Pioneer Day Primary

The Lt. took this picure in Guatemala

I do love Sunday, and Fast Sunday is the best of all the Sundays, except maybe Christmas Sunday.  In our ward, there are a lot of people who are related.  This is fine until they all go somewhere else for a family reunion. 
Then I lose a whole bunch of my Primary teachers.  They all got substitutes, but I had 2 other teachers missing who didn't.  We also had about 15 visiting kids.  I discovered the missing teachers about halfway through the first hour of primary.  Luckily they were from classes where there are 2 teachers, so the kids weren't alone, and I was able to find some last minute helpers to fill in. 

You'd think that being ultimately responsible for the instruction of more than 80 children on Sunday would be very tiring.  I do have one or two teachers that like to stir up drama and occasionally they'll stress me out, but I really love teaching the children and somehow it is energizing, not draining.

Last week was the Sunday after Pioneer Day  .  This is my favorite sharing time of the whole year.  I wore my pioneer dress and apron and gathered all the children on a blanket and told them stories of real children who crossed the plains 165 years ago.  Our theme for the year in primary is "Choose the Right"  so for this lesson, I talked about how the pioneer children chose the right, and so could we.  One of the stories I told them was about a family who went through the hole in the rock.  It is a great story.  You can read it here.  I think pioneer day might be the kids' favorite sharing time of the whole year also.  I didn't have to ask anyone to be quiet, at least.  They were all listening and still.    And there you have my theory of teaching.  You don't need lots of bells and whistles--just a good story that is true that you care about and the kids will care about it too. 

We each can learn much from our early pioneer ancestors, whose struggles and heartaches were met with resolute courage and an abiding faith in a living God. Thomas S. Monson

Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. Joel 1:3

Oh, what do you do in the summertime when all the world is green?

The Man of the House and I have been talking about having the kids be in a sport for some time, years really.   The conversation goes something like this:

Him:  "I really want the kids to be in sports.  What is coming up?  Could they be in soccer?"

Me: "I think soccer already started.  But next fall/spring/summer we'll do it, I promise.  I just don't have time to drive them all over the place to practice and games right now."

But this summer I bit the bullet and agreed to give up my time and the Man of the House paid the bill for the kids to be on Swim Team.

The team warming up.

We've loved swim team.  Practice is every morning, but they all practice at the same time and since it is summer now, we don't have to do anything else.  So having practice has kept us on a halfway decent schedule.  Plus, 3 of my 6 kids could save themselves if they fell out of a boat.  most likely.  better chance than before anyway.

I haven't even minded being at the park for 2 hours every day.  Sometimes I even walk laps around the playground!

And the swim meets are super fun--like an 8 hour picnic with an exciting race every hour or so.  The weather has been really hot, so my only wish is that I could get in the pool every so often.

We've found some fun things:


Turns out, Gwenny is very competitive.  She was nervous her first meet, after all, she could barely swim when we had signed her up for the team and had only been practicing 2 weeks.

Her second meet, she knew what to do and swam like a whole different person.  She cut a whopping 20 seconds off her best time on the 25 yard freestyle.

Gwenny- freestyle is her favorite stroke.

She came out of the water full of excitement and told me, "next time, I'm winning my heat."

Here is Gwenny waiting for her turn.

Guess what!?

At the next meet, she won her heat!

Gwenny winning her heat in the 25 yard backstroke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then she had times for both her freestyle and her backstroke that were just 2-3 seconds off from being "A times."  Having an A time makes you one of the top 10 fastest swimmers in your age group and qualifies you for a completely separate championship at the end of the season.

There are 2 "divisions" for every race.  The swimmers with seed times (or entry times) that are A times are the "A Division" and the swimmers with B seed times are the "C Division"--don't ask me why they don't call it the B Division. 


They give medals for the top 3 in each division.

At our most recent meet last weekend, Gwendolyn's seed times were B times, so she was in the C Division.  However, she bettered both her times by about 3 seconds scoring not only A times but coming in 3rd place for C division in freestyle and 2nd place for C division in backstroke.  So she got 2 medals and will be swimming in the A Championships. 

A 10-year-old boy from Joplin broke 2 tri-state records.  They announced his name and the record he broke over the loud speaker each time.  

Gwendolyn was like, "There are records and we can break them?"

I looked up the tri-state record for her age group for the 25 yard freestyle. (They print them on the heat sheets that we get to know when our kids race.)  She would have to cut 10 more seconds  off her time to beat the record which has stood since 1989.

She has record breaking in her sights now, so WATCH OUT!!

The yellow cap is Benji

Benji & Ana are not competitive.  They do usually get a personal best time each race they swim, but it is only 1 or 2 seconds better.   

Benji doing the butterfly as part of the dreaded "IM"  100 yard Medley where they have to swim 25 yards of each butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, & freestyle.

I think Benji might be more excited if he was winning or getting A times or even close to either.  But most of the swimmers in his age group have been swimming a lot longer than half a summer.  So he is last or almost last every time.  I think this disappoints him, but he also doesn't have that fire of focus in his face like Gwenny does.

Benji doing the 50 yard backstroke.  He has been lapped here, which is why that other guy is going the opposite direction.  rats.

Ana hates race day and whines every time we go to a meet.  But I found what motivates her!

Ana doing the breast stroke in the IM Medley

At our meet last weekend, there was an ice cream stand next to the pool.  She was pestering me about getting ice cream and I was saying "No" of course.  Finally she said, "Mom, if I win my heat, which ice cream can I have?"

I said nothing, as I had already informed her that I was not buying ice cream.

"MOM, if I win my heat, which ice cream can I have?"

I thought, "She'll never win her heat."  so I said, "If you win your heat, you can choose any ice cream you want."

I saw that look of focus and determination take over her face and I thought, "She might do it!"

Ana doing the 50 yard backstroke

She walked up to the starting blocks and for the first time ever, I could see that she was going to really try her best.  I decided to myself that if she bettered her time by something significant, like 10 seconds, that I would buy her ice cream anyway, regardless if she won her heat or not.

She got a best time ticket but we didn't know how fast she had been.  I could tell she had swum her hardest.  I was so excited that when Benji came up for his race, which was right after Ana's, I told him through the fence that if he bettered his time by 10 seconds that he could have ice cream too.

Benji looked pretty determined to get ice cream.  At the end of his race, he told me his timer told him he bettered his time by 9 seconds and was that good enough for ice cream? 

I bought ice cream for all three kids, and we rejoiced in sweet success.


When the times were posted, we found that Benji had cut 8.8 seconds off his freestyle and 2.77 seconds off his backstroke.

Ana  cut 6.5 seconds off her freestyle and 11.95 seconds off her backstroke!!!

She may not care about winning, but she cares about ice cream!

All in all, Saturday was a very satisfying day for all of us.

Cupcake Wars

One of the girls' favorite things to do is watch Cupcake Wars with their Grannie on Sunday evening.  The problem with watching a show about cupcakes on a Sunday evening is we all get really hungry for cupcakes.  They've been begging me for awhile to have our own cupcake wars.

So on Memorial Day we did.

I went easy on myself and bought 2 cake mixes rather than making the batter from scratch.  I listed the "pantry" choices on the fridge and the girls each planned their cupcake.  For the filling, I made a cream cheese & sugar base and let them stir in their flavor of choice.  For the frosting, I made vanilla buttercream and again, let them add the extra flavor of their choice.  They were thrilled.

Cupcake: butter or chocolate
Filling: cream cheese, chocolate (cocoa), peanut butter, strawberry jam
Frosting: vanilla, chocolate, caramel, lemon
Decorations: twizzlers, silver dragees, colored sugar sprinkles, gummy bears, star shaped marshmallows

Our theme (chosen by Grannie) was Girl Scout Camping.
Cherry Pie made a butter cupcake with chocolate filling and vanilla buttercream, topped with a twizzler camp fire.

Pumpkin Pie made a butter cupcake, no filling, with vanilla buttercream, topped with a smiling girl scout face made with twizzlers and silver dragees

Tamale Pie made a butter cupcake with peanut butter filling and vanilla buttercream, topped with twizzlers and marshmallow stars.

No one chose gummy bears, much to my amazement.

We made Uncle Eddie & his friend Kaitlyn be the judges.  Everybody won and everybody was happy.

I made 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes with chocolate filling and salted caramel buttercream frosting.  (Salted caramel seems to be the fad in desserts right now; it shows up a lot in cupcake wars.  I've been dying to try it.)

I got the delicious recipe I used here at CHOW.com.  (That's right, sisters, I didn't just pin it on Pintrest it, I actually made it.)

Many people who commented on Chow complained about the ratio of butter to powdered sugar.  I personally prefer buttercream that has more butter than sugar, so I knew I would like this one!  I did end up adding a little more sugar, but it was because I heated up the house with all that baking, and the butter was too soft.

Go make some cupcakes.  You know you want to.

Trophy Days

Twelve years ago, I was a brand new mother, sitting at church, with my new baby boy in my arms. Somebody said gloomily from the pulpit, "They don't give out trophies for being a mother."

I think the gist of what they meant was that being a mom and raising children right is important, even though the world doesn't recognize it as a prestigious job/occupation/career.

But as I sat there, I thought to myself, Maybe they don't hand out trophies, but there will be some "trophy days." The day my child turns 8 and is baptized a member of the church, that will be a trophy day. The day my son turns 12 and helps to pass the sacrament for the first time, that will be a trophy day.

I don't mean trophy in the sense that everyone would recognize my "achievements" and heap praise on me as the winner of something. But trophy in the sense that the happiness I would feel on those days would be like the happiness you feel when you finish a race and you feel that all that hard work and sweat and days of running in the rain and running in the heat were all worth it. Or when you receive highest marks on your piano solo at Music Festival and all those hours of practicing until your back ached and your fingers were too stiff to move are *nearly* forgotten/forgiven in the glow of those highest marks.

As I decided what days my trophy days would be, I admitted to myself that they would be few and far between--an allowance for that person who thought there weren't any trophies at all.





Now 12 years have passed. I am mother of not 1 but 6 children. I have a new baby. My little baby that was is now a 12 year old boy and will be ordained a deacon on Sunday. In another month a daughter will turn 8 and be baptized.

Those trophy days aren't few and far between at all.

And there have been many more trophy days that I never dreamed of twelve years ago.

Days of finding little scraps of wrinkled paper love notes on my pillow.

Days when a child comes home from school with a poem they had to write about the color brown, and they wrote about brown hair waving in the wind.

Days when I ask the kids to clean up and they actually do it without complaining or fighting.

Days when I'm sick and my 3 year old curls up in the bed next to me and pats my neck with her little hand because that is the best kind of comfort she knows how to give.

Days like last Sunday, when the DH was gone to guard drill and I had an early morning church meeting. I set breakfast on the table, woke up the children, and asked them to eat and dress themselves for church, promising to be back in one hour. When I returned home, they were dressed with shoes on and even hair brushed, ready to get in the van. (p.s. I did take the baby with me)


On Sunday, when I shared these thoughts, I said at the end, "Every day is a trophy day when you are a mom." That was just nerves, realizing I'd said what I'd thought and didn't know quite how to end and get away from the microphone... and maybe a bit of the emotion of the moment making me feel like that if I were a perfect human, I would find those trophy moments every day. I know that every day isn't a trophy day.
But they are there, generously sprinkled in, and they are what remind me to be happy when the struggle of life has made me forget.

Cookie Cutters

Baby Dumpling is four months old. She weighs 13 lbs. 2 oz (35th percentile) and is 26 inches long (98th percentile) Tall and skinny.

I don't know how you feel about your kids, but mine all seem to look quite a bit alike--they are born and I think, "well, it's mine alright. Cookie Cutter kids." But as they grow, they remind me of first one and then another sibling. So I went to the scrapbook and pulled out a 4 month old picture of each of my babies to compare.

First thing I thought was "I don't remember them looking like that!"
Second, though there are similarities, I can easily tell all six apart. I think a lot of their similarities are in their expressions and the way they move. These are things you can't see in pictures

Psalms 127:3-5 Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. 4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them....

Matthew 18:5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.

Oh what a tangled web...

Somebody likes to help tie Mommy's shoes

Gingerbread Houses

Okay, so technically they are Graham Cracker Houses.

For the first day of Christmas Vacation, the kiddie pies and I made Gingerbread Houses. They have been begging to make them since December 1st, but I put them off because

A: I knew we would have a new baby and be unable to visit friends. We would need fun things to do during those days before Christmas. (Hopefully all the new toys keep them busy after Christmas.)

B: The lazy part of me hoped Aunt Amanda would be here to make the Gingerbread houses with them.

Sadly, Aunt Amanda doesn't get to visit. But reason A was enough.

Last year, the houses kept collapsing during construction, causing my kiddie pies much frustration. So this year, I braved the danger of serious burns and melted sugar to glue the pieces together first.

I escaped with only one small blister! Yay! My prefab houses did restrict the creativity factor, but I think that was worth it because we skipped the weeping and wailing caused by runaway roofs and wayward walls.

Here are the kiddie pies creating their art. Cutie Pie was happy just because there was candy all over the table. Tamale Pie and Pumpkin Pie were jazzed about having multiple colors of frosting.

**Speaking of frosting, I found a Royal Icing recipe that called for lemon juice. Best tasting royal icing ever. (Which isn't saying much. I've always hated royal icing. But this was tolerable.)
1 egg white, beaten until stiff.
3 1/2 cups (1 pound) powdered sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 tsp cream of tartar.

Cherry Pie spent so much time creating a garden around her house that she forgot to decorate the house itself. I like how she thinks. Check out her rose bushes and the sand box:

Blueberry's decorating rule of thumb seems to be cover all surfaces.

More houses:

Seconds after I took these pictures, all the houses met with violent ends. Who knew butter knives could be so deadly?

Petting Reindeer Ponies

This is Rudolf. He was in our town's Christmas Parade and after the parade, we were so lucky that he came by where we were parked. Cutie Pie was so excited to pet him. Seeing pure joy on your children's faces is definitely one of the perks of being a parent.

What to get the kids for Christmas

As you consider gifts for your children this year, you may find this article helpful. I got some ideas!

The 5 best toys of all time

<3 GlowWorm

Trunk-or-Treating

Frost Princess
**A construct a costume from the dress-up bin costume! My favorite kind.

Lady Bug

**Borrowed from a friend kind of costume! My second favorite kind!

Lizzy Bennett
*I made the red bonnet yesterday in about a hour. It's a Butterick Pattern. The rest of the costume was found around the house. Yay.

Satyr Warrior (with hoodie)
**Re-using the goat legs I sewed for him last year, plus a $3 sword. Yay! love re-using costumes. I think he just really wanted a new toy sword and planned a costume that would require a weapon.

**Not Pictured: Cutie Pie who slept through the whole thing.**

Job Chart, DONE!

All my friends made cute job charts this summer. here and here. Everyone else in blogland made one too. I was very jealous and wanted my own. I dreamed of it all summer. What would be best for our family? What system would work?

But think of all the time and brain power to figure out jobs for the kids and me.



Then I had a GENIUS epiphany! I already had a whole system of chores written down from that one time when I got really excited about FlyLady. (I'm still going to get back on track with that, I mean it...)

So I just whipped out (searched under piles of things for a whole day to find) my handy control journal. In it I had already mapped out a system of weekly chores, and assigned them a day. I also had the whole house divided into 5 zones (one zone for each week of the month) and a list of chores that needed to happen monthly in each zone.

Brilliant! I really do love FlyLady.

I just transfered the weekly chores to cards and put them in the pockets. One pocket for each day. Lest you freak out, the Sunday pocket lists ideas for Sunday appropriate activities, not chores. I did not make out lists for each zone of the house. I just wrote "Spend 15 minutes cleaning in the zone." We can check the control journal for what zone to be in and what to do specifically. Now the kids and I can divy up the jobs each morning/after school and voila! clean house, happy Mom. The kids are excited about getting to choose their jobs. They are excited about working with me instead of alone. AND...They are also excited about getting treats out of the treasure box for a week of completing all their tasks. (Oh yes, I do believe in bribery.)

To make this job chart, I used a cork board that I found at the thrift store for $3. I covered it with a yard of fabric that I bought 2 years ago. I love this fabric, but could never find a sewing project that seemed right for it. Now I get to see it every day :) By covering, I mean that I cut the fabric the right size and tacked it down with thumb tacks all around the edge. The pockets are 3x5 note cards that I stapled onto the cork. high tech, I know.



Maybe sometime I'll get into a scrapbooking store and find some 3x5 cards that match my fabric. But it isn't high on the priority list.

I also made a quilt medallion square this week. Isn't it lovely? I wish I was keeping it, but it goes on to someone else now. Part of a fun challenge that my quilting guild is doing.

My kind of Advent Calendar

Now this is my kind of Advent Calendar. Advent Calendar for Slackers. Posted over at Filth Wizardry. A very fun blog to visit, if you haven't

Hugs and Snoodles

**Warning: sappy post**

It was all started by a book, as many good things in my life are.



I have never been a "Huggy" person or a "touchy-feely" person. Probably because my mother wasn't either. Not that I didn't love my children, but somewhere around their second birthday, I just didn't actively think about hugging and snuggling them any more.



That all changed the summer I read "Missing May" by Cynthia Rylant. It is about an orphan girl who has been passed from relative to relative until she is taken in by a couple named May and Ob.

"...the first time I saw Ob help May braid her long yellow hair, sitting in the kitchen one night, it was all I could do not to go to the woods and cry forever from happiness. I know I must have been loved like that, I must have; otherwise, how could I even recognize love when I saw it that night between Ob and May? ....[My Mother] must have known she wasn't going to live and she must have held me longer than any other mother might, so I'd have enough love in me to know what love was when I felt it again."



I spent several hours after reading that imagining how if I took in an orphan how I would hold her and sing to her every night and tell her how much her mother had loved her. Suddenly I thought, "I don't even do that for my own children." Yikes! So after that, I started remebering to hug my kids when they got home from school. And instead of saying, "Last one in bed gets a spanking," I said, "First one in bed gets a snoodle." Actually, everyone gets a snoodle, but it still works every time. They all go running and laughing to bed for the honor of the FIRST snoodle.




What, you may ask, is a snoodle? Well is is a cross between a kiss and a raspberry. You start about 2 feet away from your child and make those kissy smoochy noises as you get closer and closer and suddenly plant a whole bunch of little kisses on that tickly part of their neck. Admittedly, I have had my face smashed a couple of times by a wriggling giggling child, but it is worth it.



Here's what I found: our family is happier. Hugs make the hard parts of the day work better, like in the morning getting ready for school, at bedtime, any other stressful time. When I say "no," to my 4 -year old and she starts wailing, instead of saying something like, "stop that awful noise," or the old "Stop crying or I'll give you something real to cry about," I just hug her. I don't give in and give her what she wants, but I do hug her. I let her know that I understand it's tough when we don't get our way. After all, I have seen many an adult (including myself) throw a tantrum because they can't have what they want. Working from a viewpoint of empathy is so much more effective than working from the angle of force and control.

"Oh, the cleverness of me"--a handmade nativity

I made this little nativity set because I wanted one that my kids could play with. My aunt says I need to make a pattern up for it and I am working on it. I hope you all are excited. It is just acrylic felt and DMC floss. I am working on making the bottoms flat, so they stand up better.


shepherd

Three Kings

Holy Family

dialogue between me and my son:
Boy: "Mom, why is there yellow around baby Jesus's face?"
Me: "Well, I wanted to show that he is from Heaven and special, so I gave him that golden halo."
Boy: "Why does the wise man have yellow around his face?"
Me: "Umm, well, because he is a king, so he has a golden crown, plus, I like yellow and purple together."
Boy: "Why don't the other wise men have yellow, too?"
me: "Sigh. I don't know."




I teach the 14 & 15 year old young women at my church. Wednesday night we had a program where we talked about "Be the Girl of your Dreams." We needed a castle, so I volunteered to make one. I took an old sheet, a sharpie marker and some acrylic paint and panicked. Luckily, my sister, Mary, came over and she gave the the courage to start. I sketched out what I wanted on paper. She suggested that I add in some random stones and said it looked great. So I took a deep breath and attacked the sheet with the sharpie. Then she helped me paint it. We mixed a little water with the paint because the sheet was soaking it up so fast. I am really proud of how well it turned out, even though it was pretty much all luck. The best part is, that now I have the sheet forever for when my kids want to play dress up. Lots of paint soaked through onto my table. Luckily, MOST of it washed off. *whew*


Last of all, I know yesterday, I said I don't like to put in too many links because it gets overwhelming. I know when I go to other people's blogs and the link list is a page long, I am like--how could I ever visit all those?
But I had to update my link list because it was woefully short. So, I added some links and I added a description of each one so you all could make better decisions about which ones to try. Rest assured, these are my most favorite blogs, nothing so-so here, only the most marvelous here.

Snow!! and Mittens Tutorial

***Edited 12-01-09 I just discovered the pattern I linked to is no longer available.  Here is a PDF file if you wish to make these mittens!** thanks

It snowed yesterday and last night!! Our first real snow of the winter! The kids were so excited to go out and play until their father said "You must clean your rooms first." "Aww, Dad, you ruin everything." Two of them didn't have mittens that fit, however, so I promised to make them some while they cleaned their rooms. I got the pattern here from the LDS Humanitarian Aid Website. **See link above.  The one I chose was Fleece Mittens with a Ribbing cuff . I think in future I would choose the "Fleece Mittens with Elastic band" they look much easier to sew. The directions look more thorough as well. I am writing this tutorial in case you decide to be crazy and do the hard mittens, like me. I do like how long the cuff turns out to be. That is my pet peeve about store mittens, the cuffs are never long enough to tuck into coat sleeves.

I didn't trust the fleece to keep the kids dry. I have some scraps of PLU (polyurethane treated fabric) left over from making diapers, and I added a layer of that on the outside to waterproof the mittens.

Trace the pattern pieces onto the shiny side of the PLU. (the wrong side). Trace 2 for each piece, remembering to flip over the thumb pieces (A & B) so that you get a right hand and a left hand mitten. Cut them out. You can just pin the pattern pieces to the fleece to cut it--pay attention to which way the stretch is supposed to go.

After cutting out 2 of each pattern piece. I basted the PLU to its corresponding fleece piece. Baste them wrong sides together as you will not be turning them. Don't forget to baste along the "bottom"--the straight part that will sew onto the cuff. This will divert disaster. (see more later.) **NOTE sew with the fleece on the bottom. That way, the machine feed-dogs will help to keep the fleece from stretching and distorting too much.




Here is pattern piece A sewn to pattern piece B (the thumb)




Here is the cuff, sewn and turned:


Here I have turned the cuff right-side out and then tucked it inside the mitten. Imagine this is the sleeve on a dress or shirt--that is why you want the cuff right side out. When you turn the whole thing, it will all work out right.


This is the trickiest part, sewing the cuff onto the mitten



Here is why you should baste across the bottom, to prevent this:


Here is the final product. I know, my skills are *great,* but this 7-year old was happy. You can see that after I fixed the major boo-boo, I accidentally sewed the cuff in inside out. A.k.A. didn't follow my own directions above. But snow time was wasting. I might fix it later...