Pick-Up-Sticks

I found these wood Pick-Up Sticks at Target over a year ago. I've been trying to decide HOW to use them during a singing time. Although I am not entirely thrilled with my concept- in all this time I haven't thought of anything else. Anyone out there- What would you do for a Singing Time with Pick-Up Sticks?

Here is what I am planing on doing tomorrow with SR primary. (I don't plan on doing with with JR primary because there are way too many sunbeams who do not have the coordination to play Pick-Up Sticks.) I might later do it with JR primary and just have them draw the sticks blindly, instead of actually playing pick-up sticks with them.

I took out the green and the black, only leaving the pick, orange (looks like yellow), and blue sticks. Various boxes come with different colors but they should all contain the same number of sticks (10 of each except black there is only one). That way there are 30 sticks that we are playing with, after all there is noway we are going to go through 30 songs.

• Pink- They get to pick a song to sing of their choice
• Yellow- Draw a song from the song jar, since there are 30 yellow sticks we need 30 songs slips in the song jar, I plan on putting multiples of "I Know That My Savior Loves Me", since that is the song we need to practice singing right now.
• Blue- There will be a second jar to draw from, this is a mystery jar. They won't know what they are getting. It could be any of the following: a gospel trivia question, a name that tune, a pianist's choice, their teacher's choice, Primary President's choice (or Presidency's choice), they get to choose another child to pick their favorite song, anything can go here think about your primary and see what you come up with.

As state previously, I am going to have the SR primary actually play Pick-Up Sticks. For any of you out there that haven't played or don't remember how to play here is a brief description: First you will place the sticks on the table (I know for the kids in the back it will be really hard to see, but that is the nature of the sticks), a child will come forward, they get to choose a stick and try to pick it up without making any of the other sticks move. If a stick moves then they have to put the stick back and return to their seat. If the successfully pull the stick out of the pile, then they get to do whatever the color they pulled out allows.

This could be done with the Jenga/Tumbling Tower blocks (or a wannabe). Instead of the color code you could just have a mystery jar, and if the child pulls it out successfully then they would get to draw from the jar. I'm sure there are lots of other games out there that could use this concept ( a basketball hoop, ring toss, Operation). So we'll see how well SR primary does this activity tomorrow.

The SR primary got really into playing this game. But I was (and I think the children were too) surprised just how hard it actually was. In some ways this made them get more into it because it was even more of a challenge, but it also made it a little less reverent. We then ended up singing less songs than normal because it took about 4 children to come forward before one of them successfully pulled out a stick. If I was to do this again I would put the sticks down with more outlying and easier to pull off.

Check Out My Artical on Another Blog

I submitted a person story to The Cloth Diaper Whisper, and they published it. Check out my story, "He Was the One..."

Simply Memzelle

These are so darling. They make me wish I had a little girl to put them on.They do have adult sizes I could ware too. My sister and her sister-in-law started this business. I think the name they chose is too cute too, Simply Memzelle. Memzelle means 'fashionable young girl'.

To get some publicity they are having a raffle to WIN A FREE headband of your choice-- TO ENTER- to to their website and store, take a look around. Then leave a comment of which headband is your favorite. Entries close Feburary 28th. Their website is simplymemzelle.com

Don't forget to become a fan of Simply Memzelle on Facebook

Cloth Diapers and Baby Legs

We've been doing cloth diapers since Baby Al was born. I was amazed at the selection of types of cloth diapers out there. I have also been amazed at how little care they take compared to what I thought they would be. Once you get into all the types of cloth diapers it can be very addictive.

We've recently started using Baby Legs. They are baby leg warmers. Just too cute. They keep his little legs warm while still giving you easy access to change their diapers.

Focused Activity: I Know That My Savior Loves Me

Sorry I didn't post this sooner, it only came to me until last night. I used the labels from this Primary Singing Ideas blog. I liked the idea, but I wasn't sure I wanted to do it with this song. Then the idea came of using the tags to put the lines in order. I made up some numbers. Then taped them to a large piece of cardboard. I placed tacks on the cardboard on each number. I cut out the tags and tied ribbon (cheap ribbon that is used to wrap presents).How will we do it?First, we will review the song. Sing it through a few times. Second, a child will choose one of the tags. If the child doesn't know right away we will sing the song through. I will hold my fingers up as we sing, numbering as we go. When we are done singing

I will ask the children what number was the line we just sang. Then we will place the tag, hanging it on the tack of the number it belongs to. Repeat until all the tags are on the board with their number.

Today (24 Jan), I plan on doing this with the SR primary. With JR primary we are going to work on the melody, reviewing the 1st verse, and learn the 2nd verse.

2nd & 3rd Weeks of Weight Watchers.

Week 2-

As I wrote before I made the goal to eat as many of my points everyday, without going over. I know there is no requirement that I eat all my points everyday. However, I made this goal for two reasons 1- I noticed my milk levels decrease on days when I did not eat at least 3/4 of my daily points 2- It was suggested that I gained weight because I was not eating all my points. I achieved this goal. In fact, once you get eating its hard to stop yourself from going over your points. But maybe it helped. I lost the pound that I gained the first week.

Week 3-

I was very lucky while I was expecting. Already being over weight, I had worried about gaining excess weight. I gained mostly only what I needed, and was basically "pre-baby" weight. Although there was this 5 lbs I fluxuated to the "pre-baby" weight and back up, over the past few months. I couldn't seem to get my weight to go back below that "pre-baby" weight. On top of that none of my pre-baby cloths fit me. For week 3 I lost 3 lbs, finally making my weight go just below that "pre-baby" mark for the first time. Still don't fit into any of my cloths, but seeing that weight again makes me feel like I've made progress. Since I've NEVER had success on any weight program I've been on-this makes me smile.

Rain Drops Falling on My Head

Rain Rain you came today (and yesterday and the day before that and the day before that). I normally love it when you come, but not this week. I know we need you Rain, but my roof is no leaking, oh rain rain what am I to do with you.

The house had some water damage when we purchased the house, the bank fixed the ceiling prior to us getting the keys, and the house inspector said that the roof had had some problems, but that they had been repaired. Grrrr

Grandma

We live only a few miles from my in-laws. I am so grateful we live so close to them (family and living close to them is important to me), and that they get to spend time with Baby Al (and I'm not just talking about babysitting). But my parents live up in Mesa. We only get to see them once a month or so. My mom is always talking about how she never gets to spend time with her grandbaby. So every time we go up to Mesa I try to make sure she gets her Grandma time.

'Welcome to Primary' Singing Time

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have a lot of Sunbeams. These little Sunbeams have been singing with me over the past few months in nursery. Although they have been doing wonderful and trying so hard for me, they seem a little lost. We haven't been singing the songs we use to sing. To make them feel more comfortable, we are going to have a fun day where we are going to sing all the songs we use to sing in nursery. This is also a great activity for my sub to do while I am out of town this coming Sunday. The songs I've chosen are: 'I Am A Child of God', 'Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam', 'Popcorn Popping', 'I Love to See the Temple', 'My Hands', 'Quickly I'll Obey', 'Once There Was A Snowman', 'In the Leafy Tree Tops', 'Do As I'm Doing', 'Follow the Prophet', 'Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes'. These are all songs we sang in nursery. I might of considered doing a couple of the secular songs if I had sheet music for the pianist. I wrote the songs on the back of my "Sunbeam" Suns.

Deer

We live in such a unique place. We live in the desert, yet we are at the foot of mountains that go up to 8000 ft. We get a range of wild life around us. Yesterday while we were on our way to join my husband for lunch we saw these beautiful creatures. I couldn't help but to stop and admire their majesticness.

Gospel Art Books

The new Gospel Art Books are wonderful and have a ton of pictures in them. Last week when I started teaching 'I Know That My Savior Loves Me'. I opened it up and found a wonderful picture to use to do an introduction to the song. I like the spiral but I'm very tempted to laminate each picture so they will last me longer over time. I haven't decided. I got a laminating machine for Christmas and I don't know what I should cover first. Back to the Art book. You get them at or through Distribution Services and I think they were $3.50 each. That is so much more affordable than that $25 packs. Yes you get more picture with the larger packs, but this is just as useful.

1st Week of Weight Watchers

Well because I'm nursing I have an outrageous number of points. I found it hard to eat all my points. In fact the only day I actually achieved in eating all my points was the one day I made us go out for ice cream to use our weekly points. I don't want to eat stuff-just to eat my points but that is what I feel like I am being told to do. Weight Watchers is surprising easy if 1-you are trying to eat healthy overall anyway, and 2- if you aren't eating fast food. Fast food eat up all your points. If I wanted to I could just eat out every day and then I'd have no problem using all my points, but that would defeat the purpose of doing this in the first place. Anyway, typically when I try to loose weight (no matter the method) I tend to gain weight at first and over time. This last week was no exception for me. On the other hand my husband lost 7 lbs in just a week of Weight Watchers. Typical. Well I'm not giving up. If nothing else I am doing this to help my husband stay on track with it. It is always easier to do something if you aren't doing it alone.

I've started another blog to post recipes and reviews of low point recipes. Check it out: wwptcooking.blogspot.com

Felicity's Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Felicity!

She had her birthday party on Saturday. We went up to join the celebration. It was Baby Al's first time actually playing on the park. He didn't know what to do with himself, but he wanted to play. He wanted me to let him play in the sand but I wasn't ready to clean sand out of his mouth.

He want down the slide for the first time- only to cry when he got to the bottom. He was also very interested in the balloons. I can't remember if he has seen balloons before.

HIVES

First-- I have started a blog to have a place for the mothers who share my hive problem after having a baby. There are more of us than I originally even thought. I'm trying to collect lists of how many and who you are so that some day I might be able to do some research on this problem. On this blog I will share my progress, articles I find, and stories from other women who are suffering from the same problem. This blog is postpartumhives.blogspot.com. If you have had this problem or know someone who has please check it out and refer it to others.

Second-- I haven't taken my Zyrtec for two days and although I am itchy- I have not had an outbreak of hives. Yeah maybe this is the beginning of the end for my hives.

This morning my hives came back. Darn it. But that was the longest I'd gone without taking my meds and not getting hives.

Sunbeams and Nursery

I was reading on another sister's blog about her 36 sunbeams. I can relate-we have 32 (if they are all there). They have been a huge group in nursery. Quite overwhelming to the leaders and finding enough people to call and get in there. When the nursery book came out in 2008 I was told that they no longer wanted me to go into nursery. That music time would be done entirely by the nursery leaders. I had been calls a few weeks prior and had gone in once or twice at this point. I was relieved that I no longer had to think of how to spend my time in there (it was a stressful thing to add to my new calling). When the year ended and starting in January we had a large group of Sunbeams come in I felt the same stress trying to get my new little Sunbeams to sing. They just didn't. I kept comforting myself with- 'at least they are looking at me and I have their attention', this was because all they did was stare up at me. I struggled all year to get them to sing for me and just near the end of the year I was beginning to make some progress. After having a conversation with the Primary Pres about how I use to go into nursery when I was first call she mentions that the new nursery leader would like it if I spent a few minutes each week with the kids. I'm feeling much more comfortable with my calling and this wasn't as overwhelming to think about. Before going in I decided that I was going to sing mostly songs from the Children's Songbook with them and maybe only one secular song each week. I was also determined that we'd end each Singing time in nursery with singing 'I Am a Child of God'. It was back in August that I started going in. It was chaotic at first, but over time it become a 'little' less so (it never stops being chaotic). We sing the chorus to 'Follow the Prophet', 'Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam', and end with 'I Am a Child of God' every week. With a few other songs: 'Popcorn Popping', 'Once there was a snowman', 'Ring Around the Rosy'. I didn't realize what an impact on all these Sunbeams I had been making until last Sunday when they came into Primary for the first time. We sang 'I Am a Child of God' for the opening song and EVERY Sunbeam was singing. They were awesome. This week and last week they have been so good for me (and that is saying a lot considering how many there are). They are trying so hard and are trying to sing. I really think that all the difference has been made from the time I spent each Sunday in nursery. They know me and they know that when I am there its time to sing. I encourage all you singing leaders to spend a few Sunday's each month popping into nursery for a few songs. I know that it has made a difference in our Sunbeam's transition and I believe it will make a difference for your Sunbeams too. Another idea is to spend a few minutes during the Sunbeam's class time popping into their classes. This idea was proposed to me last year and I only did it a few times. Sometimes the Sunbeam classes have a lot of time left over and their teachers are really grateful for reverent things to fill the remainder of the time. This could be a perfect time to teach them some of the songs from last year, or give them a bit of specialized attention on one of the songs from this year. With my Sunbeams last year we worked on singing 'Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam' without jumping up. Sunbeams are GREAT!!

Baby Sleep Sack

As it has got colder We've realized that even in Arizona it gets cold enough at night for baby to be cold. Problem is baby thrashes around and pushes off his blankets. I have seen pics for these baby sleeping sacks or buntings or baby bags. They look easy enough and low and behold I already had a pattern. Although I made a number of alterations, for one the pattern was for newborns and for two it was ment to go over the baby's shoulders like overalls. I adjusted. I've made him two now. A plain red (had the material left over from our tree skirt last year) and an ASU (Arizona State University- GO DEVILS). The red one I made more of his current size and the ASU I made to last until he is around 3. My nephew could fit into it. We use them at night and sometimes on days when its really cold too. It makes me happy when I can be handy.

January: I Know That My Savior Loves Me

Started teaching this song last week. I had a hard time trying to decide how to teach it. Every time I sat down to work on brainstorms I came up blank. Reading other blog ideas and the suggestion in the 2010 Sharing Time booklet were "nice" ideas. The problem is when I've tried a conceptual teaching, I end up re-teaching the whole song later with another method. Conceptual is nice for introductions to a song, but not for teaching it. In desperation I had found a few pictures, but nothing I felt good about. Sunday morning (since church is now at 10:30am I had some time) I did some more looking about on the internet and found this flip chart. I normally don't like to use the flip charts that are out there because I normally feel they are inadequate. The pictures tend to be small, the type is always too small to read, and often I don't like how many lines are assigned to each picture. I found this flip chart, I liked most of the pictures in this flip chart. I cut out the pictures and printed out new larger phrases. I have this poster board that is laminated (or something like it); it was inheritance from the previous chorister. I taped the pictures and key phrase words to the board. I don't have a picture at the moment- hopefully I will get some taken soon.

2010 Primary Program

I was asked by our Primary President a few weeks ago to pick what we are doing for the songs that we get to pick. I realized that it is now the new year, and although I let the Primary President know what songs- I've never done a post on it.

• JANUARY- "I Know My Savior Loves Me", its it the 2010 guideline book or download it off the church website.
• FEBRUARY- "He Sent His Son" CSB pg 34
• MARCH- "Follow the Prophet" CSB pg 110 We are planing a joint Singing Time/Sharing Time to teach the verses of this song. We will also be doing ASL for the chorus of this song. As we get a little closer I will post a video.
• APRIL- "The Church of Jesus Christ" CSB pg 77 (I belong to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I know who I am, I know God's plan....)
• MAY*- "I Feel My Savior's Love" CSB pg 74 We will be doing ASL to this song.
• JUNE- "The Holy Ghost" CSB pg 105
• JULY- "Come, Follow Me" Hymn book pg 116
• AUGUST*- "I Am a Child of God" CSB pg 2 We are planing to do the first verse twice. On the second time through it will be sung in a language other than English. I haven't decided if it will be Spanish or German (we have a family from Germany in our ward and a number of RMs who served in German, plus we are a military ward so several families have lived in Germany). I also haven't decided if I will be teaching it to all the children or just to a small group who will then sing it in the other language.

What are some of the songs that your Primaries' will be doing for their choice songs? Are any of ya'll doing anything special for any of the songs and the program? Its so hard to get refocused on this years program, since it feels like we just finished the program. I'm hoping to make this year easier on the children so that we can spend more time having some fun activities and more overall reviewing. Last year's group of songs was so heavy and hard for a lot of the children.

We're Starting Weight Watchers (Unofficially)

Happy New Year. New Year marks a good time to make new goals (or renew old ones) and be determined to achieve them. A goal that my husband and I have for this year is to get ourselves to healthy weights. After watching so many other people have success, many of my in-laws among them. My husband and I have been looking at ourselves and feeling like we really need to make changes. My husband's parents unofficially do Weight Watchers. Meaning they count points and such but they don't officially join, pay, and go to meetings. This works really well for them. In evaluating the way that Weight Watchers works we decided that this could work for us.

Our overall Goals:

1. Eat a lot more veggies. Instead of making the main course, our main focus at dinner, we are going to make sure there is always a full veggie side.
2. Exercise 5 days a week. We both realize that with our body types we aren't going to see great or lasting results unless we make exercise a habit in our lives.
3. Potion control. This is a bad habit of ours. We love to eat until we are too stuffed.
4. Eat out less. WE LOVE TO EAT OUT. As single individuals we at out a lot and after getting married breaking that habit has been hard. Over a year and a half of marriage add that to all our lazy habits and we've spend a lot of money not to mention eaten a lot of extra calories.
5. Eat less sugar. I love sweets, and not just sweets-but CHOCOLATE. For years now I have felt that if it’s not chocolate it’s not worth the calories. I need to cut down my intake of sugar. This is probably my biggest fault outside of my lazy habit of not exercising. Many of my family members have done really well losing weight and keeping it off by cutting all natural sugars out of their diets. My mom originally did this because she was convinced that sugar was the cause of her headaches. Sure enough her headaches went away and so did about 15 lbs of baby weight she'd been trying for years to get rid of. I don't know if I could cut sugar completely out of my diet, but I know I need to decrease it.
6. Make from scratch. We are saving to go on a Mediterranean cruise. To do this we've been trying to find ways to decrease our expenditures. We use cloth diapers, eating out less... There are a number of things we've found if we make it from scratch ourselves we save money here and there (Taco and Italian Seasons for example). In addition, we've learned that a lot of these pre-made items have a lot of extra calories from the preservatives.

With all these goals and looking at the way Weight Watchers works we think we should be able to do this. Not only do it but do it long term. We started today. I calculated our daily points and many of our healthy foods we enjoy eating. From an online used bookstore, I ordered 5 Weight Watchers cookbooks. I know there are lots of healthy recipes out there, but I figured I'd be more likely to use something that already had the points calculated for me rather than having to figure it out myself.

We're excited to get healthy again. I'm not normally one for New Years Res. However, since getting married, and especially since having a baby I have found myself getting into a lot of less than desirable habits. Becoming healthy by losing weight and making a lifestyle change is only one of my goals. Good luck with all ya'lls goals, I hope that 2010 is a year for achieving!