We still have school?

It started to snow before seminary on Thursday morning.  My kids were hoping that school would be cancelled, but no such luck.  Alan and I went to the music concert at YG elementary, and listened to our kids sing and play instruments (but that is for a different post), and wondered if they were going to have school all day because it was still snowing.  I figured they might have a problem getting the kids all home if it didn't let up.  My sister, Kim, checked her kids out of school early and left our weekly craft day just before lunch, because she did not want to be caught away from home in a storm.  I went to the elementary school at lunch time for OBOB (Oregon Battle of the Books - I am coaching the team again this year), and they were having indoor recess, but they were not going to end school early.  The roads were starting to get bad, but our school district used up all their snow days and then some when it snowed in December.  They had to get rid of several scheduled furlough days to make up for the week we missed.  If they miss any more days this year, they will have to add them on to the end of the school year - and they are trying to avoid that.  With Friday being a no school day anyway (grading day), I knew they were hoping to hold out on Thursday.  They did cancel all after school activities though.  Alan's work sent everyone home around 2pm because of the storm, so he went and picked up the kids after school.  All the sports and dance practices, games and school activities were cancelled, so we watched movies and spent time together as a family.  The kids finally decided that they wanted to play in the snow after dinner.  I don't know why they waited until dark, but I got a few pictures. (Leilani didn't go outside because she was trying to work ahead so she could take the day off of school on Friday and play with everyone)

They decided to try and take a jumping picture.  It took us a few tries to get everyone jumping at the same time.

They all got ready at the same time...

 but they didn't all get in the air at the same time.


Finally we did it!


Benjamin lined his boots with plastic bags (you can see it in the pictures if you look close), to keep his feet warmer and drier.  He said it worked, so he gets points for being creative.

 

 It was pretty outside.  The falling snow looked like stars in the sky, and it was very peaceful.

 

 

Fancy Hair

Elisabeth is lucky enough to have an older sister who loves to do hair.  Leilani likes to try out new ideas she finds on anyone who will let her try.  Elisabeth was feeling pretty fancy in the new dress Grandma Bevans gave her for Christmas, so she asked Leilani to do her hair.  This is the fancy updo that Leilani created.

Emily Plays Trumpet

I played the clarinet until I graduated from high school.  When Leilani started band in 6th grade, I was excited to have her play my clarinet.  Alan played trombone in the band, and he was hoping she would want to play the trombone.  Instead she chose the French horn, and she definitely can make that instrument play.  When Emily started band in 6th grade, I was excited to have her play my clarinet, and Alan hoped she would play the trombone.  She decided to play trumpet, and she is really enjoying it.  She is first chair this year in the 8th grade band.  She has had some solos and duets at her concerts, and she does a good job.  Here are some pictures from her most recent concert.

 

Elisabeth starts 6th grade next year, so Alan and I have hope that maybe she will choose to play one of the instruments that we played.  But maybe she too will have a mind of her own!

Primary 2 CTR A Lesson 12 Preparing For Baptism

I skipped from lesson two up to lesson 12 on Sunday.  The manual suggests teaching the lessons on baptism and the Holy Ghost before any of the kids in your class get baptized.  Since I have the CTR 7 class, many of my kids will turn 8 this year.  Since I have 3 kids slated to be baptized on Feb 1st, I decided that I better skip ahead and teach those lessons, and then go back and catch up on the ones I skipped.  So we did lesson 12 on Preparing For Baptism in the Primary 2 CTR A manual last Sunday.  It turned out very well.  The kids were excited about the activities and the handout.

 

I had seen the handout at the back of the manual come home with my older kids in previous years.  But I never realized the significance of all the symbols.  I found someone who had put the symbols and what they mean on feet.  So instead of just putting down feet that I had drawn, as the manual suggests, I printed out these feet and put them down for the kids to walk on after we discussed the principle and symbol on each one.  I visited 3 of my kids after church, and these feet made it easy to give them a quick overview of the lesson they missed.  I just gave them one of the print outs from the back of the manual, went through the feet to tell them what each symbol was, and then gave them my handout.  They were each pretty excited that I came over, and I think their parents were too.

You can use the following link to find the feet downloads :  https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxBEjfFre9jybWdSYmVkTWJ3TlE/edit  They are shown on this blog:  http://murrayandmathews.blogspot.com/2011/12/primary-2-lesson-12.html

 

For the kids in my class on Sunday, after we had the lesson with the feet (footsteps towards baptism), I traced each of their feet on a piece of paper and then they colored, cut out, and glued the symbols from the handout in the lesson manual onto their traced feet.  I had 8 kids there, but drawing around their feet went pretty quickly.  Since it is the 6 and 7 year olds, both their feet fit on one piece of paper.  I decided that they would probably remember the idea of the footsteps towards baptism better if the pictures were on feet, instead of just on a Xerox paper.  It also made it more meaningful to them, because they were all pretty proud of their feet!

 

 

 

 

These are the pages that I put into their CTR book this week  ( see this post: http://alan-walker-family.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-year-new-goals-new-calling.html      and this link:  http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7918&Itemid=200018

 

They only colored the picture on this one.  I am going to laminate it and put it into the book blank.  I am going to give them a dry erase marker with the book at the end of the year, and then they can do the puzzles as quiet activities over and over again.

These three with the blue border are from the baptism book I mentioned in the above blog post.  It can be found here:  http://www.theideadoorfiles.com/index.php/quite-book-s-4-x-6-photo-book-s/141-quite-book-s/quite-book-s-4-x-6-photo-book-s/290-baptism-book-4-x-6-photo-cards

 

We put the first two in the book on Sunday.  The last one (What is Baptism) I am going to have them fill out together at the beginning of class this Sunday as a review of baptism before we start the lesson on the Holy Ghost, and then we will put it in the book.

 

I did the Kit Kat baptism handout found here - http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8467 - for the kids to take home.  They were easy, and turned out cute.  The kids were excited, and they even saved the baptism wrapper, taking it off very carefully.

 The wrappers are set up to be used on regular size Kit Kat bars (with 4 pieces inside).

 The 4 pieces go along with the 4th article of Faith listed on the back of the wrapper.

 

It was a fun handout to prepare, and the kids were excited that I was actually giving them a candy bar.  I didn't let them eat them in class, though, because I didn't want to make any parents mad.  They took them home, and no one has complained yet.

 

I think they learned something, because Ben taught our Family Home Evening lesson this week (he is in my primary class), and he used the stuff we learned in class to do a lesson on baptism. He did a great job, and remembered the things we had talked about pretty well.  It is hard for me to believe he is going to be baptized in a few weeks.

 

 

 

Ice Skating

My kids went ice skating for the first time the day after Christmas.  They went with their cousins and Aunt Alli.  I didn't skate with them, because my foot is still healing, but I took lots of pictures.  The kids really had a good time, and they all decided that they loved it!

At first, they all hugged the wall.  Emily didn't even go out on the ice.  She decided that she didn't want to skate, so she spent the first hour watching with Grandma.

 

 

 There were lots of falls, but they started to look pretty good out there.

There was a break midway for the Zamboni to resurface the ice.  After that, Emily decided that she was going to come out and try it too.

 She turned out to be a natural.

 When we were done, the kids were all smiles, and wanting to know when we could go again!

 When Benjamin got his skates off, this is what I saw.  I don't know why those socks are even still around (and I'm sure they hadn't been washed in a while), but we promptly disposed of them when we got home!

Danny and Benjamin were so excited about skating, that they were exclaiming that it was "even better than Wii."  So I had to get that on video, because they LOVE their video games!

If you want to see more pictures, or any of the videos, they have been uploaded to my Flikr account.  I have found that is the easiest way for me to share pictures and video of family members.  The pictures are just too big to email these days.  My account can be found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/96927049@N02/  However, because of all the kids in them, these pictures and videos are only set up to allow family members to see them.  If you are immediate family, you have already received an invitation to join my account at some point.  If you aren't, and want to see the pictures, let me know and I will email you an invite.

 

 

 

New Year, New Goals, New Calling

I want to change so many things in my life in 2014, that it could end up being overwhelming.  I have to keep reminding myself that the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.  I am trying to clean and declutter my house, one closet and drawer at a time, but I look around in despair because I swear it looks messier instead of cleaner each day.  But, we are getting rid of bags and bags of things, so it has to start coming together sometime...right?  I just wish I could motivate my kids to want to help clean.  Right now, my best helper is my 18 month old!   Kinda sad.

On the bright side, I am loving my new primary calling.  I was called in November to teach the CTR 5 and 6 combined class.  I was able to move up with them this year, so now I am teaching the CTR 6 and 7 class.  I have 11 active kids, and several others that I would love to see come out.  I have Benjamin in my class, along with Danny and Johanna (nephew and niece).  I have found some really cool things to go along with the lessons in the manual, so I think I will blog here each week what I am doing, along with links, in case anyone else wants to use the resources I have found.

I gave each of the kids in my class a Gospel ABC book for Christmas.  I found one that a lady had put together from pictures in the gospel art kit.  I was able to find a 1 cent photo sale, printed the pages as 4x6 pictures, put them in plastic photo album sleeves, and put the sleeves on a metal ring.  Easy, fairly inexpensive, and the kids love them!  You can find the link for the free download here:

http://www.theideadoorfiles.com/index.php/quite-book-s-4-x-6-photo-book-s/141-quite-book-s/quite-book-s-4-x-6-photo-book-s/292-gospel-abc-book-4-x-6-size

Here are some pictures of how mine turned out:

This year I found a lady who has done 3x5 handouts for every lesson in our CTR A Primary Manual 2.  So I am using them each week, plus adding a few 4x6 pages of my own to supplement what she has done.  I put them on rings for the kids each week, and over the course of the year we will build another gospel book for them to have.  Here is what we have so far:

 I added the words to this song from a baptism book download (found here: http://www.theideadoorfiles.com/index.php/quite-book-s-4-x-6-photo-book-s/141-quite-book-s/quite-book-s-4-x-6-photo-book-s/290-baptism-book-4-x-6-photo-cards ) because we sing it in several lessons.  Those who can read follow along as we sing.

The kids are enjoying this, and most of her pages are taken from The Friend magazine.  You can find her pages here: http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7918&Itemid=200018

The first Sunday, it had us make a CTR poster, and have the kids color CTR shields.  So, I found a poster that someone had put together with a picture of Jesus  (by Melissa Dillon - #14 on this page  http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=749&Itemid=200018  )

and strung the CTR shields together that the kids colored.  I use the poster and the CTR banner every week now to set up the classroom.  The kids LOVE to see their shields up on the wall each week!