As Linda Eyre and her husband, Richard, were raising their family, they wrote books along the way about teaching and raising children.
"It just evolved from having a bunch of little kids," Linda Eyre said of when they had five children under six. ""We realized we needed to think about we wanted for our kids."
They wanted them to have joy and have fun with them. And they wrote about it.
As their family grew to include nine and they grew older, the Eyres wanted them to have responsibilities and to take ownership of their lives. For the teenagers, they wanted them to have values.
One of their books, "Teaching Your Children Values," ended up on the New York Times bestseller list and was on Oprah Winfrey's book club.
Since then, Linda and Richard Eyre has spoken to groups across the United States and in 45 countries around the world.
Earlier this year, she had flown in from a trip to the Middle East and India and the next morning she went to her very first Time Out for Women, in Ogden, Utah.
"I came away so uplifted and really enjoyed it," she said about the Deseret Book-sponsored event.
Eyre, of Park City, Utah, presented with her second oldest, Shawni Eyre Pothier, a mother of five of Gilbert, Ariz..
The mother-daughter pair have authored "A Mother's Book of Secrets" with 40 little secrets for "those who are in the trenches," said Pothier, who took most of the photos in the book.
At Time Out for Women, they talk about a handful of them and the joys of motherhood.
"We want to empower moms to go home and try some new things," Pothier said. Many of the "secrets" started from ideas on her blog, 71toes.blogspot.com. (One of her daughters was born with six toes on one foot.)
"Motherhood has to be remade over and over again. It's so good to get a tip to help have things so much better," Pothier said.
Also, motherhood is a spiritual experience, but it's difficult to remember that in the throw-up and dirty diapers, Eyre said.
"It's just to remind people how sweet (motherhood) is," Pothier said. Before you know it, kids will be gone and mothers want to capture those sweet moments.
Also, they want mothers to have a forum to share their "secrets," too.
Because Pothier's youngest daughter, Lucy, who is on the cover of "A Mother's Book of Secrets," was recently diagnosed with a rare syndrome called Bardet Biedl, which, among other things, will cause blindness between the ages of 9 and 15, Eyre and Pothier are donating all royalties from the book to the Foundation for Blind Children and other research organizations that are working on her issues.
For more about Linda and Richard Eyre, visit www.valuesparenting.com. "A Mother's Book of Secrets" is available online at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and DeseretBook.com and at LDS book stores. For more on the Time Out for Women tour, visit deseretbook.com/tofw.
E-mail: rappleye@desnews.com