Wednesday, April 21, 2010

I Am Like a Star


This has been corrected. Hopefully now it will work. Thanks for letting me know.
So after I did the Suns for Sunbeams I had a request for stars. Maybe this isn't exactly what was in mind, but this is what I made. I hope it works for you.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Sunbeams Suns

I had someone leave a question about the suns I have for my sunbeams and nursery. I thought about it and decided to see if I could use my newly acquired digital artwork skills to make suns for everyone to use. They aren't perfect, but will work, just save them to your computer, print them out, cut them out, laminate if wanted, and place on stick. You're good to go. Hope they work for you. If you have any problems with saving them, you can email me and I will send you the file.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Teaching: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints


The song "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" AKA "I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" is such a fun song to sing. I still remember singing it often back when I was in Primary. I have wanted to make teaching this song different and fun. 
While listening to Elder Uchtdorf's talk, I got inspired (I don't remember what he said or why it inspired me, maybe it was just the Spirit). Also another blogger pointed out that this song emphasizes the action words "believe", "know", "follow", "do" and so on. The combination of Elder Uchtdorf and this sister's blog gave me an idea. Instead of making signs to hold I'm going to have the children 'dress' as the word.
For example these are the words:
"Belong"-- Sports team member- have the child ware a jersey, and/or hold a ball, glove, bat.
"Know"-- Graduate- Graduation hat. I made mine out of construction paper, but you could use an old actual one too, mine is at my parents house.
"Follow"-- Crossing guard- Give the child a crossing guard sign to hold up, maybe a whistle (I wouldn't recommend it unless the whistle is broken). I'm going to try to find a crossing guard reflective vest, but I don't know where to find one. We tried as missionaries to give to our greenie to ware while backing us up and never did, so that part might be a no go. But I made the crossing guard sign out of construction paper and laminated (highly recommend getting one if you can afford to, mine was my Christmas present).
"Believe"-- _____- this one was the hardest for me. Here are some suggestions, I'm not sure what I am going to do for sure yet. 1- Santa hat, 'Do you Believe in Santa?' this one could be dangerous. Some parents loath Santa, having something to do with it in Singing Time might not be a good idea. Not to mention you couldn't make the comparison that we only believe in Santa because he isn't real verse we believe and have Faith in Christ since He is Real. That might get tricky since many little children still believe. 2- I own costume fairy wings. I thought of asking 'Do you believe in fairies?' to start instead. Either of these to complete them have the child hold a picture of Christ and the word FAITH. 3-The safest if you are looking for safe, have a costume ancient robe, and have the child hold a picture of Christ, they are to represent Christ.
"Honor"-- Scout- Bring a scout (cubs or boys) hat and have a child ware it for this line. The other suggestion given by my husband was a solider's outfit or hat. But I figure more children (since most have siblings or are themselves in some level of Scouts) will relate more.
"Do"-- Construction Worker"- have a child ware a hard hat. The idea was a hat associated with work. Another suggestion is -- a Cleaning worker- apron and rubber gloves.
"Proclaim"-- Missionary, I made an Elder and Sister name tags (enlarged) to have a child ware. I plan on having one boy and a girl come up for this one and one hold a picture of Christ and the other a picture of President Monson.
Along with this you could have the children hold up the "keyword" of what they are or the phrase of the song.


Hope ya'll have fun with this song. I can't wait.

Passover and Easter

While I was attending at BYU, I attended an LDS Passover being put on by the religion department. I found this to be such a spiritual experience. The Passover was given to the Jews to turn them toward Jesus, it is full with so many symbols of Christ. After graduating and moving back home, I had my family do Passover for Family Home Evening. Ever since then, the Monday of Passover, my family has done an LDS Passover for FHE. 
This year we were unable to find our official passover script so I tried to find one on the internet. In the end I found this Ensign Article. It follows Passover, but really streamlines it so that it won't take for hours. I modified it by adding some of the modern and ancient symbolism. If you are interested in the adapted that I made, I'd happily email it to anyone who requests it. Otherwise use the Ensign article. My brother's young men group did it one year as a YM activity. 
LDS.org - Ensign Article - Passover Promises Fulfilled in the Last Supper
Sunday, as you all know, was Easter. And what a better Easter could it have been- I love it when General Conference is on Easter. It makes the BEST Easters. Easter was also wonderful with the grandbabies being so cute in their Easter outfits.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Primary Binders

I made binders for all the teachers (with the Primary President's permission and with primary budget funds). They have all of the songs we are doing in them, they are in protective covers, and have a pocket for putting extras in as the Primary President deems the teacher needs them. The idea is, while learning the songs the teachers can follow along and their subs can too. I did them up last year but no where as nice. Also once we have the program completed we will put the program in them and that will be what the teachers follow along with during the program. We figured that the investment was worth making if we use them for a few years and aren't making three extra copies of the music throughout the year. One copy made of the music.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

They Voted

I put it to the SR primary. I gave them each a piece of scratch paper and told them to write their two favorite verses of "Follow the Prophet". I told them that we were going to do the verses of 'Adam' and 'Pres Monson'. But they were going to pick the other two verses. The children have spoken, we are doing 'Enoch' and 'Daniel'. 'Noah' and 'Jonah' came in close but didn't make the cut.


Side Note: the 'Pres Monson' verse is hard to make it fit. We took a bunch of time afterwards to figure out and ended up dropping a word or two to make it fit right with the music.  

Mesa for the Week

My husband had a business conference in California. He was leaving out of Sky Harbor. Since he was making the trip up anyway, why not go with and stay the week with my family. Baby Al gets time with his other grandparents (he sees his daddy's side every Sunday), cousin time, and I get time with my family. Not to mention  all the things I can get done in Mesa that I can't in Sierra Vista.
It was so much fun watching my family play with Baby Al. Especially Grandpa, he loves to play with his boys.

ww-week 10 and 11

I'm now down 16 pounds! Even being up at my parents last week, I was able to still loose 1/2 a lb. Yeah! We've started to ween, so for every feeding I've cut 2 points from my daily diet. We are now at 3 feedings a day, and will be completely weened in less than a month. I'm really feeling the loss of the points. I can't snack as much as I was and every time I each something I am keenly aware that this is one snack that I won't have in a month. I will do it though. I am going to loose this weight.

Grandma and cousins Visit

Grandma, Aunt Kristy, and Baby Al's cousins came down south to visit us. It was spring break (so a few weeks ago at this point) for my sister and my mom is working on her next book, Chocolate Roses (watch for it where LDS books are sold). Chocolate Roses is a parody on Jane Eyre, the main character is a Chocolatier. So my mom wanted to come down to go to Bisbee and visit the Chocolate shop there. I am more than happy to accept visitors anytime they want to journey down to see us.  We had lots of fun.