Nephi and the Broken Bow, FHE

Today we did the lesson/activity that I had planned for last week, the boys have been BEGGING to have this lesson since grandma brought over the BOWS and ARROWS last week.... I'm sure you guessed already guessed it, but today's lesson is Nephi and the Broken Arrow. We are actually having our FHE on MONDAY this week, WHAAA!! Since today is a holiday Dad is off of work, Ryker has no school, and even grandma and grandpa are free so we decided to have a BIG FHE activity!  ( THANK YOU SOO MUCH TO MY AWESOME MOM... she made the bows and arrows for each of the kids... SERIOUSLY she can do/make ANYTHING!! These aren't your wimpy bows and arrows, nope she made them out of PVC pipe and a bunch of other things I don't even know the names of... THEY ARE LEGIT, these will make for hours and hours of fun, thanks GRANDMA!!!) ..This lesson has always been one that caught the boys eye, they love anything and everything guns/bow and arrows right now so they wanted to know all about Nephi and his Bow:). Last year I tried to focus more on behavior and friendliness in our FHE's because we had a MAJOR hitting and kicking problem!! :) This year the kids are doing much better, and that's why we decided to focus on the Book of  Mormon.. I was a little hesitant because alot of the stories have some kind of "violence" in them.. (Nephi killing Laben, Laman and Lemuel beating Nephi, Ammon chopping off arms.. you get my drift) I didn't want the boys to think that because they heard it in the scriptures it was ok to act that way at home (it seems like they gravitate to the violent actions and once they hear or see them that's all they think about..).. I think they are old enough now that they are able to understand why those actions were necessary and more importantly the moral of the stories.. So far so good:) We are still pretty early though so we will see how the rest of the year goes ....

 Our handy Kids Book of Mormon stories

 

Opening prayer: Briyler

Lesson: Read: (1Nephi 16: 18-32), then recap in our "first Book of Mormon stories" book.. When Lehi and his family traveled into the wilderness they took there Bows and Arrows to hunt for food, when Nephi's steal bow and arrow broke (and Laman and Lemuel's bows lost there springs), everyone began to murmur (even Lehi).. Nephi however chose not to murmur, he had FAITH that after HE did ALL he could do Heavenly Father would help provide the things that his family needed. Nephi made a new wooden bow and arrow and then asked his father where he should go to hunt. Lehi felt bad for complaining, he repented and then asked the Lord where Nephi should go to find food. The Lord answered his prayers and Nephi brought back plenty of food to feed EVERYONE. We talked about how important it is to not murmur when times get hard but rather to turn to our Father in Heaven and ask for his guidance and help. The Lord has a plan and if we make sure to turn to him he will guide us in the direction that He wants us to go.


This lesson WAS DEFINITELY FOR ME!! Kaj and I have been having a really hard time trying to figure out what direction we should go with Ryker and his dad. This lesson was a great reminder to me that Nephi had to be PRO ACTIVE, he had to do ALL that HE could before the Lord stepped in to help. Heavenly Father didn't just bring food to Lehi and his family, or magically fix the broken steal bow. Nephi had to show faith, he had to go out and find wood, he had to build his own bow and arrow and even after that he still had to go to his Father in Heaven to get the guidance he needed so he could find food. It reminded me that I need to have Faith in Heavenly Father and his plan for our family, I need to remember that things don't always happen in "my time" but they do happen when the time is right. I also learned that most importantly I need to be PRO ACTIVE!! GO AND DO!! I know that Heavenly Father is just itching to give me the answers that I desire but before he can do that I need to go to him, in prayer, in studying, in the temple. I need to make a decision and then I need I need to Do all that I can and he will show me the direction that we need to go :) What a blessing it is to know that we have a Father in Heaven who loves us and who is with every step of the way in the crazy journey called LIFE:) .... and a special thanks to my AMAZING friend Ash, she was a great listning ear for me this week and she reminded me to focus on myself and what I AM DOING, to endure, and to have FAITH!! LOVE YOU ASH!!

Activity: I knew the boys would LOVE the bow and arrows so I decided to make that our activity. Uncle Trevor and Coby showed up for the fun and the boys were soo excited to show off there new "skills" :) The boys each got there own bow and arrow set (probably the most exciting thing EVER for them), and I set up some targets for them to shoot at.. Each of the targets had a question on the back pertaining to the story and the boys had to answer the question before they could move on. Once they hit all the targets they got to go outside and shoot there bow and arrows until there little hearts were content... :) (it was a LONG day of bows and arrows, lets just say that )


Treat: the boys were soo excited to go out and play they didn't even ask or miss the treat that I forgot to prepare:)
                                                   Let the picture OVERLOAD begin!! :)

This is our door of targets :) I didn't think about putting the questions on a separate piece of paper and taping them to the back until after I had already written on some of them, so you can see the questions through the paper.. oh well ;)

 

This happy little guy is getting over his double ear infection and he's been a much happier baby to be around the last couple days.. :) SOO CUTE!!

Seriously Dugi cracks me up!! Just chillin, "reading" the questions, at least that's what he said he's doing.

Him and Kynlie wanted to poke the targets all morning long

that is until he found out he could shoot at them!! :)

Look at that happy little face!

Bri was SERIOUSLY over the moon!! He has been wanting to shoot these for an ENTIRE WEEK!! :)

Kynlie liked playing with the balls on the end of the arrows.. Who could blame her, looks like fun!! :)

Bri picking his target and answering his question.. Him and Ryker knew the story a lot better than I thought :)

 

ACTION SHOT!!! Ryker the PRO is in the house!!

He wanted Dad to help him shoot it FAST!! :) Not in the house dude, these bad boys put holes in grandma's walls when she was testing them out!

This is what Pipa thought of the Bow and Arrow. You and me both girlfriend! :o)

Victory "fist pump" ... LOVE IT, and love his toothless smile :)

The day got even better when GRANDMA showed up!! The boys couldn't wait to show her "how good they were" :)

Grandpa holding down the babies!! He's good at that, and lately he is Kynlie's and Tui's favorite!

Briyler doing it all by himself.. He was soo excited!

Love these 2 crazy boys!!! and I especially love seeing them smile!

Grandma and Grandpa get lots of snuggles when they come over :) Kynlie was mad at me for getting my camera to close to her... apparently she didn't want to have her picture taken.

So you ask who enjoyed these bows and arrows more, Dad/Uncle Coby or the Boys... I'm going with it might be pretty equal.. These 2 stayed outside shooting at a box target for A WHILE!! :)

While these boys had to "wait there turn" ... nice work dad:)

Kynlie hanging out with the boys, but not wanting anything to do with the shooting.

Finally its Rykers turn!

Dugi was over it a long time ago, he just wanted to slide on the NEW play set we got this week.. (for free might I add... the kids are in LOVE with this too!)

Uncle Coby torturing Kynlie, all he has to do is pick her up for her to have a temper tantrum.. Gotta love the terrible 2's..

Dugi however loves when they pick him up to play :)

This is what FHE looks like with the FAM!!

and this is where the 2 little ones sit when they want to join in the "adult" conversations:)

 

Sooo fun to have the family over.. The kids really love being around them and it makes it soo much more fun for them to answer the questions and show grandma and grandpa what they learned.. This might be a hard one to top!! :O) and actually it might be re done in the NEAR future, when all of the cousins get here for the summer.. Shooting is right up there alley.. :)

 

 

FHE with Grandpa Craig and Rykers REWARD :)

I had a SUPER fun FHE planned for this week but the weeks seem to be getting shorter and SHORTER :) We had a PLEASANT SURPRISE show up Thursday night, (the night we were supposed to have FHE), and then Friday was Rykers school performance and the "daddy date night" that I PROMISED Ryker he would get if he ate ALL of his lunch for a SOLID (3 days), THAT IS HUGE FOR HIM, so we decided to save our Fun activity for next week. Are you wondering what or WHO that pleasant surprise was?, well it was GRANDPA CRAIG (aka "the policeman grandpa")!!! Grandpa was driving through so we decided to meet up with him for a quick dinner. :O) Burger King is super close and has a play place for the kids so that's where we decided to go. The kids had a great time, playing on the jungle gym and Kaj and I enjoyed catching with Dad. I was soo focused on my food and the conversation that I didn't get any pictures of the kids having a good ol' time on the play set. Darn it! It was fun to see Ryker being such a great helper though, he walked around following Kynlie and Dugi and helping them around and up the stairs so they could go down the slide ... such a great big brother!

Of course before we could leave dinner we had to get a picture on the motor cycle!!! This is the kids FAVORITE THING EVER.. They love sitting on it and they really love watching Grandpa ride it, don't get that confused with them riding it, if they even hear the sound of grandpa getting out the keys when they are on it they make a run for it!! :) Way to loud and "scary" for them right now.. I'm ok if it stays that way forever, can we say DANGEROUS (especially if they have even an ounce of there Dad in them.. He let his "wild side" as a young adult come out when he was on his motor cycle..)

Ryker loving the "cycle"

Bri was soo excited when grandpa told him he could get on with his "best friend":)

Mom with grandpa and the kids

Dad is way better at doing this :)

BYE BYE to the jungle gym :( the kids were NOT HAPPY about this..

 

Friday morning was the end of the year Dance performance for the Ryker.. It was soo hard to get pictures during the performance but here is Ryker in his "men in black" get up.. :) They did a super cute dance and Ryker knew pretty much all the moves.. He ROCKED IT!!! and because we promised a super fun day for eating his lunches, I checked him out of school and let him have the WHOLE day to play outside.. That is A PERFECT day for this kid! :)

When I first tried to make the deal with Ryker I asked him what he would want in exchange for him eating his lunches and he told me ALL he wanted was to be able to see the movie "iron man 3" .. THIS IS SOOO NOT MY STYLE but I promised him that Dad would take him, if that's what he wanted.. (I mostly promised it because I was pretty convinced that there was NOTHING IN THIS WORLD that was going to motivate him enough to eat his FULL lunch, and by that I mean a full PB&J) .... We are going on month 3 of him coming home with his lunch box full and not even a bite out of his sandwich. GRRRR, I have given him EVERY consequence under the sun, including making him eat the sandwich for dinner, and NOTHING HAS WORKED... Well he showed me up, he ate his lunch 3 days in a row so I couldn't go back on my promise now... Dad took the boys to see the 7:30 showing of "Iron man" and THEY LOVED IT!! Glad they got it out of there system because movies like that aren't happening again! :) Its G and PG for those kiddo's :O)!!

Way past there bedtime!

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