an amazing site below. A great tool for helping our kids realize how blessed they are and stir feelings of entitlement is to see this great photo essay at the NYTimes showing children around the world and where they sleep. Our daughter Saren showed this to her kids and felt that they learned so much by looking at these photos. She said the pictures prompted some great discussions. You will see everything from a little boy who lives in a makeshift shack on top of a garbage dump to a pageant-queen 4-year-old with her decked-out princess bedroom. Check it out here: Where Children Sleep. Thanks Chrysula!

Our daughter Saydi’s contribution was hilarious! Just take a look at this post called Seriously Pottery Barn? The picture is so ridiculous that is will make you laugh and the commentary is even funnier!

Our friend Rachel whom we met in India last summer while working full-time with her family in India at Rising Star Outreach.org did a terrific post called 4 Surefire Signs Your Kids are Stuck in the Entitlement Trap HERE.

Another outstanding post by Whitney Johnson points out that we want to do everything for our kids when what they really need is parents who make them do things for themselves! See if we don’t all fall into this trap HERE. Both Whitney and Macy Robison who did a wonderful post HERE are hosting their own giveaways just to move things along. Thanks you two!

Literally hundreds of moms (and some dads) posted on Monday for which we are so very grateful! We won’t know our numbers until the release date of the book on September 6th but we do know that our publishers at Penguin are thrilled with the pre-sales thanks to you!

GIANT Give-Away for The Entitlement Trap

2011-08-22T00:25:00.001-06:00

Today, August 22nd is National Entitlement Awareness Day. We are grateful for the POWER of amazing bloggers all across the country who are all blogging today about the great need to stem the tide of kids’ attitudes of entitlement in our families and introducing our new book called THE ENTITLEMENT TRAP How to Save Your Child with a New Family System of Choosing, Earning and Ownership. It will be published the first week of September but we want everyone to know that by pre-ordering at Amazon, B&N or BooksAMillion.com BEFORE it is published the book it will be 33% off….about $12 instead of $18 when purchased after it is released.

A large majority of parents say entitlement issues like, “I want what I want right now because all my friends have it and I really need it” is the biggest problem facing our families today so this has become our cause. When our daughter Shawni asked the readers of her blog for examples of entitlement issues with their kids she got an absolute avalanche of stories that pretty much proved our theory that it is a huge problem gripping our families.

If we can get enough pre-orders we have a shot at opening on the NY Times best seller list on the day the book debuts which will help immensely to get this book in the hands of many more parents! To speed sales we are having a Giant Give-Away starting today and going until September 1st. Everyone who orders is a winner. To get details for pre-ordering and the other give-away items click HERE which is more complete than the one you see at the top of the page.

All of you valuesparenitng blog friends who have blogs, facebook pages, twitter accounts or email lists who would be willing to share this message, we would be SO grateful! Anyone who posts and sends us the link and their mailing address will receive a free book. If you are reading this after August 22nd but before Sept.1st please spread the word.

This isn’t just a book about teaching kids how to handle money wisely but also to teach them to make good choices and decisions and to feel that they have “equity in their families.” Thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who feel you can join the cause and pass the word.

P.S. Please don’t view this as a “sell” but as a “cause”. I’m horrible at sales but not so bad at causes especially when it comes to families!

Reunion Mania!

2011-07-19T23:52:00.001-06:00

Well, the time has finally arrived again when (luckily this year) all 39 of our children, their spouses and including 21 grandchildren gathered together at our beloved Bear lake (with two new babies "on the way” who will join us next year). With three of our families on the West Coast and three on the East Coast, two in Phoenix and one in Ogden and even though they do somehow manage to see each other quite a bit during the year, we’re never really ALL together except for four days in July. Little cousins who were two last year and now three (or almost) and getting to know each other!

Glad they have their life jackets on in that kiddie pool…but they’re going to need it when they get to the lake behind them. It’s FULL!

Parents are slathering on Suntan Lotion

And enough sand castles were built that if they were lined up, they could reach all the way to China:

And bunnies show up again to eat the flowers in my flower gardens!

And the eclectic collection of shoes outside the front door is back:

Kids fill up the hot tub after a cold dip in the lake…

“Ye Ol’ Montero” is put back together again (by our in-house mechanic Jonah) and kids LOVE covering it like flies on rancid meat….

This year the worst happened….after 15 years of running like a top, the boat wouldn’t work! Even after paying a guy in Logan a hefty amount to get it going, it still didn’t work. Once again our mechanic Jonah along with his very knowledgeable assistants Jeff and Jared, somehow after many hours of trying, failing and trying again, got it going! Take a look at these kids’ faces when they thought they weren’t going to be able to waterski/wakeboard this year:

The biggest cheer of the reunion occurred when it actually started!

THE BONFIRE

This year, the reunion was planned and organized by Jonah and Aja. What great ideas they came up with along with following the traditions of previous years. The first night of the reunion we had a big bonfire where we listened to everyone’s favorite songs of the year (including the kids) on a CD. Jonah and Aja had begged, pleaded and threatened people to send their songs and we loved listening to the CD together and guessing whose song was whose! Those CDs are played in all our cars during the year and even though dad and I can’t keep track of them, every kid know who sent which song.

THE TEAMS AND FLAGS

Our fearless organizers also had the kids organized in teams each with a team flag. They got special badges for fulfilling certain requirements. Little kids were coming up to me in droves asking what they could do to help! It sure helped at mealtime with washing dishes and emptying that forever-full dishwasher!

THE TALENT SHOW

…including pole-climbing

And during a fun skit, Nurse Julie and her husband Eli taught us all how to do the Heimlich Manuever

THE TENNIS TOURNAMENT

Every year we have a tennis tournament and with 18 adults entered, we have to be pretty serious about playing those matches! These are the semi-finalist: Eli and Julie and Shawni and Dave:

And the other semi-finalist: Noah and Kristi and the Magnificent Granddaughter Elle who was on her way to BYU Tennis Camp

And the winners were:

Grandfather and Elle! As Elle kisses her trophy, hope you can read the caption:

OTHER EXCITING EVENTS….

included McKay learning the Grandfather trick of taking his thumb off:

Wild and crazy dancing with a Wii game…

REVERSE CHARADES

A spectacular double rainbow framing the Lighthouse….

PICTURE TAKING AT SUNSET

AND PICTURES ON SUNDAY MORNING ON THE DAY SOME HAD TO LEAVE

And the individual pictures of the Shumways, Pothiers and Jonah and Aja’s family and Tal and Anita will be showing up in future posts. Somebody else has them in their cameras.

What a grand time we had celebrating together. It was wild chaos at mealtimes and crazy fun at the beach. There were forever-messes to clean up, lots of kid-fights to quell, games until midnight and mellow talks one-on-one and in groups.

One of our most important items of business is an Eyrealm meeting where we figure out humanitarian projects that we can support each year with money from The Eyrealm Foundation. Our children are all members of the board and Saren, our oldest is the Chariman of the Board. Many of those projects are ones that our children are intimately involved with. It always brings forth great ideas to give back!

Thanks to Jonah and Aja for a fabulous reunion! How very blessed we are!