Primary Activity

This past Saturday the kids had a primary activity.
Both Hunter and Maddie made these picutures for their rooms.
Didn't they turn out cute!!
Lunch was also served. Pizza, Rootbeer, Water, Cupcakes. You can't go wrong with that.
Hunter and Jaxen.
Maddie and Amber.
The weather was perfect and the kids enjoyed themselves.

Easter

It's Easter Morning. Our church begins with sacrament meeting at 8 am. I knew if we were to get to church on time I'd have to wake the kids up a little earlier then usual. So about 6:15 I started waking the kids up. Telling them the Easter Bunny had come and hidden their basketts (Kory's family tradition). It wasn't to hard to convince them to get up. We did make it to church on time too. Yeah!!

Emily wasn't to sure what to do with hers until her siblings showed her what was inside those silly looking eggs.

Maddie was thrilled to discover a package of new panties. Dora, no less. She was quite pleased.

Hunter was also excited to see that he too had received a new package of underware. Go, Diego Go!

Yes, that is new panties in Emily's baskett too. She is showing signs of going potty on the toilet so we're going to run with it. We've pulled the potty down and she loves to go sit on it. I meant to start her last week but I ended up babysitting 3 other children giving me 6 kids under 5 for almost 10 hours on a daily basis. I just didn't seem to find the time to really try with her. This week is a different story. Hopefully she can follow in her siblings footsteps and this won't take too long.

Hunter was potty trained by the time he was 2 1/2. I have a scrapbook page of Maddie sitting on the toilet with a little note that says, "Accident free at 21months". I remember starting with Maddie when she started nursery.

I'm currently serving in the nursery so Emily's been coming with me. If she hadn't though yesterday would have been her 1st day in Nursery. I can't believe my baby's 18months old.

Easter cont'

After church the kids were quite anxious to get home to look at their eggs again. It was such a warm day they compared their egss on the porch.
They most definietly liked the candy they were given but their favorite was the money they discovered hidden in the eggs.
Emily didn't get money but she quickly discovered how to open the eggs by herself.

We were invited to a friends house for Easter Dinner. There was a house full of people with 5 families. It was great. Sara (hostess) took all the kids outside after dinner and had them color a picture of what Easter meant to them. The adults stayed inside and we all brought a short story to share with each other. It turned into a really nice spriritual moment for the adults. I think we could all feel the spirit as all the kids were outside. It turned out to be a great way to end our week long Easter experience.

3 Days of Darkness

Day 6) Three days of darkness 3 Nephi chapters 8-10

So I picked about 4 scriptures describing the destruction and darkness. I then told everyone that our house also received some destruction. We pretended that we didn't know where everyone was and needed to find them. I had put pictures of everyone inside a cd case so my pictures wouldn't be damaged and then scattered them along the floor. They needed to find all 5 of us and meet at the back door. They crawled around in the dark amidst everything that was in my tupperware drawer, several pairs of shoes, pillows, towels, and rolled up rugs. When all 5 of us had been found I read 2 verses of what Christ told the people while still in the dark by flash light. I then had a picture of Christ that I shined a flash light on and read when Christ told the people who he was.

These are pictures of the kids holding our family via the cd cases.

Next year I think I'll try blindfolding the kids. They weren't very interested doing it this year. After a few seconds in the dark all of our eyes got accustumed (sp?) to the dark and it wasn't to hard to see all the objects on the floor. I'd also like to made a cd of noises from the disasters mentioned in the sciptures like the thunder, earthquakes, whailing and crying of people. Have these sounds playing while I read the scriptures. I don't know maybe this would be too much. I would like to make this a little more real but not scare my babes either.

Cruxifiction

Day5) Cruxifiction

So this night we were suppose to discuss the crucifiction. After 20 minutes of telling my children to LISTEN TO ME!, sit down, stop bouncing on the cushions, we're not singing the Popcorn song again, LISTEN TO ME!, don't hit her, don't stomp your feet, I don't care who's calling on the phone, LISTEN TO ME!, leave Emily alone, stop talking, stop hitting the couch, no you can't have another drink, LISTEN TO ME!!! and having read the first 3 verses twice now and I, MYSELF, not knowing what I had just read I QUIT!!! Everyone put their pajamas on and went to bed at 7:30 including this mom. So sorry no pictures of this night.

Last Supper

Day 4) Last Supper
Our Last Supper consisted of fresh pineapple, leavened bread, asparagus and shish kabobs with beef and potato.


We've never barbequed shish kabobs before and it turned into a great learning experience. Next time we will SOAK THE STICKS BECAUSE THEY BURN. The fire was too hot and not only burned the sticks but the dinner too. Of all nights I thought this would have been one of the favorites. I was wrong. The main course was burned. Hunter and Maddie both choked on the asapragus (this was not the 1st,nor 2nd, nor 3rd time we've eaten this vegetable). The pineapple went quick. The kids enjoyed the bread but both Kory and I thought it was too dry which I was expecting. We'll have to do things a little differently next time.

Teaching The People

Day 3) Matthew 25:31-46
Nothing is recorded of what Jesus did on the 3rd day. So I stretched day 2 into 2days. The scriptures I read this past weekend talked about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. and then it went on to say how the followers are sheep. Those that don't help the needy are goats. The scripture I read tonight however didn't include the sheep/goat analogy. Of course I didn't realize this until I had read through vrs. 46 and came to the end of the chapter. So I just told the kids about the sheep/ goats and how we want to be sheep in this story. Afterward we made our sheep.
Tonight was definietly a hit. Although what kid doesn't like to have a glue stick in his hand. Emily wasn't ready to quit gluing, hence the sad face.

Cleaning the Temple

Day 2) Cleansing the Temple Matthew 21:31-46

This past saturday we all helped cleaned the church. It was great to remind the kids why we helped and what a great feeling we all had on our way home. I think the kids finally understood that just like the temple our church also belongs to Jesus. After our little discussion I took some toys and had all 3 of them help clean them.

Our Week Long Easter Experience

About 2 weeks ago I started contemplating how we are going to teach our children that there is more to Easter then the Easter Bunny. Hunter will soon turn 5, Maddie is 3 and Emily 17 months. They are still young but I have felt that this Easter we needed to do something different. Talking to many friends, family memebers and searching the web I have put together a week long of scriptures and activies. I thought I'd share as our weeek progresses.

Day 1) TRUIMPHAL ENTRY Luke 19:29-38
These scriptures tell of Jesus arriving to Bethany. The story goes that Christ tells 2 of his disciples to go to the edge of town and they will find a colt tied up. They should bring the colt back to Christ. Theres a lot more to this story but you'll have to read it yourselves. So for our activity for Day 1 Hunter and Maddie acted this story out. We tied their stick horse to the front door.
In Maddies words she was a "gurl dipal" (girl disciple).

I know they didn't understand everything we read and tried to explain to them but they got more than if we would have just read the sciptures aloud.

Spring is in the air..

The weather outside has been great lately. Spring is almost here. This past week we've been moving some dirt around in the front yard. We're trying to even it out a bit so we can tell about how much more dirt we are going to need. Hunter thinks he is go big. He likes helping dad with dad's shovels.
I came inside to get dinner ready and the girls followed. Completely dirty from playing outside they decided to be princesses while waiting for dinner.
My mom sent us home with Emily's dress up dress recently. When she see's Maddie getting her princess stuff on and she can't get her to help her quick enough she comes to get me. She holds on to my finger and leads me to her room and starts pointing at her dress.
It's fun to see how much Maddie and Emily are starting to play together.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Last week I was "teacher" in our Pre School. We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday. We read several Dr. Seuss's stories during "school". The kids made hats to wear and hats to eat (vanilla wafers, white frosting and red gummie life savers). We counted how many feet were at school. We even broke it down to how many left and right feet we had present. We also played number bingo using gold fish crackers as our markers. I think the kids had a good time. Back row: Abby, Hunter, Jolie, Bryant

Front Row: Maddie, Amber, Jaxen

We Have Running Water

We did survive the weekend without running water. We did turn it back on long enough for everyone to bathe saturday night. We didn't do to bad. I hope we never have to do it again. Monday morning R.E.D Plumbing showed up about 8:30. By 9:30 am they were off with a check for $98.00. And we have running water again.