Pool Time and Back-to-School Dinner

Jenna and her friends got some much-needed pool time during this warm week.  It was a great opportunity to say so-long to summer one last time.  We're grateful to our friends who invite us to swim. We like our little inflatable pool, but it is a pool.

In the evening we had our Back-to-School dinner which was a little late this year considering Heather started school last week, but better late than never. We focused on the message that fear and faith cannot exist at the same moment in our brains, and that if we rely on our faith we can push away the doubt and fear.  We used the simple meme from the New Era as our visual reminder, and we had a lovely dinner and discussion as well.  Here's to a great school year!

Christmas Tree & Cinnamon Rolls

While the cinnamon roll dough was rising, we headed to the tree lot with the girls.  We have not had a real Christmas tree since we moved to this house in 1997, so the girls were excited.  After weighing the pros and cons with Sariah's chewing habits, we decided we'd rather have her chewing on a real tree instead of our artificial one.  The first tree we saw was the one we purchased, and it is a beauty.  Sariah is already nibbling away.  The cinnamon rolls came out splendidly thanks to Kelly's expertise.  We also received a card from Kevin and Beth who are in Hawaii this year.  It will be the girls' first Christmas without their uncle and aunt, and my first without Kevin in 27 years!  Not sure we like this break in tradition, but we are very happy for the awesome trip they were able to take, and we plan to FaceTime on  Christmas Day.

Easter

Our sleepy bunnies up before nine o'clock church to do a quick indoor hunt for breakfast eggs.

 All the eggs were located which means we won't find any weeks from now. Heather displays an egg she made with a sponge technique. 

Remember how they wanted all traditions to remain in place? This is one of them. We should have had video this time though. The girls raced around the yard laughing the whole time. Once they even tried to keep each other from getting to an egg. It was hillarious.

 Winston didn't know what to make of all the running around.

 The Easter baskets had a lot of See's Candy in them, so instead of putting a ton of candy in the eggs, we chose two kinds of candy and added a secret message from the Easter Bunny. The girls found an egg hidden in their rooms with some money inside. That was right up their alley!

We haven't had a nice ham dinner for a while, and it was delicious. We took our traditional 'who's at dinner' picture and since the camera decided to take multiple shots, we made multiple faces. We ended the day with a family night lesson discussing friendship and how to deal with people you are getting to know, and then a couple of Easter messages about the Savior.  It was a beautiful day.

St. Patrick's Day & Gratitude

The best we could get going for Saint Patrick's Day was two of us wearing some green to church.  I know, right?  I think the Sunday holiday just threw me, and I came up a little short this year.  Oh well.  Heather did back us a cake after church, all by herself, and she decorated it for St. Patrick's Day.  We called it good.  Thanks Heather!

For family night, which we've been doing on Sunday because of Monday night sports, I taught a lesson about gratitude based on Henry B. Eyring's talk, "The Choice to Be Grateful."  He challenged the youth to make a list of 100 things they were grateful for and suggested they accomplish this by using ten categories with ten items in each.  We got out our white board and used categories I had pre-chosen.  Everyone was having fun shouting out their items, and our list filled up in no time.  In December, I had made Gratitude Journals for my girls, but they didn't really take off with the concept right away.  We re-intoduced them pointing out that if we could think of 100 items in one sitting, five a day should be a piece of cake.  I got out the Gratitude Journal I had started in 2008 and read an entry which they enjoyed hearing.  The lesson was a success.  Heather doesn't enjoy writing as much, but she used drawings and speech bubbles for her first entry.  Jenna did the five items and elaborated on two which we had talked about doing if you feel like it.  Her entry astounded me (she wanted me to read it).  I love it when the kids catch on and run with it!

Back on the Roller Coaster

Busy week!  What's a better phrase to describe a busy week than 'back in the swing?'  Perhaps 'back on the roller coaster?' We're all feet in with homework, soccer practice, volleyball practice, choir rehearsal...it's only the second week of January, and we're looking forward to our next break!

This week...

Heather tackles homework

 Momma goes dark

 Made time for a Family Night game

 Thursday lunch after early release

OCMCO rehearsal

Emergency Preparedness

It has been a couple of years since I have updated our 72 hour kit.  I knew food was expired and clothes would no longer fit the girls (I actually had nursing undergarments for myself in there--oops!).  We've reached a season where the girls are now old enough to carry their own backpacks, and I took advantage of the nice packs at Costco when school supplies were plentiful so we could convert from our uber large duffle to single packs.  Getting the project going, however, was another story.  It took some discipline, but I finally sat down for a couple of hours on Sunday night and typed out our family emergency plan, pulled important documents to keep in one place, and prepped a shopping list.  This morning, I did the food shopping and had everything laid out for our Family Night.

We changed all the batteries in the smoke detectors and flashlights, showed the girls how to turn off the electricity and gas should they ever be home alone during a quake, showed them how to detach the window screens in their rooms if they ever need to escape during fire, and also how to crawl 18" or lower on the floor in case of fire.  We also reviewed our meeting places in the front and back yard, and talked about how things would go if a quake happened while they were at school, who would pick them up, who was on their emergency cards, etc.  Of course the discussion got to them after awhile, and we talked about why we were preparing and how it helps us live with less fear instead of more when we're prepared.  It was a very productive evening, and we finished it off with a new recipe we tried from the LDS Living FHE lessons, Mint Chocolate Cookies.  Yum!

I listened to the debates while cleaning up the clutter from our project (I'm a little done with political posturing at the moment, quite depressing).  While I was taking something to Heather's room, I found the girls both in Heather's bunk playing a DSi game together.  They are enjoying each other's company more and more, and I've noticed that after a family collaboration, it's more likely to happen.  There's a testimonial for family projects and working together.  

Spooky Disneyland Family Night

We had the opportunity to dash off to Disneyland this afternoon for our Family Night activity.  It was a lot hotter than we expected, and pretty crowded, but we wanted to ride Space Mountain before the end of the month.  The transformation to Ghost Galaxy is super fun and a little creepy.  We got to ride Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain Railroad and Haunted Mansion before the park closed at 6PM for the Halloween event.  We were happy to do those three things and get back home for homework and a decent bed time.  Next time we go, it has GOT to be cooler.  I am not equipped for this fall heat wave.

The Worth of A Soul

Our girls, especially Heather, repeatedly deal with feeling "less-than" for whatever reason.  We've tried over the years to come up with visual aids and tricks for emotionally fortifying the girls when they are away and in need of a boost.  So far, nothing has worked as well as the visual I adapted using what speaks to my girls...money.

We sat down for family night last Monday, and I read the scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants about the worth of the soul.  Then I pulled out a $50 from some birthday money I had and showed it to the girls.  They were in awe having never seen a bill this size before.  They knew what it was worth.  You should have heard the gasp when I crumpled it up into a tiny wad!  I asked them if it was still worth $50 to which they replied that it was.  I smoothed it out and asked again if it was still worth the same, and if they would still use it.  They replied that they would.  Then we had a discussion about the kind of damage that people inflict on each other emotionally, especially those mean kids at school.  I wanted our girls to understand what they were worth and to think about this $50 next time someone says something mean to them.  Will they let the meanness break them down and make them feel worthless, or will they remember that they are still worth the entire amount no matter what happens?  I think the best key to confidence and feeling empowered is knowing what you are worth no matter what.  I want to help my girls have this confidence!

We moved on to our main lesson after that, but that $50 image did it's job.  For a few days afterward as Heather got out of the car for school, I would simply say, "Fifty dollars!"  She would grin, and I could tell it meant a lot to her.  

Someday in the near future, we'll re-visit our $50 bill and talk about sin and repentance and our Father's love for us.  That was the original lessons I borrowed from Here and Here.  It is so hard for us to feel like we are worth the same to our Father in Heaven when we've made mistakes, but what a great visual this money is.  No matter how much damage we've done, we are still worth the full amount in His eyes.

Creating - FHE Rotation Chart

Lots of good creating happening this week when I should probably have been doing dishes. Oh well. When the mood struck, I went with it. I made this 4-family member Family Home Evening rotation chart which I've had sketched out for a year or two. Most of the premade ones allow for larger families, and I don't really care for the ones we've tried. I'm excited to try this one. We put our names in different fonts to make it fun. Jenna wanted bubble letters, but the only puffy ones we found made her name look like Jenno. So we went with the puffy cow letters even though the E isn't perfect. We did Heather's in "Herculaneum" marking her Greek/Roman mythology vibe. I laminated everything at the copy store with the heavy duty lamination sheets. The names are attached with squared of sticky back Velcro.

I've also put together Conference binders for the girls and made Bingo cards to use during Conference this weekend. I'll post those later. Need to go finish decorating for Easter.

A Meaningful Family Night

We have our family night lessons on Sunday evenings, and Heather asked if she could teach this week. She asked the day of, and we were skeptical about her preparation. She told us she was completely prepared so we gave her a shot. She spent an hour setting up and then called us in to begin the lesson. I want to record as much as possible because she simply blew us away.

She began in the kitchen with scripture reading. She had us get our scriptures and then asked each of us to read. We went through the entire story of the birth of the Savior. Then she read a story from The Friend magazine. We laughed when, in the middle of her lesson, her notes got mixed up and she said, "Boy, I never knew it took this much work to do a lesson!"

From the kitchen she directed us to the laundry room, otherwise known as the Time Machine. For those who don't know, our laundry room is a small, square room with a bathroom attached. There were glo stick lights hanging from the cupboard knobs and door handles. She instructed that when the sticks stopped flashing, we were at our destination. Behind the closed bathroom door, Jenna provided sound effects as the Time Machine moved through centuries. Heather operated all of the glow sticks. She left us in the machine for a minute and then came back to turn off the flashers indicating we had arrived.

When she opened the door for our exit, the entire house was dark except for all of my battery powered candles. She led us "down the road", past the Christmas tree and on to what we were to see.

She had us stop at each Nativity scene and explained what each was made of. She explained that the last set was made by Jim Shore, and she picked up each of the pieces to show and explain that the carved scenes depicting what we had read from the scriptures.

We then went back to the Time Machine and were transported home.

I just have to say that my heart is full. I am in awe of this sweet, eleven-year-old girl who listens to her lessons at church and at home, and she loves the Savior enough that she wants to teach others about His birth. I pray she never loses her enthusiasm or her testimony of Jesus Christ. We have been well instructed this week.