Teaching: If the Savior Stood Beside Me in Singing time

I'm subbing again this week. The children are starting on Sunday to learn "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" by Sally DeFord.
When I was the chorister the first year of my calling this was one of the songs for the program. They had already *learned* it when I came in, but come the end of the year and they didn't know it. As a new chorister I was so frustrated. I was having to go back and teach the song and spend tons of time re-learning it. In the end I finally made discrete visuals to show the children during the program.
they said
1-Do, Follow, Live
2-Say, Words, Share, Speak
3- HE, Loves
It was effective but I felt a cop out.
So when the Chorister asked me to sub and to start teaching this song I thought long and hard about doing more than a flip-chart, something that would make an impression on them.
"Too bad I can't have a life-size Jesus standing there next to them" I thought, and then it hit me, maybe not LIFE SIZE but I wonder how big I could make it out of the roll of butcher paper I own.
I found a coloring page of Christ to trace onto the butch paper. I liked this one. To me being able to find something to trace was important because when I try to draw Christ, my drawing always ends up looking like a scruffy, happy, hippie. I like the non-scary version of this Christ.

Then measured out to go with the box I have. My butcher paper is 1 yard tall and to use with my box I made them 28 inches wide. I cut the face hole in the center at a measured height for a kneeling child. After the first child I measured (age 6 almost 7) I tried a variety of other children (luckily I had a good number of different ages at my house by chance today) all were able to knee to the height just fine. A *really* small sunbeam might now be able to reach while kneeling. From floor to "chin" mine measures 24.5 inches and the forehead is 30 inches (by default then my face is 5.5 inches tall.
My drawn people are pathetic, but they will do the job. I am going to write the words on colored paper separate from the pictures and tape them on, that way I can remove them for memorizing.
There are 5 pictures of each verse. I have only completed the 1st verse. For the photos, I used a photo of me as a baby. Its the only photo I have where the head is anywhere near big enough to almost be life size.

If the Savior Stood Beside Me

Would I do the things I do?

Would I think of His commandments and try harder to be true

Would I follow His example
Would I live more Righteously? 

If I could see the Savior standing Neigh watching over me.

 I thought about doing them on one long sheet of butcher paper and then you could roll it to get it out of the way, but our primary room is small and I didn't think that many in a row would fit in one space.

When I finish I will post the rest
Here is how I plan on splitting the panels for the other verses:
2- If I the savior stood beside me (same picture as the first verse)
 -Would I say the things I say (girl with word bubble with a cloud of scribbles in it)
 -Would my words be true and kind if He were never Far away (picture patting a smaller child's head with word bubble with Hearts in it)
 -Would I try share the gospel?
    Would I speak more reverently (child handing a book of Mormon to another child with a small picture of Christ in word bubble)
-If I could see the savior standing neigh watching over me (same panel as the last for the first verse.
3-He is always near me, though I do not see Him (same as with the first two verse except Christ is so lightly traced, or get a piece of paper to hold over that part of the panel where Christ is)
  -Because he loves me dearly I am in is watchful care (boy with hears all around and faint trace of Christ)
  -So I'll be the kind of person I know I'd like to be (reverent child with hearts and nice words ie kind, loving, righteous, Christ-like, surrounding the child
 -If I could see the Savior standing neigh watching over me (same panel as with the other two verses, nothing changed)

That's the plan. I hope something inspires you from what I'm doing.

18 Months

The girls are now 18 months. Yay for nursery! They turned 18 months on Monday.

11 o'clock church is really hard on the girls. Passing out on the way home from church is becoming a regularly thing. The other days of the week I am trying to get them use to taking a later nap so church won't be so rough.

Making Cookies

We had fun on Monday making us some Valentines Cookies. We then delivered them to our neighbors and friends after a FHE lesson on loving our neighbors. 

Happy Valentines day

and

Happy Birthday Arizona

Designer Darling Round 2

They didn't make any cuts for Round 1. So I am still in. I did get some good feedback and critic. So hopefully that is reflected in my new kit.

This time we were given a story and  two photos as our inspiration.

We were able to make our pallet anything we wanted.

I took inspiration from one of the photos (the pink and purple) and that the story took place in the fall. I decided to created a kit that would be a pink, purple, girly fall kit.

And this is what I came up with...

Sweet Fall

Again you'll have to go to the STS site and the Designer Darling forum to snag my kit. Everything just *clicked* for me while making it. I started Sunday night after getting back from Sunday dinner with my in-laws and finished it about 2AM Arizona time. Because when you're on a creative roll you don't want to go to bed. (And when all your children are in bed, you don't want to waste the time).

STS LINK TO THE DOWNLOAD
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I hope you like it, Please let me know what you think.

Also please vote for me when the polls open on Thursday!

I will have coordinating freebies all the rest of the week on my other blog
http://scrapingarizonagirl.blogspot.com/

Officially Employed AGAIN!!!

I am so happy for our family and especially for my husband. Now our world can finally start to get some "normalcy" again. Oh I have missed schedules. He started back to work January 28th

Designer Darling Contest

Designer Darlings are on its way at Stuff to Scrap. I decided to give it a try because I know it is going to be good for me. I wanted to "play along" but I know myself well enough that if I didn't actually commit to it then I wouldn't get a round to it.

The starting color pallet was:

And what I made was this kit I named: Spring Fun

To download this kit for FREE

all you have to do is

CLICK ON THIS LINK

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to STS and then the link to the download is there.

While at STS PLEASE VOTE FOR ME

Vote HERE

By rules of the game I can't put the link to the download straight here.

But if you explore that forum there are lots of great kits for free also with the same color pallet.

There are more FREEBIES to go with my kit at my scrapbooking blog

http://scrapingarizonagirl.blogspot.com/

Check it out.

Please don't forget to VOTE

Vote HERE

Thank-You

Trip to Texas: Mills mall in Grapevine

Yes a mall is not a "fun" vacation activity for little children. But considering we don't live near a big mall like this they were at least interested.

I have never done those carts you pay for, it just seems silly to me. but we got in there and things started to get crazy and we thought maybe they would think it was more fun..... I guess so.

Cory had a walk down memory lane when he found a Games Workshop store in the mall.

And then we thrilled our son's heart when we told him he could pick any candy he wanted in a candy store. There is a reason we use the expression "like a kid in a candy store" because it is a very true statement and probably universal. Then we took our candy and started toward our next destination. 

Trip to Texas: the Great Wolf Lodge

I had only seen this resort on GroupOn. And when we were looking for things to do my husband found them on a list of great things to do with toddlers. 

Great Wolf Lodges are a chain of resorts that have an indoor water park. For those from the Arizona area, the indoor park is on the scale of SunSplash. It also have an outdoor section for the summer and good weather. It wasn't open while we were there.

It has a huge area for smaller children. And a bunch of slides for older children and adults. It has a hot tub area for adults only and a wave pool and lazy river for guest of all ages. I was impressed with out much water area there was to do.

Al though he was in heaven, but the girls.... took a while to be okay with being in the water. I do feel that by the end of the visit they were enjoying their water time, but they still didn't want to stay in all the time.

The girls were so cute in their suites. If you ever do something like this, or do public swimming areas in general bring colored swim clothing for boys and girls make spotting children so much easier.

The girls favorite part was chill'in on the chairs with their 

water bottles. 

Al was big enough to stay up late and go to story time both nights we were there. After story time the second night Violet the Wolf was there to meet and greet the kids. Him and I got ice cream too while we waited for story time.

By the end of each day our children were so tired. They could hardly stay awake to eat dinner.

Overall we had a bunch of fun. The food was expensive and not impressive at all. But for the winter deal we were able to get it wasn't too bad of a price for what we got. I don't think I could ever go and spend their "normal" full price. It just sounds way too expensive for the fact that they are going to nickle and dime you, just like any resort, to do any of the extras. In a way I've been spoiled by the cruising experience of a resort like feel. Where sure extras are extra but there is so much already included that you don't actually need a many of the extras. We will probably do it again someday, maybe in 2-3 years when Al will be big enough to ride the large slides. Maybe we can talk my sister's family into going with us.... maybe.

Trip to Texas: Children's Aquarium at Fair Park Dallas

With my husband starting a new job we took the week before he started and went on a road trip. We decided on going east since we seem to always be going west and to Disneyland. We did a lot a research to see what there is to do in the winter time west of Arizona but still in driving distance. 

We decided on going to the Dallas area and to the Great Wolf Lodge. Its only a 13 hour drive from where we live. We've gone to Salt Lake City before and that is 14 hours from where we live why not Texas.

The first thing we do once in Dallas was we went to the Children's Aquarium at the Fair grounds.

I just have to point out that the whole area are gorgeous art deco buildings. Including the aquarium.

The girls enjoyed themselves, but not as much as Al. He LOVED it. He has been into ocean predators lately and this was perfect for him. Sting Rays, and sharks, and Alligators OH MY

We gave in and each child got a toy. Yes occasionally we are push over parents. We are much more so when on vacation than otherwise. Plus we justified it because we didn't plan ahead and bring car toys with us.

And in the same park area is the stadium that the cotton bowl is played. I found that exciting. It was a must to get my picture in front of it.