To my own Mother on Mother's Day.

We had an eventful mothers Day weekend and week to follow, which is why I am just now getting around to the post. :) The kids were all sick with something so it ended up just being Me, Ryker and Dugi at church on mothers day. Dad stayed home to take care of the rest of the kids while I tried to hold down the fort at church. Teaching 9, 4 yr olds has been quite the task for us this year. We have a great group of kids and they all get along pretty well so I'm convinced that it could be worse :)

After church we went straight home and helped get the kids down for naps and ohh what a treat nap time is... I finally got a few min while the kids were napping to take my own nap (BEST GIFT EVER), especially cause I've had a KILLER sinus infection the last few weeks, I woke up to Ryker bringing me the gifts he had made at school and church.. My VERY 1st hand print hot pad, a mom questionnaire, and a bag of chocolates... LOVE IT!! AND little Dugi hand prints made in nursery. :)

the boys gifts, CUTENESS!!

After naps we headed over to grandmas to celebrate with everyone. My great grandma Morgan came up for dinner as well as Grandma/Grandpa Hall. Dinner was at Mom's house so it was soo nice to have all of the "mom's/grandma's" in one place for us! We had a wonderful roast dinner, THANKS MOM, and stayed to hang out with Lexi and the grandma's for a few hours. Couldn't have been a more relaxed and perfect mothers day.

mom, Great grandma Morgan, me, Kynlie, and Lexi :)

me, Pippa, Mom, and Lex

I am soo blessed to have such wonderful women in my life. For as far back as I can remember I have always had some of the best YW leaders, aunts, and grandmothers that a girl could as for. They were always such great examples to me and most of them at one point or another during my crazy teenage years tried to help nudge me in the right direction. I was definitely one of the teens that thought my own mom knew NOTHING (BOY WAS I WRONG),.... but as amazing as all of those women are none of there examples has been more influential than my OWN MOTHER!! If you would have told me when I was in my late teens/early adulthood that I would ever feel this way I would probably laugh and call you crazy :) I was sure that I was "nothing like my mom," and now as the years go by I hope and pray that I can one day amount to even HALF of what my own mother is. She is the kind of women that puts everyone's needs before her own, she has always been such a great example at living the Gospel standards, she fulfils her callings (no matter what they are) with a smile on her face: Never complaining, she has taught herself to fix pretty much anything and everything around the house all on her own, she NEVER GIVES UP on anything or anyone for that matter, she is selfless and forgiving, she is GENEROUS to a fault. There is nothing she wouldn't give to make someone (especially one of her children) happy and pretty much anyone that knows her knows that. I never realised just how much my mom gave and just how hard she worked to raise us kids when we were younger but I can not thank her enough for everything that she did, for all of the time, effort and love that she showed. She literally gave us everything that she had and now that I have children of my own I realise just how hard that really is. So THANK YOU MOM!! Thank you for always being there for me, thank you for loving me unconditionally, thank you for being the BEST GRANDMA EVER and Thank you for teaching me what motherhood really is: SELFLESS, FORGIVING, and UNCONDITIONAL, you truly are a blessing in my life and I don't know what I would do without you! Happy Mothers Day!!

Mothers Day gifts for Mom and Mom in laws:) they loved the Glockets!

my moms jar of sunshine

i had to make myself one :)

my mothers day picture 1 week late:) Healthy kiddo's

I sure am one lucky Mama :)

Lehi's Dream, FHE

Today's lesson was on Lehi's dream/ the Iron Rod. There are SOOO many awesome ideas out there for this lesson. I chose a few that I thought would work good for the kids and we went to town! I really love this story and the kids are pretty familiar with it since it was the primary theme last year. So it was fun to talk a little bit more in depth about what symbolism is used in this story and how it applies to our lives today. :)

Opening song: The Iron Rod (this was a SOLO), Book of Mormon Stories, but every single kid knew and sang this song this week!! YAYAYA

LESSON- Read the story of Lehi's dream from the scriptures: 1Nephi 8
We pulled out the flannel board pictures and compared them with the story from "My First Book of Mormon". I read the story and anytime the kids heard me say something that correlated with the flannel board pictures, they would pick up that picture and put it on our "board".. By the end of the story we had most of the pictures set up and then we had Ryker re-tell the story of Lehi's dream from the pictures. :) .... (yep we told the story pretty much 3-4 times, repetition is key for my kids :)..

this book has been sooo helpful the last couple of weeks!!

Here is our flannel board story, and a beautiful print out from Tonii's blog :)

After all of the story telling we played a matching game. The kids LOVE matching games! I thought that the way this game was supposed to be played might be a little to complicated for the kids right now so i printed out 2 sets of the pieces thinking that we would just match pictures and call it a night but when I mentioned the symbolism and what the "iron rod" was symbolic to, which is " the word of God" the boys were a little more interested than I thought they would be, so I ended up explaining a little bit more than I had planned, mostly to Ryker, but I was excited about that.... (SCORE)... We talked about each picture and what that could represent, and then we talked a little bit about how Lehi's dream could be helpful for us today. Ryker really liked learning about symbolism and I was completely shocked, I know for sure when I was his age I didn't know a THING about symbolism...

Here is a SUPER CUTE matching game

 

and this little kid was being my very big helper tonight. 

ACTIVITY- I set up our own Iron rod/Tree of Life outside. I blindfolded each kid separately and let them take a turn trying to find there way to the Tree using the Iron Rod. Dad was the "great and spacious building" and tried to lure the kids away and when he told Dugi "let go and come here, I HAVE CANDY!!" It took a little bit more than my encouraging words to keep him "holding onto the Rod" but HE MADE IT, even yelling at one point "NO DAD".. By then end of everyone's turn the kids wanted to eat there "most desirable fruit" outside and play with there bikes, (we usually don't get very long to do this on school nights) so we decided to let homework slide for a few hours and just ENJOY the BEAUTIFUL SPRING WEATHER tonight.. :)

Dugi wanted to go first:)

Kynlie wasn't having anything to do with the blind fold.. she did good not letting go when dad called her though :)

Bri finally came around and let me put the blind fold on, but only if I touched him the whole way

YAYAYAYA you did it!! He really wanted that apple!

Ryker all by himself.. He took his time because i think he was scared about the rock pile......

I was gonna help him over them rocks but he did great on his own!

this little guy didn't make a peep.. He was Happy as can be to be outside in the sunshine!!

 

this kid lost both of his front teeth and is trying soo hard to get a piece of that apple!!

We LOVE WARM WEATHER!!!

Good thing we live on a culdesac and everyone is soo good about watching for kids.. nothing more fun than these wiggle cars! !

Brotherly LOVE

Even Kynlie loves a good ride on the wiggle car:)

this little guy is still ALL SMILES!! I cant believe how big he is!!!!

 

 

here are the links I used for all the printables :)

Matching game: http://poppyseedprojects.blogspot.com/2012/02/lehis-dream-memory-gamefhe-freebie.html

 

flannel board story: http://lds.about.com/library/bl/aids/aids2/tree_of_life_c.pdf

 

The Iron Rod is the Word of God printable : http://ptskjohnson.blogspot.com/2012/06/iron-rod-family-home-evening.html

Mothers Day, FHE

I know its a little late in the week but with everyone being sick around here we kind of PROCRASTINATED this weeks lesson.. Kaj was in charge of tonight's FHE, and honestly I was so surprised at how well he got ALL of the kids involved (that is a harder than it sounds at this age). He really did a great job. We decided to make this weeks lesson all about "Mothers" and I was SERIOUSLY soo excited be able to just sit back and listen.. :) I can get used to this ;)

Opening Prayer: Ryker

Lesson: Dad talked about all the roles that a Mother plays. He read the kids a great story called, "Hats off to Mothers". It also talked about the many "hats" a mother wears.. The kids didn't know exactly what this meant at first but by then end of the story they got it:) Moms DO A LOT: Mom is a Nurse, a Chef, a Chauffeur, a Detective, a Gardner,a Maid ect.. The lesson really showed the kids how much work goes into EVERY SINGLE day when your a mom, but I also wanted to make sure the kids knew how much I personally love serving them. One of my favorite quotes is..
          
                                     
I love my Calling and I feel truly blessed to have the opportunity to stay home with my children everyday. Nothing is more important to me than taking care of the sweet little spirits Heavenly Father has in trusted me with.

here's our Mother story.

 

You can see just how excited Dad and Tui are to be giving the lesson :)

Dugi up to no good. He is def in his TERRIBLE 2's the last couple of weeks.. Please grow out of this phase FAST :)

Kynlie pretending it didn't hurt when Dugi bit her :) She can turn on the charm, she was totally bawling like 2 seconds before this..

Briyler's face CRACKS ME UP!!! He actually said "mom this story is boring me", I can tell dude..

How Kaj got EVERY SINGLE kid to sit down at the table to listen to his lesson is beyond me.. THIS NEVER HAPPENS FOR ME!!

 

After the lesson Kaj brought out a game board. We read different situations and then had to decide if that was helpful to mom or not so helpful and then you got to move your game piece accordingly:) The kids played a few rounds but then they were SOOOO ready for DESSERT!!!

Dessert- I wanted to be in charge of dessert because I wanted to incorporate a "small act of kindness" for other mothers that are working so hard .. :) I had the kids decorate a cookie for one of "their" favorite mom's in the neighborhood (and by neighborhood i mean our culdesac only:). The kids all decorated there cookies and then we were OFF to make some special deliveries!! :) We of course saved the best cookie for last, this was by far the most special cookie we decorated tonight and it was the only one that went to someone that wasn't on our street. Can you guess who it is for?......... YEP GRANDMA!!!! Ohh how we love our grandma and all that she does for us.. (Seriously she is one of the BEST MOMS around, and honestly I am soo lucky to have her. )
After our little act of kindness, I brought out our NEW SNOW CONE MAKER!!! The kids have never seen or had a snow cone so they were over the moon for this new dessert! (i know sad.. what can i say we don't get out much:).. Such a great purchase (minus the fact that I have to hand turn the wheel to shave the ice) but the look on the kids face was WELL worth the hard work :) ..

The kids were soo proud of there work, they couldn't wait to take them to their favorite neighborhood moms.

and this is the BELOVED EXTRA SPECIAL COOKIE!! this one was for grandma :O)

 

And LOOK what happened this week ..

I"M SOO SAD!!! Tui is officially off of bottles and can now pull himself up to the furniture.. :( he looks like a little toddler here, I'm NOT READY!!

Kicking off The Book of Mormon FHE

Looks like I was WAY to excited to jump back into FHE's :)  I totally spaced doing an "introduction to the Book of Mormon" before jumping in to the stories:) Today's FHE is going to be "Book of Mormon FACTS!!" I want the kids to know Everything they can about this amazing book: where it came from, who wrote it, and why it is SOOO important, especially for "our" generation:) I found some amazing FHE posts but none that quite fit, so I kind of used bits and pieces from all of them ;)

Of course I used one of Tonii's printables.. :) ..link: http://ptskjohnson.blogspot.com/2013/01/joseph-smith-and-gold-plates-fhe.html
and then I made each of the older kids there own set of "brass plates" (wish I would have prepared a little more, I read that you can buy gold foil paper from some craft stores... DARN IT!!)

Opening Prayer: Briyler
Opening song: Book of Mormon stories again ...( We are going to try to do songs at least 3 weeks in a row so the kids can actually learn them a little better:) ....

at least this week they tried to follow along :)

I started off the lesson with me putting out a bunch of different copies of the Book of Mormon:) All have the same contents inside but they look a little different..

(Dad even had his phone sitting with them but I forgot to get a picture of it.)

 

I asked the kids if these books looked the same and they all said "no", then I asked if they all had the same words/stories inside.. Ryker piped in with a YES, I'm pretty sure it was a lucky guess but I told him that he was right. The Book of Mormon was originally written on "golden plates" and then later translated by the Prophet Joseph Smith. I showed the kids a few pictures that all somehow related to the "Book of Mormon" and how it came to be, and they had to try and guess what each picture meant.. We ended up going with these 6 facts as the ones we wanted to emphasise but depending on the kids age level and how much they know we can always add new facts later :)

1. The prophet who buried the "golden plates" was? - Moroni

2. One of the ancient prophets who wrote on the "Golden Plates" was- Mormon, I learned that there were 11 people who actually wrote on the plates .. I didn't know that :)

3. The person who wrote the 1st book in the Book of Mormon was- Nephi

4. The Golden Plates was eventually translated and published into what? - the Book of Mormon

5. Who translated the Book of Mormon?- Joseph Smith, we eventually talked about him having the help from Oliver Cowdery

6. Where was the place the "golden plates" were hidden? - The Hill Cumorah,it says they were found in a box under a Big Rock..

some of the pictures had multiple facts that went along with the picture:) After learning about all of the facts we talked to the kids about why Heavenly Father wanted The Book Of Mormon on the earth and why it is important for us. We came up with: It has the stories of our ancestors, it is a great learning tool, it helps you feel the spirit, it has words from the Prophets that we can apply in our lives today, it tells stories of the Savior, it gives good council and warnings: things that we should prepare for or should apply to our lives to help us get back to Our Father in Heaven. I bore my testimony of the truthfulness of the book and then shared how grateful I feel to have such a valuable tool at my finger tips, everyday:)

 The boys might not remember all of the facts from tonight but I know they remember at least 2: The plates were hidden in a "hillside" under a large rock, and that the Prophet Joseph Smith Translated the Book of Mormon .. I know they remember those facts because after we finished our discussion we told the boys that we had a set of  "golden plates" for EACH of them, but they were hidden so in order to have them they needed to find them.. We told them that if they could remember part of our lesson that would help lead them to "their plates".. the boys searched the ENTIRE HOUSE before Kaj and I decided to help them :) We asked if they remembered where the real "plates" were hidden and Ryker said "the hillside under a rock", good job dude!! We told them that we hid there plates in a similar place, so off the boys went OUTSIDE :) Lucky for us we live on a mountain so a hilly spot with big rocks was easy to find.. Kaj hid all 3 plates separately so the 3 boys could each have the satisfaction of finding there set... Well when they got outside it was kind of cold (it snowed yesterday so that gives you an idea of how cold), Bri and Dugi asked Ryker to find there's too, being the good brother that he is Ryker went off and found all 3 sets... The boys faces were priceless when they found or were given "their set of plates"... After we found them we brought them inside, i was just going to let the kids "color on them" but Ryker asked if he could try to translate or rather "transfer" the words that were actually in the Book of Mormon.. They wrote " The Book Of Mormon" on the front cover and then Ryker spent close to 40, yep FORTY, min copying verses from The Book Of Mormon onto his plates.. I didn't think Bri would last that long but he wanted to be just like Ryker and he hung in there for the majority of the time, "transferring" verses onto his plates too.. It was A GREAT ACTIVITY and such a fun night.!! Ryker was soo proud of himself and asked to have his picture taken with every page of his book.. I am soo proud of him too, he did a great job!! Once he was finished he told me, "Mom that was really hard work!". I told him that "it was probably just as hard for Joseph to write and Translate the WHOLE Book of Mormon" and his response was  "ya I know how he feels" .... HAHAHA I'm sure you do buddy, I'm sure you do :)

I think I found one Mom!! :)

Briyler was soo happy when Ryker gave him "his plates".. :)

WERE FREEZING MOM!!!

Dugi wasn't impressed!!

and this is where they sat for the next 40 min!!

I couldn't have asked for this project to turn out any better for them:)

 

seriously love this little face:)

And this one, even though it is ALWAY'S DIRTY!! :)

 

The second the lesson is done Dugi wants his TREAT.. he is for sure my son, gotta have his treats.. :)

Please stop growing soo fast.. :( he doesn't even need help with this anymore...

The older boys still going strong and the younger ones still waiting for there treat :)  

 

When Bri got done he was soo proud of himself , I was too :)

Dugi finally getting his treat!! MMM

and this is what you get after a 4 yr old sits for 35 min straight:)

No wonder dad is the favorite he brought out a few surprises from the "conference shop" that is not supposed to be open honey!! :)

 

Nothing could take Ryker away from "his work" :) seriously he got soo into it!

everyone else getting dessert.. :) mini golden plates, frosted with yellow frosting and then covered in black sprinkles ..

 

Ryker with his finished product!! :) he wrote on every side!!

Briyler with his finished plates

they carried them around ALL NIGHT LONG and it made me feel SOO GOOD!!!! Soo happy they had a fun night :)

 

This is what Dad does to entertain the little ones while I try to actually have meaningful lesson with the older ones.. No wonder Dad is the favorite around here... They all have soo much fun with him :) Caution: do not look if "thrown babies" makes you un easy... Aka: if your my visiting teachers (Kim Martinez/ Stacy Jensen), who also BOTH happen to be nurses, close your eyes!!

 

He play's with them

 

he spins them

balances them on one hand

and throws them as high as our vaulted ceilings!!  and they all love it :)

the fun doesn't stop there, he teases them 

and wrestles with them ALL NIGHT LONG!! Kynlie looks unsure in this picture but she is usually the one that is begging for more:) We love our fun dad, and I love that he keeps the younger ones occupied for the most part so the older ones can actually hear the lesson :)