General Conference

This week we are preparing for General Conference.  I LOVE General Conference!  I would love to shut myself up in a little room, turn the TV up loud and listen to every word without any interruption....but alas....I am a mother.  So, instead, I got organized.  I was given a challenge by my Visiting Teachers to do something more to prepare for conference this year than I had done before.  So I took them seriously.  I turned to my family and gave them the challenge also.

I printed out a couple of different activity books for the kids to work on while they listened.  They are only required to watch 1 session each day but, since we have a couple teenagers this year, we stepped it up a bit.  Maren used this conference as an opportunity for a 10 hour YW project about knowledge.  We printed out a template for her to use while she listened to jot down notes and thoughts for each speaker.  There were also lots of interesting facts about President Monson and the 12 Apostles.   She
also recorded the statistics from the annual report.  It was good to see her listening and taking notes.

We asked Blake to watch 4 out of the 5 sessions....we gave him a break with friends on Saturday afternoon.  I remember being not totally enthralled when I was their age, so I am still holding out hope that they will develop a love for the words of the Prophet and the Apostles as they get older.

Evy and Micah really did their best to be reverent during the sessions, it's hard when you are young.  We had a few moments of frustration, but I was trying to keep my cool....back to my earlier comment about listening all by myself!  Anyway, I didn't think they were listening at all but then, they would make a comment about the talk, or answer back to the TV when the person speaking would ask a question.  Even when Micah was down the hall playing, I heard him say amen at the end of the talks or a prayer.

For myself I created this:

There is a section for each of the apostles.  I added their picture and some information I found about them to get to know them better.  I added some looseleaf paper after each picture so I can keep notes about their talks.  I like this format.  I haven't really been a notetaker before, but I found that this really helped me keep my focus on the speaker and it's nice to reread my notes and remember how I felt when writing them.  I also like this because it is an ongoing project.  I can keep this for years to come an keep my notes organized....which is what I desperately need more of in my life!!

I also included a section in the back for the Seventy's remarks and the General Auxiliary speakers.  I was pleased with how easy it was to find things of meaning in each speakers remarks.  I think this also helped Maren with her notetaking because she didn't feel so conspicuous doing it by herself.

I always come away from conference with conflicting emotions.  I feel so uplifted and grateful that we have living apostles to help guide our way.  I am thankful for technology so that I can see them and hear their voices and feel the spirit as they speak to us.  I come away with a new focus and determination to do and be better... and that's where my thought process takes me down the wrong path.  Sometimes, I can talk myself out of all my good intentions by remembering all the times I didn't read my scriptures, or say my prayers, or yelled at my kids, or lost my patience with my husband.  I feel overwhelmed and my faith wavers.  That's why this year I LOVED Elder Holland's talk in the Sunday afternoon session titled "Lord, I Believe".  I felt as if he was speaking to me - telling me to carry on!  Here are a few of the notes I jotted down.

 - The Lord can only bless us if we believe!!
 - In this church, what we know will always trump what we do not know.
 - Imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with, Be patient, kind and forgiving
 - 3 important points

1. We need to assert our strength first, then ask for help with shortcomings.  Hold fast and strong to what we already know.
2. Be true to the faith we have.  Dont ask by listing what we don't have.  We have more faith than we think we do.
3. Don't be afraid to ask for help.   God will send help from both sides of the veil to strengthen us.

 - At our peril we allow doubt or devil to sway us
 - Fan the flames of your Faith!

Elder Holland has a way of speaking that always touches my heart.  I am thankful for this talk and so many others that are giving me the courage to move forward - stand firm in the knowledge and faith that I already have, and press forward to become better.

Thank you ladies for giving me the challenge to better prepare....it really helped!

The Plagues!!

There will definitely NOT be pictures in this post!  Sunday night Steve was not feeling well so he went to bed quite early.  Turns out he was violently ill all night.  I'll spare all the gory details!  I stayed up for a while after the kids went to bed and all of a sudden I felt the same as him.....not good!  I decided to spend the night on the couch so that we wouldn't keep each other up, but more importantly, so we didn't have to compete for the bathroom.... ugh!

Was it something we ate???  Nope.

Turns out, thanks to Facebook, it was a raging flu bug sweeping through our town, and eventually even farther away too!  Mom got it.  Dan, Andrea and the both the twins got it too!  Steve was feeling better much better by Monday evening but I was still pretty wiped.  That's when it hit Maren!  Ugh!  We prayed that it would stop there and not take out all the kids and luckily, our prayers were answered! By Tuesday Maren and I were both feeling much better and mostly back to normal.  I'm still a little tired though.

The other kids were off with friends on Monday and Tuesday, having so much fun enjoying their Easter break from school.  Then... last night.... Evy says.... Dad, I have all these itchy bumps!

I called the Health Link line, spoke to a nurse and she suggested we take her to a dr.  So, off to Raymond Steve and Evy went.  You guessed it!!  Chicken Pox!!  aaaaah! Then I had to call all of Evy's friends and be the bearer of bad news.  Hopefully it stops here and we don't pass it through our family or all over town. We have no idea where or how she got them, and she was vaccinated for them when she was 2.  I'm just hoping the rest of the town was vaccinated as well.  She has a very mild case of them, but is still feeling pretty itchy and yucky!

Hopefully, we will all be better soon!

More Easter Sunday!!

For lunch today we used our Easter eggs to make Egg Salad Sandwiches.  Always a hit around our house.  After we were all ready for church we watched this Youtube video to prepare for our special Easter Sacrament Meeting.

It was very powerful and helped us be more reverent and feel the spirit.  Our lessons at church were awesome as well and I came hope feeling so uplifted and grateful for the gift of the Atonement.

We watched a few more easter videos as well.  Here they are below.

Easter Sunday

We started our day with the Easter egg hunt and lots of Chocolate!!  The Easter bunny even remembered to bring a basket for Mako!

Each of the kids received a different magnetic travel game in their baskets so we spent some family time playing games this morning too. Micah and Evy also received jump ropes so there was a lot of "bunny hopping" going on as well.

Evy's was a 'chinese jump rope' so it was fun remembering back to my elementary school days to remember the rhymes we used to skip to....I cheated a little and looked a few more up on the internet.

Easter Dinner

It was fun to host Easter Dinner this year.  It felt kind of strange all day and I couldn't figure out why til later tonight when Steve commented that we aren't usually here for Easter.  Our tradition for the last few years is to visit Gramma and Grampa Brinton in Kelowna for Easter.  They are serving at the Temple on a mission in Guatamela, so that option was out.

Anyway, it was lots of fun, and the weather was gorgeous!!  I wish I had remembered to take some photos.  Dinner was delicious as it always is when we get together.  Mom and Dad provided the ham and mustard sauce...with a little help with the cooking from Dan.  Dan and Andrea brought an green salad and a couple of pies for Dessert.  We made funeral potatoes and roasted spaghetti squash.

It's always fun to be with family on these special occasions.  We enjoyed the beautiful weather, the delicious meal & the company of family.  Andrea had to go off to work today, and Dan went home for a rest,  so Gramma, Gramp and the twins stayed for a bit and we watched a movie and Gramma gave all the kids a special Easter treat!  We are always counting our blessings.

New Jumparoo!!

Micah and I were left at home by ourselves for the afternoon so we decided to set up the new trampoline. It was HARD!!  Its really hard to put together a trampoline with only the help of a 7 year old....at least I got a good workout.

Here he is trying it out....it was a big surprise to everyone when they got home that night!  The next morning dad and the kids attached the supports and the net, moved it, and staked it down so the wind wouldn't take it away.

It was a big hit on Saturday with the twins when they came over for Easter Dinner.  There will be a post about dinner but I didn't take any pictures so hopefully you'll get to see the finished trampoline later on.

Easter Preparation!!

We invited Andrea and the twins over today to help us with our egg decorating. The kids had a blast but we were all a bit multicolored by the time we were finished!

I'm always frustrated with commercial egg coloring kits...they never seem to be vibrant enough for me. I was on Pinterest a few days ago and saw a post explaining how to color your eggs with Koolaid! The colors looked great and I got so excited! But, superstore only carries 2 flavors of Koolaid and I didn't have time to shop around....we were already late getting home. So, back to Pinterest for me that night.

I found a post about using paste cake decorating dye to make your colors with and the results looked awesome! I put quite a bit of paste in each cup because we were working with 2 two year olds...I didn't want to be sitting around for 15 minutes at a time waiting for colors to darken. Then I added a couple tablespoons of vinegar and the rest hot water.

Our colors came out awesome! The pink and purple had a tough time dissolving but that resulted in some Tie-dye effects. The colors were quite potent and we didn't have to wait long at all to get some vibrant coverage!

Everyone had about 7 eggs to color because Maren was gone with friends. The twins were so cute! They loved using their hands and then they'd wipe their hands on their tummies...good thing Andrea opted to take their clothes off before we started.

All in all, everything turned out awesome!! I think I'll use the same method next year too, but maybe I'll try some different color combinations for some interesting colors. Thanks for coming to play guys!!

Swim Club Mini Meet Fun!!

The girls have been doing winter club swimming at the university in Lethbridge for the last few months. It's been lots of fun watching their swimming improve. We are able to carpool with some other families as well so that helps.

Maren and Jenna decided to start together and Evy and Dawn-Marie are having fun too! I'm so glad they found something that they enjoy so much and the great exercise is a bonus!!

This swim meet was a fun meet with just the kids from their club. They divided all the kids up into random teams regardless of age and did some really fun relays. They were hilarious to watch.

The first one was just a regular front crawl relay. They did one where you had to use a flutter board and pass it to the next kid. Then they did one where 2 kids swim each leg and they had to push a ball to the other end without touching it. In the last one they used the huge floating mats and one kid had to lay or sit up on top and 2 other kids push them to the other end.

I tried to get some pictures and video but we were pretty far away. Everyone had lots of fun! It was a great last day before the Easter break.

Poor Micah was pretty sad because he wanted to be in the pool too! He is going to start as a beginner after Easter holidays so he will be ready for summer club this year. He is so excited!!

I'm glad my kids love to swim! I wish I was better at it...it's on my bucket list to improve...maybe this is the year!!