Heavenly Father Loves Me

A big focus of this year's primary theme (I Am a Child of God) is on teaching the children how to learn for themselves that their Heavenly Father loves them.  Not as a whole (although he does), but individually, specifically, each one of them. 

In our primary we've decided to center our spotlights around the theme of love.  One reason is because last year I really appreciated that the previous "ladies in charge" had centered their spotlights around the annual theme because I was able to use the children's responses to personalize our annual primary program.  Good idea, right?  I thought so. 

After talking about the theme as a presidency (the four of us ladies who are currently over-seeing the primary aged children) we decided to have our spotlights focus on what we saw as the two main focuses of this years theme and then I made some spotlight sheets.   

As it says on the bottom of our spotlight sheet, after being chosen as the spotlight, the child will get to come and put a warm, fuzzy in our jar.  We're going to use little yarn balls as our warm fuzzies and we chose those because it is often how we feel the Holy Ghost showing us our Heavenly Father's love.  I also love the idea of watching the jar of warm, fuzzies grow throughout the year!

We have a fairly small primary and so we'll be done with our spotlights before the year is even half over.  This is another reason I really like this idea for the spotlights, we can continue to talk about Heavenly Father's love and fill our jar even after we've officially spotlighted everyone.  Every week we'll either ask for a volunteer or draw a name out of our jar for someone to come up and tell us how they have felt Heavenly Father's love in their lives.  The intent is to get the kids looking for the small things that happen in their daily lives.

I'm very excited about this idea and can't wait to get started using it (I'd be happy to share my sheet with anyone who'd like a copy, just shoot me an email!).  How is the theme being implemented in your primaries?

New Years Eve Cookies

Every year I do a Christmas cookie plate to take around to a few friends and neighbors.  Okay, okay, I'll admit it.  The biggest reason I make them is so that I can eat all the left overs.  Yep.  And yum!

This year I was a little slow.  We did school right up until the weekend before Christmas and I just couldn't seem to find an extra second let alone the few hours I needed.  I'd actually decided to just scrap the whole thing until one of my friends asked if I had done my plates yet and proceeded to say how very much she was looking forward to it.  Darn (and sort of yay, wasn't that nice of her?). 

So I made a plate of yumminess, except this year they were New Years cookies instead of Christmas cookies. 

My main, #1 goal this year was to simplify.  That's been more of a life goal that strictly a cookie plate making goal, but it worked amazingly well for the cookies, too.  I decided to just make 3 different items and in addition to make them SIMPLE!  They all turned out amazing and, even better, amazingly easy.

What do you think?  They look good don't they?  And better yet, they are.

Every year I make peanut butter balls (some of my Utah friends call them buckeyes, but I always grew up calling them plain old peanut butter balls) and then spend WAY too much time dipping them in chocolate.  This year (after seeing the idea on pinterest) I decided to make my pb balls into bark.  Did I mention simple?  Yes?  Well, these were the simplest and so yummy.  All you do is, melt dipping chocolate and pour onto some parchment paper, freezing until hard.  Layer your favorite peanut butter ball filling recipe on top of the hardened chocolate and then pour a second layer of chocolate on top.  Once it's hard, cut it up.  I even think the messier it is, the cooler it looks. 

I also love mint and encorporate it in some form every year.  This year I tried a new recipe I found on pinterest called White Chocolate Peppermint Fudge.  Umm, yum?  And it is.  It turned out to be a Taste of Homes recipe and you can find it here.  I highly recommend it.

Last are the sugar cookies.  I usually make them with my kids, spending hours cutting out cute Christmas shapes and decorating them.  We still make cookies together, but in the numbers I need for my plates, it takes a long time.  A really long time.  A really, really long time.

This year I saw the cutest idea!  You'll never guess where.  Okay, fine, it WAS pinterest (wahoo for pinterest!).  Step one, make your favorite sugar cookie recipe.  Mine is found in my favorite-est cookbook, Our Best Bites (it also has my very favorite alfredo, pizza dough, pizza sauce, strawberry cheesecake bars and so many other recipes).  Next, seperate your dough into two equal portions and dye one of them another color.  Then lay the two color on top of each other, rolling them up to create this super cool (and quick and easy) pinwheel.  Afterwards, I rolled mine in sprinkles for a little more color and festivity before sticking the whole log in the freezer.  Once they were hard, just cut them into slices and bake. 

I am very happy with how they turned out.  What are your favorite treats to make during the holidays?

Primary theme: Armor of God guy

I finally decided which guy I wanted to use and after downloading him from the Teaching LDS Children website, I opened him up in Photoshop and decided to try my hand at drawing the extra pieces on the computer. 

My computer drawing skills aren't amazing, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

 

I ended up using the exact guy (except I made him bigger) that you can download from the link above with only a few of my own additions.  I added right and left gloves, a cape/cloak and the title of liberty. 

 

From the Teaching LDS Children website you can download a full picture and all the pieces (except the ones I made) in both an 8.5x11 size and an 11x17 size.

 

Mine is 24x36.  I'm never sure which size is supposed to go first...height?  width?  The one I made is 36" tall and 24" wide made to fit the center section of a tri-fold presentation board (I think I'm going to put each months theme on the fold out flaps).  To print out the individual pieces, I made pdf's the biggest I could print in color, which is 11x17.  On each pdf I fit as many parts as possible and I still ended up with several. 

 

I was able to fit all the pieces really well except for the title of liberty, which at the 11x17 size ended up on FOUR different sheets.  I haven't decided yet if I want to get it printed at the 24x36 size, or print the four 11x17 sheets and then tape them together.  I'm leaning towards the four because it doesn't cost anything extra and after laminating it, I don't think it'll matter.

 

 

 

This is what he ended up looking like.  I have to say, I think he turned out pretty good (I'm not biased or anything).  If you'd like me to send you all the pieces, leave a comment or send me an email!

 

Have a wonderful year!

 

Update 5/10/13: I ended up getting a primary bulletin board in our foyer just recently and posted a picture about it in this post if you'd like to check it out!

Christmas Through the Years

There are certain times where I try really hard to take pictures of all my kids every year.  Christmas is one of those times. 

And you'd think, easy peasy (as my kids would say), right? Yeah, okay, it is, I just haven't quite made it every year.  Almost though.

I was looking back through the pictures today.  It was so fun to see how chubby Ben was, how goofy James was (and still is) and how Makenna has always tried to take care of (aka: boss around) her younger brothers.

In fact, it was so much fun I thought I'd share a couple with you.  You know, as a sort of Merry Christmas.  I hope you enjoy them!

2001

Our first baby's very first Christmas.  I just want to jump in the picture and squeeze Makenna's cheeks!!

2002

Makenna's big blue eyes are my very favorite part of this pic.  And her eyelashes.

2003

If there is a way to look at this picture and not smile, I haven't figured it out.  It's like she's sharing an inside joke with the reindeer.  Adorable!

 

Okay, here are my two lost years.  Darn.  I think if I ask around my mother in law probably has pictures from 2004, but 2005 was the year we moved into our new home just a few weeks before Christmas.  I can't even remember that Christmas.  I may have blocked it out.

 

2006

Here's Ben!  He's been around for the previous two Christmas's, but it's his first official (that I can find) Christmas picture.  Makenna worked so hard to get him to smile, she kept tickling his legs and if you look, you can see her hand going off the bottom of the picture tickling his toes to get this laugh.  What a great big sister!

2007

Makenna, Ben and James in front of the tree.  I love Christmas trees.  A lot.

2008

Every year we open one present on Christmas Eve.  Every year the present we open is PJ's.  Every year my kids are surprised (how long with that last?) and super excited!

2009

Josh's first Christmas.  With his arrival, our family was/is finally complete.  Full of three lively boys and a miny mommy.

2010

This blinged out card was our Christmas card picture.  If you look closely, you can tell that Josh's head was pasted from another picture.  Does anyone else have luck with getting all their kids to smile at the very same time?  Oh yeah, smile and look at the camera and not be smiling because they are doing something to one of their siblings?  If you do, could you tell me your trick?

2011

I can't believe how much they've grown.  It's crazy to think that Makenna is more than half way to moving out.  Going to college (or getting married...holy cow...I think I might need a paper bag to breathe in) and starting her own life.  They are all so precious to me.  I'm so blessed to be able to spend so much time with them.  To love them and learn and grow right along side them.  Man, my life is pretty darn great.

I hope you've had a fantastic Christmas and wish all of you a wonderful new year!

Chickens

I have a secret to share.  I am full of conflicting wishes and desires. 

There is a part of me that would love to try living downtown in a big city.  I think being able to walk or take some sort of light rail to museums and restaurants and shows would be amazing!  I was first drawn to downtown living when I heard about the Hancock Building in downtown Chicago.

 

Isn't it beautiful?  Did you know that while the first half is commercial, the top half is all residential?  Imagine being able to take an elevator to work?  To the pool?  To the grocery store?  How cool would that be?  Plus, it's relatively close to the lake which has a fantastic path for walking, jogging and just being outside (when it's not winter and freezing).

 

But then, there's this other side of me.  This other part that seems to be growing over the years.  I've been reading several books lately on gardening, raising animals, and backyard homesteading.  Yes, I did just say homestead.  My husband thinks I have some survivalist in me...and maybe I do.  Just a little. 

 

I'm intrigued by the idea of being self sufficient.  Not enough to want to do all the crazy LOT of work it would take to be entirely self sufficient, but enough to want to know how to provide for myself and my family.  And there are lots of small things I can do now while not being too survivalist-ey.

 

For example, I could have chickens.  I really want chickens.  I don't have chickens, but I have been reading about them lately.

 

My most recent read is titled Keeping Chickens.  It's also the first one I've read that focuses exclusively on chickens and it's pretty interesting.  I've learned there's an awful lot I don't know about chickens.  I do know that I don't want chickens for meat.  I think it'd be fun to have my kids help me raise them (making them pets and un-eatable) as a sort of science/life/service/responsibility project. 

 

I've loved the book (so far, almost done).  Of course, I don't have any actual experience trying to use the information she's providing, so I suppose I can't personally say it's accurate, but it has good reviews and seems to be pretty comprehensive. 

 

So comprehensive in fact that I've learned a few things I'm not sure I really wanted to know.  I mean, they are things I would need to know if I end up raising chickens, but did I really need to know that the whites of eggs are made from the mucous collected around the yolk on it's voyage through the oviduct?  Mucous is not a yummy sounding word.  Not even a little.

 

The book also includes some building plans.  One of them is for a cute, small coop.  I'm not sure exactly what type of coop I'd opt for, but there are so many CUTE ones out there.

 

Like this adorable one I found on Backyard Chickens.  Pretty great, right?  There are lots and lots of free plans and ideas online.  Even though I love the look of the permanent coops, I'm drawn to the tractor type (a coop on wheels) a little more.  Maybe because this is not our permanent home and I don't want to invest too much in something we're going to leave behind.  I also like the idea of moving the chickens around our yard and fertilizing at the very same time. 

 

So, what do you think?  Ever raised chickens and have some great advice for getting started?  Ever wanted to or read about it and have a great book/website/magazine to recommend?  I'm all ears!

Primary Theme: I Am a Child of God

I've been looking and thinking and I'm still not 100% sure how I'm going to display the armor.  Probably because I haven't sat down to get it done yet.  I'm not usually a procrastinator like this, but because I have been, I thought I'd share what I've found with you in case you need some good ideas and want to get going on yours.

I've found a TON of super cute armor of God pictures.  My current plan is to pick one, print it to the size I need and then draw or add the extra pieces that aren't included.  Not like "free hand because I'm such a great artist" draw.  It'll be more like I can handle "drawing a few lines to at least loosely resemble a cape" draw.  And I figured for the knee pads, I can probably cut the shoes and shin guard looking things in half and use the shin guards (does anyone know what they're actually called?) for the knee pads.  Which only leaves gloves and the title of liberty which I figure I can muddle my way through also.

1. This first set has both a boy and a girl, more realistic that I found on Pinterest.  I can't figure out where they originated.  When I click on the link it says something about the link being bad.  So click the link above to view the pictures to give yourself some ideas.

2. The next set is more cartoon-like and I found them on cute family home evening blog.  If you click on the picture (on the family home evening blog it gets much bigger and would be better for printing.  The only downside to this one is you have to draw your own cute guy/girl to go underneath it.

3. This set is meant to be a magnetic quiet book page and you can look at it here.  The guy is really pretty cute, but the dpi isn't too high so I'm not sure what it would look like if you tried to make it big enough to print out for a poster. 

 

4. I found these cute boy and girl Armor of God dress up dolls to purchase here.  On the plus side, because you would be downloading them (as opposed to either a copy and paste or a direct save from a blog), the dpi would be high enough that they would look better than some of the others after you'd made them big enough for a poster board.  But for me, the negative side is that they are more cartoon-ish, they sort of remind of Elmer Fudd from Bugs Bunny.

5. This blog has some cute ideas for actually dressing up the kids.  In fact, my husband had a great idea (that I can't figure out a way to actually do) to purchase a dress up outfit (like this one here).  None of the ones I've found have all of the parts, but you could probably fill in with what it doesn't come with from home (for example, we have capes, knee pads and gloves just floating around at my house).  The part I'm not certain of is displaying it...if I had some sort of mannequin or something similar, maybe.  But I don't and can't think of a way to have it up every Sunday, which I really want to do.

6. There's also this super cute armor of god girl from Melonheadz (if you've never gotten on her website before, you should, there is so much stinkin' cute clipart).  She even has a boy, too.  With both of these, you'd have to print one the size you wanted and then trace their bodies (excluding the armor) to get your pre-girl or boy.  Then cut out all the different pieces from what you originally printed (hopefully that made as much sense typed out as it did in my head).  You'd have to color it, too, but it might be fun to personalize it.  Or you could even color it in photoshop (or something similar) before printing if you have access to it.

7. Last but not least, I found another more realistic guy here.  It already has all the different pieces separated so you can just print them out.  It seems much simpler than some of the other options and it even looks pretty good.

 

Maybe my problem is too many options (sorry if I just passed that problem along to you), I'm sure I'll get over it soon.  Mostly because the year is just about up and I don't have any other options.  :)  I'll make sure to post about (and maybe even take a picture or two) of my guy or girl when I get it finished.

 

Before I go, I have one more amazing idea to share with you. It's one I got from a lovely lady who saw my previous post.  Janet said, "I had a thought, maybe you already thought of this, but I always like to give the children an action item or challenge, depending on the month's theme you can challenge them- for example with the sword of truth- challenge them to read the scriptures and gain truth.... with the gauntlets/gloves- challenge them to serve their family..... with the kneepads- to pray.... etc"  I hadn't thought of it and just in case you hadn't either, I wanted to share. 

 

If any of you have any other great ideas to go along with the Armor of God theme or if you already have yours done, I'd love to hear all about them!  If you're in the same boat as me, good luck on finding what will work best for you and your primary!

 

You can find my first post about 2013 Armor of God outline here.

Update 12/27/2012: I finally chose my Armor of God Guy and added my own pieces, you can read about it here.

Hope

I just started reading a fictional series of books called The Great and Terrible.  Today I finished the first book, Prologue: The Brothers and I really liked it. 

I like it even though it's not a super happy everything goes right sort of book, which is what I usually gravitate towards if I'm reading strictly for fun.  It talks about the forces of good and evil.  Yeah, I know, all books to some extent seem to be about the fight between good and evil, but this book had varying degrees of both and it was those degrees that I found disturbing and hard.

There were those that chose evil knowing it was evil and chose it anyway.  I can see choosing to do wrong things while thinking you are right, but to KNOWINGLY choose evil is something I don't understand. 

Then there were those that did not choose evil, but they did not choose to fight for good either.  They stayed just on this side of good, but weren't willing to do any real work.  Why?

It ended (of course) with a win for the good guys but with portents for much more hardship to come (it's a series remember).  As I already mentioned I finished the book on good note, I liked it and the ending, but it made me think about what sort of person I am today.  What do my actions say about me?

While all of this was running through my head, I called my mom and heard for the first time about the elementary school shootings in Connecticut.  Just on the heels of the mall shootings near Portland, Oregon (in the mall I grew up going to, where my family still lives) and I was reeling. 

The first few thoughts to run through my head were somewhere along the lines of, "Why?"  "How could this happen?" "What sort of world do we live in?"  Then I came across this amazing picture of a sunrise one of my friends had posted to their feed on Facebook.

Underneath it was this quote (I added the bolding):
"Everyone has experienced discouragement and difficulty. Indeed, there are times when the darkness may seem unbearable. It is in these times that the divine principles of the restored gospel we hope in can uphold us and carry us until, once again, we walk in the light."

- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

To me, the key seems to be faith.  Do we have enough faith, enough hope to choose good?  Enough to choose to act?  To continue moving towards our Heavenly Father with love even "when the darkness may seem unbearable?"  I know that there is good out there.  I know that we all have a loving Heavenly Father who is willing to comfort and carry us if we ask.  I am so thankful for that knowledge.  If you'd like to learn more about the restored gospel mentioned by President Uchtdorf, you can go here. 

Please join me in praying for the families of the victims and for the hearts of everyone touched by this tragedy.