Rabe 2017 Newsletter

If you would have told me last January that most of what I wanted to achieve wouldn't be an option the next year and things I never dreamed I would achieve suddenly would become a possibility, I would have laughed. If someone would have also told me one of my family members would go through a perilous time, or that Fred and I would struggle in ways we hadn't, and I would accomplish one of my life-long dreams, I wouldn't have believed you.

One of the biggest, hardest decisions I have made in my life was made this year...to stay at home and put my career to the side to focus on my family. I cried a lot over that decision. I had taught at the same school for nine years and when I moved to Utah, teaching at this school was all I knew. I married and had two kids around this career and made it work. So when I felt that Heavenly Father was telling me to put that career to the side to focus on raising a family, I felt beat up inside. All that I had built would fall in seconds.

Many heart-wrenching moments later, I am so happy I made that hard decision. Instead of worrying about what lessons to teach, and which parents to contact, or what peers needed space from me, I have focused on what I could do to grow closer to my boys, what fun activities to plan, how to be productive staying home all day. Big change...and it's brought big results. It's taken me a hot minute, but I love staying at home with the boys. I've seen Freddy and Cameron change in ways I know couldn't have been possible if I had stayed at Venture.

But that's what the year 2017 had in store for us. So, I want to share some of our big ups and downs from this year in hopes we can learn from our mistakes and celebrate our successes.

Let's start with our fearless leader in the family, Fred. 

Fred has had a busy year. He finished two of the three certifications he needs for a technical degree in networking and IT Security. He took three business trips, visiting New York in a snowstorm and went to Hill Cumorah and visited one of the church sites, Niagara Falls where his phone went to Canada, but somehow he didn't, and Maine twice. He visited with Netgear partners and sold over 5 million dollars in his area of business. Too bad his take-home value was nowhere close :)

He had nose surgery this summer and impressively doesn't snore quite as much. He had a deviated septum, they rebuilt his nose from when he'd been punched in the face when he was younger, and they even saw a cyst in there. Good times.

His scrambled egg game has never been as strong...seriously, he makes a mean omelette, as well as cooking savory soups and stir fry. We have been the lovely benefactors of all of his yummy dishes. He had been serving in the Elder's Quorum Presidency and was recently called to be in the Stake Sunday School Presidency.

Next up is Freddy. Freddy started the year off with a splash...literally. While attending our yearly timeshare in Destin, Freddy slipped under the water unnoticed and had to be resuscitated after a few minutes underwater. It was the scariest moment of my life. Watching him turn blue, foam at the mouth, stop breathing, and eventually groaning in pain. Those were some of the most beautiful sounds although and we are learning to appreciate every moment God gives us.

There was no residual damage and within two days, Freddy was back in the water like nothing had happened. Only the adults sat on the edge of their seats the entire rest of the trip. But that was okay too. We learned to be ever more watchful of the things in life most precious.

This year, Freddy started Kindergarten. Here he is with his teacher, Mrs. Jacobson. He has blossomed in her class, already reading at an ending first grade level. He struggles with sitting still like most little boys and calls out more than he should, but we're working on it. Now that I am home, I am able to serve in his class as a volunteer, sign up to drive on fieldwork, and volunteer in the class every week. I helped with the Halloween party and even subbed in his class.

I feel blessed that I have the time to do these things. If I were teaching, I doubt Freddy would be as far along in his reading because I wouldn't have the time to sit with him each evening. He is also a little confident guy and has made many friends that he loves. I love being a part of his learning experiences. He performed well at his first Celebration of Learning, Little Hands on the Farm, where he taught us how a flower grows and talked about how you can be a producer and consumer. He did so well at his student-led conference, teaching us all that he has learned this school year. I am a teacher...and I was blown away with how well he executed his little presentation.

Let's move on to Cameron. He is one of the friendliest, sweetest, little guys around. He's got a stubborn streak in him, loves to sing when he's all alone, loves baths and playing, and loves watching Super Why, Octonauts, and Bo on the Go. I especially hate the last show, but he is captivated when he watches it.

Since Freddy has gone off to school, it leaves me with Cameron for almost three hours of alone time, and boy is he a fun buddy to share time with. We occasionally go to the gym...I do my exercises and he plays with kids and watched TV, which I hate they have AT A GYM! Anyway, we love to cook scrambled eggs together, and watch TV shows together, and he's a little fish when it comes to swimming. He loves to be in the water.

He's learned a lot this year, and his speech is so much more advanced than Freddy's ever was. When he is quiet, you can see the wheels turning in his head...or you can see him going to the restroom in his diaper. I'd say he's 60% potty-trained. He will go when we take him, but he won't tell us he needs to go and he's never once tried number two. Sad. Diapers are expensive. Oh well. Next year!

Finally, let's talk about Jenny, the author of this blog and newsletter. You've already learned about my big decision to stay at home and probably have seen some of the great effects it is having on my family. Although I have stepped away from teaching, I am at Venture a lot in the week, dropping off Freddy each day, driving for fieldwork, volunteering in his class, occasionally substituting, giving back through the parent crew, and serving on the Venture Board. It's been weird and hard being involved in different ways, but it has given me new perspectives about the school and more things to be grateful for.

I was called to be a Gospel Doctrine teacher, and a month later, a Self-Reliance mentor for the new program the church has adopted to help individuals be more financially, spiritually, and physically self-reliant. I have taught two 12 week courses so far and it has really helped me to balance my need to help others and my desires I have for myself.


I finished my ninth year of teaching with a bang. I've been blessed to be a mentor to three friends, train on several occasions, and learn from some of the best teachers I've ever met. This year I was blessed with especially brilliant and kind children, and I am so glad they year ended with such sweet students. I will miss them the most.

One of the biggest surprises this year has been my plunge into authorship. I've been writing steadily most of my life, but finally sat down and wrote a novel about 3-5 years ago. I say that lightly because three other "practice" novels were written at the same time, and though they helped me develop my craft and voice, I hope they never see the light. Luckily, my first novel did make it to the light of day.

Playground Treasures is a middlegrade novel (ages 8-12) about Kendall who runs from a bad home, finding refuge on the school playground in an underground sewer. He is dealing with the death of his family and the loss of the one thing he had left from his mom, a cat necklace. He meets Lorelei, who is also dealing with the grief of losing her father and they find they have more in common than a love of the playground swings and the need for a friend. When Kendall's new freedom is threatened, he has to ask for help from his new friend and her family, and together they have to stop his adopted family from taking him back home. It's an emotional book that hopefully gets kids to realize that friendship helps heal those little holes in our lives that ultimately happen when hard times come.

I also edited and published three anthologies, two of which I have a short story in, with my LDS Beta Readers group, the online writing group I run. They are a great group of talented authors and these projects have been a long time in coming. Mindgames has 25 different short stories that have a twisted or suspenseful ending, Unspoken Words has 13 clean, sweet romance short stories, and Love Undefined has 10 stories that go outside of the romance realm a bit. I was the main editor on all three of the projects and it has been a great learning experience for me.

I've also started teaching Chinese children English at home in the early morning hours. My students are sweet and dedicated, and I basically just show up, lead a discussion, and pray I don't fall asleep. They are intrinsically motivated and I am impressed with their drive to learn.

Other than our annual trip to the beach and work trips, I made a few other trips, some family, some individual.

When the summer, hit, I was able to go back to my roots, Georgia, and see my best friend Kelly Thomaston get married. She was actually the one who saw Freddy drowning that one fateful day, and I owe her everything. It was so great to return to Thomaston and see the people I love from the T-town branch. I attended the ward there and saw so many friends I love. I spent a Sunday with the Adams family, ate at La Fiesta with the sister missionaries, stayed in an apartment by myself and finished my first clean, adult romance novel, and visited with family friends.

Then I headed up to Peachtree City, one of my favorite places in the world, and spent a lovely week with my best friend, Amber Gardner. We seem to fall back to where we were last when we're together, and I filled my physical need of being in that sweet, humid Georgia air. I watched the PTC fireworks and rode a golfcart for funsies, took a hike up Stone Mountain, watched the fireflies, and met with long-time friends from church. I filled my spiritual tank with conversations with good people, and I laid around Amber's house and typed while she fed me good food and filled me with love. It was exactly what I needed after my crushing realization that my career was at a stall and I had to redefine who I was. I realized that I love who I am and no career determined the amount of success I could achieve.

Meanwhile, the kids played with Aunt Katie. She did an amazing job at watching the boys, playing and giving them extra love that only aunts can give, and assuring they did not forget who she was. When I returned, my parents visited, my mom spending one week, and my dad spending another. He helped work on the new bathroom we started from scratch, installed doors, and painted walls. It's a never-ending need cycle at my house, and we're always grateful when we don't have to pay to get work done.

After a few weeks visiting with us, Dad drove me and the boys back to Texas where we had a fun time going to the park with Mimi every day, swimming in the pool, and going to the rocky beach/lake they had down the road. We ate yummy casseroles and roast beef I grew up on, we watched movies and ate popcorn, we found white cheese sauce in a restaurant and celebrated. It was magical. And then when the time came to return home, Dad drove us back to Utah, trying to teach Freddy the importance of looking out the window and observing life around him instead of looking at a screen. He didn't buy most of it. We're still working on that.

The rest of the year, I can honestly say that not much happened....which means, I learned a lot. I turned tiny moments into really important, significant ones for our children. We went from having two incomes to having no insurance and one income. We stopped eating out and started making more meals together at home. We stopped going on trips and doing fun things and focused on what we could do at home together. MouseTrap became one of Freddy's favorite games and Cameron is in love with bubbles. We learned the small, insignificant memories that no one takes the time to write down are the ones you should remember.


When the holiday season came, we started a Thankful Jar, and wrote donw on small slips of paper the people and things that mean a lot to us. When Christmas hit, I started tagging people in a #lighttheworldwithbooks challenge. People that had influenced me that year, taught me, made me laugh, and inspired me. I shared their borrowed light with others and thanked God they were in my life.

More than anything, the Rabes are incredibly blessed. God has forced us to slow down and really rely on him and his mercies, taught us to love others and recognize their goodness and how their lives bless ours. We are so thankful for all of our friends and family and the blessing you are in each of our lives. We have no idea what 2018 will look to us, but we know if we're waiting upon the Lord and doing His will, we will make little splashes that makes waves in others' lives.

We love you all!
The Rabes

5 Ways to Make the Holidays Meaningful

How many of you have a holiday season that looks like this?
*All hands raised*

Let's be honest, it happens to all of us at one point or another, which is why blogs about how to deal with Christmas stress about one of the most popular hits on the internet this Christmas season. So, let me add mine to the mix to see if I can help myself or anyone else find more meaning during their holidays.

What do you remember receiving as a child?

If nothing really comes to mind other than those few iconic gifts you'd been waiting months or years for, that's probably a good sign that things are not as important as moments or people. You probably can't remember all that your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends labored over, yet we spend a lot of time fretting about this.

Now think about a Christmas that was memorable to you? Why was it memorable?

The holiday season can be a whirlwind of events: decorating the house, saving up money for presents, shopping, attending activities, events, and special shows, etc. The list of to-dos seem endless. Can we ever do enough? No, of course not. Can we ever buy enough presents? No, of course we would want more if money and opportunity presented itself. Can we support every organization? No, of course not.

So let's take a step back and allow ourselves to accept reality. We will never get done everything we want to do, we will never visit all who need to be visited, and we will never make every gift meaningful and important. Phew!

Now that the pressure is off, let's talk about reasonable expectations for the holidays. More than anything, a holiday break should be a break for all. But breaks should also include family. Holing yourself in a room to block out the noise is tempting, but this is your family's holiday, too. What if their memories would not be complete unless they included you.

Here are five things that make any holiday meaningful to me:

1. Traditions
Christmas is not the only time my family have many traditions to celebrate, but we certainly have a lot then. On Christmas Eve, we eat Chinese Food and give and receive Jesus presents. These are religious in nature, but basically after we read the account of Jesus's birth in Luke, we write down "goals" or presents we would like to give to Jesus that year. Things we want to work on, like being kinder or staying more positive through a trial. Then we open one gift that has spiritual value. Scriptures, a CD of music with hymns of praise, even a new white shirt for the boys to wear to church. It's always been a special memory to me, and every year, I've taken these little notes and kept them inside a jewelry box. It's always fun to open them and read them before I decide on what I'm going to accomplish the next year to better serve.

Having traditions in your family helps bonds them to you, helps them want to carry those things on with their own families, which I am doing.

2. Special mealtimes and treats together
At Christmas, I think of decorating cookies and caroling with my family, at the 4th of July, I think about barbecues and fireworks and the red, white, and blue jello creations my mom always made, on Thanksgiving, her sweet potato souffle. All of these treats and side dishes helped make the holiday memorable to me. I am sure it took my mom many hours to go the extra mile, but her food never went unnoticed.

3. Meaningful Gifts
I still remember the Christmas mom made me a tie-blanket. It had dancers on it and little frilly ties on the ends. This was kind of amazing for her and she'd asked for help from one of the members of our ward just to do it right. I know she tried hard.

Another Christmas, our dryer bit the dust, and my parents happened to be visiting and bought us one. It meant a lot to me because getting behind in your laundry with two kids was murder. It was a monetary gift in ways, more expensive than most, but important to help us function the rest of the year. How many times do we give gifts that are laid aside after a week or even a few days of play? How many times do we buy things just to have a few "filler" gifts under the tree? Why? Why do we do this to ourselves and our wallets? It's stressful to think of all the things I can't give my children on a limited budget. But when I look at what they already have, I try to ask myself what could I give them that they need and could use for many months? That's what I want to give them.

4. Service
One of the greatest benefits of the holiday season is the opportunity to look around us and be grateful for all we have. In such times, we will see the widening gap of those that are not as blessed, not as loved and wanted. In these times, we need to invite, encourage, love, and give. Most people think of monetary things they can give or physical things, like gifts and necessities, and of course those things are still needed. But to those who can't provide those things, there is so much more you can give. Widows that are lonely, people confined to their homeless because of health problems, people that have lost loved ones recently and who might struggle the most with a holiday without them, children in unique situations, college students too far from home to return. What skills or talents do you have that could bless anothers' life? Sure you may not be able to pay for their next meal, but can you cut hair, help clean, visit and strengthen them with words of encouragement? There are many needs around us. No act of service is too small. The LDS church is doing an initiative called #lighttheworld and I want this to be a family tradition in our home, where each day of the season, we find one person to serve, one way to give. Here is an amazing website with a link to a 25 days of #lighttheworld activities you can do with children.
http://www.ayearoffhe.net/2017/11/lds-light-world-2017-childrens-service.html

Whichever way you find it best to serve, bloom where you stand and light the life of someone in need.

5. Time Spent Together-
Whether that's wrestling on the floor with your siblings or playing games until the late hours of the night or watching movies with big bowls of popcorn, these are the moments life seems to slow down. Too often kids and sadly, adults, hide away to their rooms, enjoying a little peace and quiet, only to seclude themselves from their family. Spending quality time with each other means putting away the phones and work and any distractions keeping you from spending slow, and sometimes painful moments with loved ones. If this is a new concept to you, leaving the confines of "your space" can be uncomfortable and miserable at times. But as we make time for others, it feels us with a sense of belonging. When my brother always secluded himself from the rest of the family while we played a game in the front room, his presence was missed. Reflect on how you're spending your times during the holiday. Who values having you around and misses your presence when you choose to bow out?

Let's reflect during the start of this holiday season what we can do to make this season more meaningful to ourselves and the people around us. I've always looked at Christmas as a time where opportunities to reach out or include others were missed. I know I am going to be more mindful of what happens each day and try to make the season memorable to both myself and those I love.