Today I had a very busy day:

5am-6am: worked on homework

6:00-6:30: seminary

6:30-7:30:softball practice

7:40-8:30:NHS meeting

8:35-1:00: 3 classes

1:00-1:30: TCF bake sale

1:30-3:10: last class of the day!

3:10- 4:10:tutored a freshman in english

The craziest part- It was probably my favorite day of the whole week. Not sure if it had something to do with my being able to go to the first half an hour to seminary, or because I was busy helping people. The NHS meeting we had a guest speaker who talked all about how our core values define our essence. So who does that make me? Of all the things I did today, what is my core values? I keep trying to take my life and determine what kind of profession I will love. and so far, I'm not sure. I used to think I wanted to be a buisness-woman- but i realized I hate leading and planing( well I don't hate it, I just don't want to be doing that everyday for the rest of my life.) Currently, I think I want to be a nurse. I think the medical field is absolutely fascinating. Blood does not disgust me, and I love people. And I feel like nurses have very busy days, doing a million different jobs- I loved that about today. I also love meeting new people and helping them. So do all of things add up to being a nurse? I have no idea.

Follow-up: A Discussion on Parenting

Well! I've had some great responses about this parenting post that I thought I'd write a follow up. Both the responses on our google group and the response on the post have been fantastic.

Anne commented on my first post and made some really good points. I started replying back, but realized I had too much to say! So, I'm putting it in this follow-up post for us all to enjoy.

AnneFeb 12, 2012 02:16 AM

I think that dad is crazy. and i would rebel so much if anybody shot my laptop. i understand if he grounds her for a while, but honestly the daughter is going to hate her parents even more now than she did when she wrote that stuff about him. As the only child still living with her parents- i cation the future parents from acting out like this. the more you restrict your children the more they will lash out and eventually they will start lying to you about where they are and what they are doing. I say trust your kids and when they do something wrong talk to them like they are adults, because then they are more likely to act like one. just my thoughts :)

 My response:

Anne,

You bring up a lot of good points in your comment.

First, I agree that the more we restrict, the more children will want to rebel. Humans have this innate need for control and when someone else is controlling all of our decisions, we'll rebel to show them that we DO have some control. Whether or not that rebellious choice hurts us, we do it to simply say, "Hey look! I have control, you don't. Look what I did. Ha!"

Why do you think Heavenly Father chose the Savior's plan and not Satan's? Satan's plan took control of all of our actions. Granted, his plan didn't ALLOW for rebellion because we would have had no choice, but it also didn't allow for any LEARNING to happen either. We learn when we make choices. We learn even when we make mistakes. We make mistakes when we're given the choice - or control- to make our own decisions.

However, children still need rules and guidelines. That's why we have commandments and standards. Having the ability to choose NOT to follow these commandments makes following and keeping them so much more meaningful to our Father in Heaven.

I feel that parents should have rules, guidelines and standards in their home and that they should FOLLOW THROUGH with RESPECTFUL, LOVING discipline when those rules, guidelines and standards are broken. I feel that there should always be love, there should always be respect, and there should always be a response to their behavior.

Second, a question: Would you still rebel if the father TOOK AWAY or SOLD her lap top? I think either of those would have been sufficient. Shooting it was a little over the top; however, he did say that he would put a bullet through her laptop if she tried that again. She did it again, he shot her laptop. Even though it was harsh (and A COMPLETE WASTE OF A LAPTOP, not to mention an UNNECESSARY use of a GUN), he was following through with his punishment. I don't think the dad in this video is completely crazy. I think he should have been more respectful and loving, but I think it's great that he responded.

Third, I think most of our initial responses to a situation like this would be to rebel. However, I think that in the end, after we've calmed down, we might be a little more rational to the discipline we've received because we innately want those guidelines to keep us safe.

This is what the dad in this video said about this:

"While the whole point of this story isn’t funny, what is funny to me is how weak some people out there think kids are. Our kids are as strong as we help them to be. My daughter took a horrible day in her life, had her crying fit, then got over it, accepted her punishment, and hasn’t let it (or people’s comments) destroy her strength. I don’t get any credit for that. She’s strong and able to overcome almost anything life throws at her."

Children and teenagers are stronger than a lot of us give them credit for. They can make big decisions, the can handle big disappointments, the can accept harsh discipline. They're teenagers, so they'll want to rebel, but if guidelines are consistent (a key) and if love is in place, then I agree with this guy: our kids our stronger that we know. They can handle the hard and the tough. We just have to give them the opportunities to let them stretch their muscles.

I believe it is better for children to learn their lessons when their young and the mistakes are small and consequences less detrimental than when they're older, on their own, making mistakes like bad mouthing the boss on FB and loosing their job, which will lead to larger, more extensive consequences with father reaching effects.

It is better for them to make mistakes while they're at home and the "price tags" of those mistakes are small, than to learn them when they're older and the price tags are much larger. What is a lap top to your income? A weekend grounding to a year in jail? Let's teach strong, powerful lessons NOW, so that children are ready to make big, important decisions in the future and will succeed.

KtA

I also thought I'd include my response about this from our Google groups email discussion so that they're all in one place. Some may overlap - sorry!

Bekah and Ryan - I like both of your responses. Bekah, I like that you point out that he wasn't very respectful. I too feel that this is a downfall many parents stumble into. We tend to treat our children with the respect they treat us. But children can only learn proper respect if we MODEL that respect, especially when we speak and interact with them and others around us.

I also like how you talk about chores and allowances. I think parents need to teach their children to work for what they want. That's how it is in the real world, is it not? I feel the world would be better off if parents taught this in the home. The sense of entitlement has really sky rocketed, from what I've seen.

Ryan, I thought your answer was very profound - "Any emotional response strong enough to make you get a gun is extremely dangerous, especially in the person who would follow through and get one. Respond yes, but NEVER with a gun." I'm not sure why a gun and shooting the lap top was necessary. I understand that the father said that he would put a bullet through her laptop if she did something like this again and I DO believe that it is important for parents to follow through with the things they say; however, I don't think he should have ever said that to begin with - and then followed through. Guns are scary enough without using it as a means for punishment.

Though the execution was poor, I do like that he DOES respond. Many parents would just ignore the problem or say something and never do anything to follow through with the conversation and behavior. I also like that he responds on a large scale so that other people can see that she got punished for her choice. With all the laws and judgements out there, people are afraid to discipline their children period, so a lot of kids get away with things that they shouldn't - like nasty posts on facebook. I feel it is important to respond to our children's behavior, with love and respect, whether it is to teach some discipline or to praise and thank.

I wish that he had been more respectful and loving in his discipline choice.
 

I wish he had chosen to do something else with her lap top than involve violence with a gun, because I feel he just taught his daughter, and all the web viewers, that it's okay to respond with guns and violence.
 

I also wish that he had done something else with her laptop because he just WASTED a perfectly good laptop: sell it, give it away, anything but destroy it. Someone in need could have used that laptop, but now it's just scraps.

The dad has some other things to say about the situation. you can find it out here: http://www.litefm.com/pages/news-story.html?feed=421220&article=9744152
Beware, comments get interesting and off the topic...

-Kaylee

A Discussion on Parenting

Parenting is hard stuff. Really hard. We try to teach our children good and wholesome principles, but sometimes they don't stick and we have to discipline to help them learn.

Well, today on Facebook, my sister-in-law posted this video with the comment that she is always going to make her children work for the things they want.

While I do agree with her statement, my reaction to the video was more about his parenting than his commentary on his daughter paying for the items she wants.

I know I opened this up to our family email group, but from woman to woman, what do you guys think? Was the dad's punishment too harsh? Was he out of line to do the things he did? How do you think his daughter reacted? Some people have talked about how she is going to be emotionally scarred because of this; what do you think?

I have my opinions, but I'd like to hear yours first.

-KtA

Introducing...Kaylee Larsen!!

A.K.A Kaylee the Amazing

Not exactly sure how the Amazing started, but when I was a freshman in college at Brigham Young University, I started singing a little chant in the shower - "I'm amazing, I'm amazing, I'm ama-A-a-a-zing!" My roommates, of course, could hear me and my amazing label kind of began there.

It wasn't until I moved to Hong Kong, China (see this blog) that my name of Kaylee the Amazing - KtA came to be. See, I interned with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Administration department. My dad worked for the same firm, on the same floor - just a few hallways away. We got together often and I would write notes to him on his window. After spending 5 weeks alone together in Hong Kong, I suddenly got a text to KtA from my dad. And so Kaylee the Amazing was born.

With THAT out of the way...


I graduated from Brigham Young University where I received my Bachelors of Science in Recreation Management and Youth Leadership. My professor liked to call our degree a Social Psychology as a lot of what we did dealt with theories of recreating individually and socially and the impacts that it has on our lives. My emphasis was Youth Leadership because I enjoy working with youth.

My minor is in Nonprofit Management, a passion I found while at school. It was through this that I was able to be apart of the student association that paralleled the minor and thereby meet my husband, Derrick Larsen.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Derrick!

Engagement taken by Cami Quinto

We were married April 25, 2009 in the Jordan River Temple.

Yes, this is us :)

We can be normal, too!

We honeymooned in Zion National Park (BEAUTIFUL hikes!) and moved to St. George less than a year later to start our internships to finish our college experience.

At Zion

Derrick interned with the Boy Scouts of America - Utah National Parks Council as a District Executive and I interned with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Utah. We loved our internships and they loved us. They hired us as soon as our internships were completed and we started after we made a graduation trip to visit my parents in Hong Kong.



Little did we know that I was pregnant while we were adventuring in Hong Kong and Beijing. After finding myself eating onions while preparing dinner one night, I realized our lives were about to change.



We graduated from BYU in August.

BYU v. New Mexico - our first BYU football game together

GRADUATION!

 
Here I am pregnant with my baby girl!

32 Weeks

 Before we knew it our beautiful daughter Kiralee Larsen was born.

Just a little while after Kiralee was born

December 18, 2010 changed my life forever. I became a Mother. A title that I don't think anyone can prepare for, but, gratefully we are made for motherhood by a loving Heavenly Father. He gives you the strength to be a mother.

Resting at the hospital together

13 days old

I continued to work for Big Brothers Big Sisters after Kiralee was born. Part time, from home. Things were going well, but there was some discontent. It felt like something was missing, or something wasn't right.

So, Derrick was approached about a transfer out to the Uintah Basin. Even though it was a financial pay cut (we were house sitting for Derrick grandparent's in St. George while they were on a mission and were paying minimal rent), we knew the move was right.

After a long, frustrating journey house hunting (full details here) we ended up at 549 West 200 South in Vernal, Utah. Derrick is the District Executive for 2 districts: Uintah and King's Peak

I'm a stay at home mom and I'm finally really falling in love with it. My whole life I always said that I wanted to be a Mom, and then I became a Mom and it was a lot different than I imagined. College changed me. In school I lived by schedules, due dates and set tasks. As a Mom, I make tasks up for myself, write my own schedule and never really have due dates. That was hard for me. I've had to change a lot of my thought processes and accept that I'm not super woman and that sometimes I won't get everything done.

Thankfully I have an amazing husband who is patient and loving with a wife that is trying to figure out being a wife and a mother. Derrick is my strength and encouragement through everything.

He's an awesome father, too!

I am a happy person that loves spending time with her daughter. Kiralee is the joy of our lives and I'm pretty sure she knows it. She's stinkin' smart and the most adorable thing to wear pig tails in the world.

I love to read, write, play volleyball, watch Star Trek with Derrick, play with Kiralee, and, currently, watch Gilmore Girls (Thank you, Abby!). I'm getting into gardening, crafting, and SLOWLY couponing. I love my life.

This is me: A wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a child of God. These describe who I am and who, someday, I will be able to become with perfection.

Banana Bread Baked Oatmeal

I just tried the most simple and delicious recipe that I had to share. I've made a few forms of baked oatmeal before and this one is my favorite! Bronson and I usually make it the night before and then eat it for breakfast the next few morning.

Ingredients
1.5 cups mashed bananas (about 3 or 4 medium)
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 cups milk
1/2 cup chopped almonds or pecans

STEP 1: Begin preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Mash the bananas well
with a fork. Measure the bananas to make sure you have about 1.5
cups.
STEP 2: Whisk the mashed bananas together with the brown
sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Next whisk in the milk, then stir in the oats. Roughly chop the walnuts
and stir them in as well.
STEP 3: Spray the inside of a glass baking dish (8x8 inch or similar size) with non-stick spray. Pour in the oat mixture. Cover with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Remove
the foil and bake for another 15 minutes or until the center is solid and the
edges are slightly golden brown.
STEP 4: Serve warm or refrigerate and enjoy cold! I like to pour a tablespoon or so of milk on top of mine in the morning to add a little bit more moisture.

恭喜发财

恭喜发财( gongxi facai)! which means kind of like hope you have a prosperous year. So this is my last chinese new year in hong kong and it has been a lot of fun. Sunday night we went to the Lai's party and had hot pot. Today for lunch we went over to Discovery Bay and had lunch with the Lewis family. Then for dinner we went to the Seal's party and had traditional chinese foods- like sweat and sour chicken, minced beef and beans, beef, and dumplings. Of course we provided the brownies :) Tomorrow night we are going to watch the fireworks at the Sander's party. Needless to say, we have been busy! But it has been a lot of fun to eat traditional foods for the holiday! I am really going to miss celebrating Chinese New Years in Hong Kong!

language

Today while out with Carol she mentioned she had helped her daughter out with her first child by purchasing her a "prahm" or a "chair pusher." I asked her what the heck that was and we finally figured out together she was meaning a "stroller." I love listening to her speak. She is from Scotland and has lived in South Africa for 17 years before coming to Hong Kong. Sometimes I just have to ask her "what." She also calls the garage a "gair - age" (pronounced phonetically). I love this woman.