Christmas Service Countdown Calendar

I am a sucker for Christmas countdowns and advent calendars. So when I saw this DARLING Christmas countdown calendar on controllingmychaos.blogspot.com, I knew it was my destiny to create one for myself. Each day has a laminated piece attached with a magnet that has a good deed behind it. Brilliant! Once again, she has an awesome tutorial so I'll let you check hers out. I ended up getting a board that was bigger than 12x12, that's why I have more of a patchwork look, but I am so so so excited to use it this year :)

Welcoming a new baby...

Ever since I was preparing for the arrival of my 2nd child, I have been trying to come up with ways to involve the other kids and make the event a celebration, rather than an event that throws a stick in their spokes.

Each child gets the baby a small gift. Now I cheat with this one, because there are so many little things you need to get and stock up on, especially if it's not your first and you aren't having a shower to stock up on stuff, I just get the things I would normally buy (ie. bottles, socks, onesies, washcloths, etc.) and let each child choose an item and wrap it. There is something magical about giving a gift...they love it. We exchange these gifts right at the hospital when they all meet each other for the first time.

Baby gets each sibling a small gift. Coloring books, small toys, dollar store stuff...as long as it's wrapped, it works :)

Buy a baby. This works really good for toddler and younger preschooler siblings who don't really get how much their world is about to change. Buy a little baby doll a bit before the baby comes, and use it to teach about how to hold the baby, how to be soft with the baby, how to change the diaper, etc. I don't know if I can give credit to the doll, or if I have just been lucky, but knock on wood, I haven't yet had a problem with the kids being too rough with the new baby. They wait to get rough for at least a couple of months when the baby is big enough to defend him/herself ;)

A Nursing Basket. I got this idea from a friend so long ago, I can't remember for sure which friend it was. But if it was your idea, you know who you are...cuz I don't ;) Get a small basket and fill it with stickers, easy games you can play with one hand or less, a special coloring book/crayons, special toys, etc. This special basket can only be played with when you are nursing the baby, so instead of the younger kids feeling put out and neglected because you are occupied frequently throughout the day, they get excited to play with what's in the basket. I typically only do this for the first couple of months...they figure things out and slowly ween themselves from needing the constant attention during that time. Good stuff.

Make parent/adult time for the other kids in those first few days. My husband is the one that manages this after our kids are born. He brings children's books to the hospital and not only reads to the new baby, but reads to the kids as well. He also makes sure to take the kids to do something fun before I come home from the hospital with the baby. If you aren't in a situation where you can do this, solicit the help of relatives or neighbors to take your kids to the park, $5 pizza, anything where the focus can be on them rather than just the baby.

How to play with your kids...

I just started this book last night, and I think it may very well be my favorite parenting book of all-time. It's entitled "Piggyback Rides and Slippery Slides: How to Have Fun Raising First Rate Children" by Lynnae W. Allred. This book has honestly been an answer to many of my prayers recently, and I can hardly wait for my kids to wake up so I can try some of this stuff on them.

Some of my favorite things I have read so far include:

• How one of her favorite memories with her grandmother was when she took time away from all the many chores she had on their farm, and set up a little table in the living room for an impromptu tea party. Decades later, she still remembered even tiny details.
• Bedtime is playtime - goes against everything I thought I knew, but WOW!!!
• Playing games at dinner will bring your family closer...I am giddy to try these out tonight
• "One of the first rules for turning work into play is to relax about the outcome and enjoy the journey more"

There are SO so so many ideas in here of games, activities, traditions...you name it. I don't feel like I can share all of them because she wrote the book and not me, but if nothing else, get it from the library!!! Seriously, it's that good :)

PVC Pipe Swords

Another winning idea actually came from my neighbors. They made these awesome swords for their family reunion, and we got to borrow them. They kept the boys in the family occupied for hours!

For each sword, you will need:

• pvc pipe (I think it's 3/4 inch...small enough to fit in the hole of a swim noodle)
• swim noodle (each swim noodle makes at least two swords)
• pvc pipe end cap to keep the tip of the pipe from being too sharp
• electrical tape (we had red, white, and black).
• glue to secure pipe to noodle
  

1. Cut the pvc pipe to the size you want...we had 3 sizes...adult, kid, and little kid ;)
2. Cut the swim noodles to be about 1 food smaller than the pipe you have to make sure you have a pvc pipe handle (at least two fist lengths) and place the noodle around the pipe. Glue the pipe to the noodle.
   
3. Wrap the noodle with LOTS of electrical tape. Make sure you secure it to the pipe...none of the noodle should be showing when you are finished. Take extra care to make sure the tip of the sword is covered in an extra layer or two.
4. Place the end cap on the handle of the sword. Glue if necessary.

Raffle!!!

One of my favorite traditions that we have done at my dad's family reunion and that we started this year in the Skelton reunion was the raffle. Each person that wanted to participate had to bring at least one item to donate. We gave each person 10 tickets, and then the mayhem began ;) The more people the better for this one.

Some of the favorite items up for grabs in years gone by have been:

• Every year my grandma hand makes a quilt that is the last item up for grabs. The one she did this year had squares my grandpa had actually made. It was VERY special!
• Giant tub of cheese puffs
• Grandma's jar of pennies
• A can of reddi-whip
• Squirt guns
• Unwanted movies
• Unwanted books
• A stuffed pheasant
• Dollar store toys
• Anything else you can think to bring!
  

Family Yahtzee

I got this idea from a blog I found on one of my friend's links, and I had to try it. She gives a great tutorial so I won't repeat that here.

A couple of changes I made was I didn't put paper over the whole box...I used it more as an accent. I also added the quote, "The family the plays together, stays together." along with a family picture on the side.

I had a bunch of birthdays coming up, and thought this might be a fun idea. I bought the box at Roberts with my 40% off coupon, which made it about $1.65. I had a bunch of the wooden blocks already, and I made the score sheets on the MS Excel and then took it to Alphagraphics to copy and bind. Each pad cost around $3 for the copies and the binding. I had all of the paper and the modge podge, the paint, and the golf pencils, so it ended up being a very inexpensive project. The pics are bad, but I think it turned out really cute!!!

A life celebration

So this last week, we celebrated what would have been my dad's 56th birthday. My dad passed away within a few weeks of my wedding, so my kids never got the opportunity to know him. So to help reaquaint them them to him, we had his favorite birthday cake, told stories and looked at pictures. With so many in our family passing away, I like having these celebrations throughout the year, not to mourn but to celebrate the lives that have so deeply molded our lives, but that we may not have had first-hand experience with. And what kid doesn't love any excuse for a birthday party?! It was a great success!

The Ultimate Easter Egg Hunt

I got this idea from my friend, Holly. Every year, her mom hides candy in a bunch of eggs, and in a few she hides, nickles, dimes, quarters, and even a couple paper dollars. In one egg, she hides a $20. The catch is, it isn't just for kids. Her parents have a lot of land, so the kids get a bit of a headstart, but she always tells me how hilarious it is to see grown men running up and down the hill with their baskets, diving for eggs :)

My extended families don't let their hair down quite that much, so I just do it for the kids for now (maybe someday), and instead of a $20, I just have a couple of $1...which to them is just as good.

Line of Authority

This one is a little late, but for Christmas, I made Bryan a sign that showed his Priesthood Line of Authority, and pictures of all the men in that line. It wasn't as hard as I had originally thought it would be to track down the pictures, and it is a pretty easy process to get your line from the Church if you don't already have it.

Why I Love You Books

I got this idea from http://www.sugardoodle.net/. It was a fun way to do valentines for my kids, and it also used up some of my scrapbooking paper (you know the stuff that just hangs around forever that you think is cute, but you can't really think of a page to use it for...yeah, I used that!)

I got a package of chipboard pages (6 or so pages come in a package).

Some of those metal rings (I ran out...thus the one ring on this one)

I went through and picked out my favorite pictures of the kids and wrote "I love..." statements to go with each one. At the end of the book, I wrote them each a letter. I am surprised how much they love them :)

New Years Goal Collage

For family night, I wanted to do something a bit goal oriented to go along with the spirit of the new year, when I came upon this list of ideas from http://www.lds.prg/. The one I liked the best and that I think is going to become an annual tradition is the goal poster. I like this one, because after the kids are tired of it hanging in their rooms, I am going to put them in our family scrapbooks so we can look at what our goals are year after year.

Supplies needed:

• 12x12 paper (It was fun to let the kids pick a paper that fit their personalities)


• LOTS of magazines. Church magazines and home magazines worked the best for us, but it really probably depends on your goals.


• Glue sticks


• A small picture of each family member


• Scissors

Each family member gets a paper to glue their picture on to. They then look for pictures to represent the goals they have chosen for themselves for the coming year. This was so much fun...and even our 2 year old loved doing it.

Note: for little little kids, it may help to have some pictures already cut out...Aeden did good, but I think he would have had more fun if he could have focused more on gluing on pictures rather than going through the magazines...it overwhelmed him a little at first.

This is Zerin's Goal Collage. He has lots of pictures of food and vegetables (eating better), President Monson (following the prophet), Faith in God book (to work on his Articles of Faith), a boy with his grandma (do more service for his grandmas), etc.

Joseph Smith's Birthday Party

Every year on December 23, we celebrate Joseph Smith's birthday with a little mini-celebration in the evening. We make a little cake, sing happy birthday, and watch a church history video or read a related story afterwards. The kids love it and look forward to it as part of our holiday celebrations every year.

Christmas Stuff

Okay, this year has been kind of a bust for this blog, but I couldn't let Christmas get away from me without documenting some of my all-time favorite traditions:

• Making Gingerbread Houses from scratch (this year they are out of graham crackers...but hey :))
• Doing the 12 days of Christmas
• Decorating the day after Halloween
• On the weeks leading up to Christmas, we all keep a mental note of our most favorite decorated homes. Then, on the Family Night before Christmas, we drive around with little "trophies" (usually these are paper sacks of Christmas cookies with a trophy drawn on them) and we take our awards to different families...awarding things like "Most Colorful Lights" or "The Christmas Spirit Award" or "Best Use of Blow Up Figures" and on and on. This is one of my favorite traditions of all-time now.
• Going to Temple Square to see the lights
• We have a gift box with a bunch of stars. You do some secret act of service, put a star in the box with your name on it, and leave the box for the recipient to find (usually on the pillow). We try to fill up the box with stars by Christmas Eve.

Holiday Place Settings

I got this cute idea from Martha only I changed it a little. Since I have hundreds of sucker quaking aspen trees in my yard now, as well as some beautiful big blue spruces, I used those branches instead of pine branches and little blue spruce sprigs instead of pine sprigs. I also tied various ribbon around the branches rather than using berries, and I distressed both the white inner paper as well as the brown outer paper for a more rustic look.

I had run out of time so I wasn't going to do them this year, but I figured, why not :) To do 21 of them beginning to end, it took about an hour.

Happy Halloween-ing!

I have been a major slacker in terms of halloween preparedness this year, but I thought I'd share a few things we have done in years past to make this time of year fun:

• On years when I'm good, the kids each grow their own pumpkins to carve.


• On other years (which has pretty much been every year for the last 3 years) we go to a pumpkin patch...or the store :)... and they each pick out a pumpkin.


• I love to gather berries for my Christmas tree, and right now is the perfect time to do it before the frost hits to badly. I am partial to rosehips, so I pack the kids and we all go gathering rosehips and fall leaves for our table.


• My kids always pick out their costumes...with an occassional nudge from me if it's too difficult :) Some of my favorites of years' past have been Clark Kent turning into Superman, Princess Leia, Anakin Skywaker (padawan), Elmo, Harry Potter, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Flower Fairy, Woody rides a horse, Ben 10, and Shadeau dressed up as University of Utah Cheerleader. Good times :)


• Last year, I had my kids each invite 4 friends for a halloween party. They all dressed up, and we painted pumpkins, played Halloween Twister, played pin the wart on the witch, and watched Pooh's Heffalump Halloween. We also played a name that goo game (you put random things in little paper bags, and they have to touch it and guess what it is.) Little kid parties are my absolute favorite!


• The Monday night before Halloween, we carve pumpkins. I have been collecting the little carving tools and templates for different designs for a few years, so we usually invite another family to join us. It is one of kids' all-time favorite things to do :)


• Halloween night, I make Dinner in a pumpkin (more like paella in a pumpkin) and hot apple cider. It's the one time of year I can get Zerin to touch something that touches a vegetable :)


• Bryan has an aunt in a nursing home, so we always make it a point to go trick-or-treating there before hitting the rest of the neighborhoods. Most nursing homes and assisted living centers have some sort of trick-or-treating for a couple of hours on halloween. The kids love how everyone there thinks they are the cutest thing ever, and there are usually at least 2 or three residents that try to give the kids their entire bowl of candy :)


• Halloween also marks the day before I consider it legal to start listening to Christmas music 24-7. I decorate for Thanksmas November 1st (last year, being over 7 months pregnant...I didn't get it done until the 15th...this year, since we are supposed to be moving during that time, it probably won't get done until we're moved...but next year!)

FHE goes undercover...

In my weekly quandry about what to do for Family Home Evening, I decided to resort to my tried and true back up plan...service. We picked our target the night before, along with forming our plan of "attack."

The kids that were old enough to cut, cut out construction paper hearts, and everyone helped color them. Bryan's job was coming up with some kind of candy bar jingle for our poster...as usual, he didn't disappoint :)

In the early morning hours of the dawn, the two older kids and I snuck over to our intended target, armed with construction paper hearts and a candy bar poster. They were half-asleep when we first got there, but when a light in the house turned on...the adrenaline kicked in and wow. I wish I could get them to straighten their rooms that quickly :)

Grandparent Time

We are very fortunate and live close to both my mother and Bryan's parents, so my kids have lots of opportunities to be with their grandparents. I thought I would take just a minute to share some of my favorite grandparent moments.

• We got tickets to the BYU Ballroom team performance, so Bryan's mom took Liah. Liah got all dressed up, and was SO excited to be big enough to go to something so grown up with Grandma all by herself. They both loved the dancing...Liah can still be caught practicing her irish step dancing in the privacy of her bedroom :)
• My mom took Zerin on a special overnight trip to visit my brother. They stayed in a hotel, ate at McDonald's and went and saw a movie on the way home. Zerin thought he was the coolest kid ever!
• Bryan's dad is a master at involving the kids in whatever he is doing. Yesterday, he had this huge bucket of pencils and pens. Next thing I know, all three of my kids were huddled around him with their little papers testing the pens...having contests to see whose pens worked. Genius!
• My grandmother is a master homemaker. When I would visit her house, I would just cross my fingers that she would involve me in some project or meal preparation. I always felt so special to know that she would share her "trade secrets" with me.
• I recently went to a funeral of a woman who had lived a beautiful life. Something that stuck out to me from the different talks was that each of her children and grandchildren felt like they were her favorites. It wasn't something that was spoken, but rather something that she showed in the big moments and the little moments. They each felt it...awesome.
• One grandma I know of invites all of the kids old enough to spend the night over to her house for a monthly sleepover. They watch movies, eat treats, play games, etc. So cute!!!
• My other grandmother always wrote me letters. I was not as good at writing her, but her letters arrived like clockwork. Sometimes the weather was all she wrote about, but I have kept them all (seriously...since I was little). They are precious to me.

Laugh.

This is a simple one.

Laugh.

Laugh at your kids' stupid, pointless, yet nonetheless hilarious jokes. That makes them feel special. Zerin told me he feels powerful when he can make me smile.

The Most Awesome Scripture Study Book Ever!

So, I love this book so much, I'm actually posting about it on both my blogs. It is called Adventures with the Word of God: Making Scripture Study Exciting for the Entire Family by Rebecca Irvine. This book is so awesome, seriously! I read it today while I was waiting for my van to be fixed, and I cannot wait to start using it for our family scripture study. It's a study guide of sorts for family scripture study. Except instead of reading a book cover to cover, you have a different theme each month (ie. Family Proclamation, Missionary Work, Charity, Testimonies, etc.). But she splits each theme up to have a scripture a day to discuss and talk about...I love that because my kids are still pretty young so actually reading from the scriptures tends to lose everyone but Zerin...and even him sometimes, so this is just awesome. The ideas are so cute and fun and seem simple and managable to implement. It takes some preparation...but I should be preparing for scripture study anyway, so why not throw a little cutting and coloring in for good measure, ey?! I am not doing it justice, so go check it out from the library. You won't be disappointed!

Things to help you remember....

One thing Bryan and I have really wanted is to have things in our home that stand as constant reminders of Christ. So, for our new home, we went through, room by room, and picked out artwork and things and themes for each room to help set that tone in our home. I think art is a powerful tool to teach different principles in different layers...like a parable.

Living Room (Time and Eternity Room):

Over our piano (don't have that yet either) I want to put this picture of the Bountiful Temple. On opposite walls, we are going to put 2 framed mirrors that will face each other. We'll have a sepia wedding picture on another wall, and over our door I am going to put in vinyl letters "Remember...." Helaman 5:6. On our biggest wall, that will be my clock wall, and I will have all sorts of clocks, big and small kind of scattered. Then, between the 2 windows, I'll have this picture of Christ.

Kitchen (Sacred Grove/Pioneer Room):

There is really only 1 wall in here that I can use between the window and what will be our new french door, so we are going to put Greg's Olsen's rendition of the Sacred Grove there. Then I will decorate with antique kitchen items.

Dining Room (Gratitude/Prayer)

This room may very well end up being my favorite :) We are going to put Brian Kreshisnik's painting "Ten Lepars Healed" on one wall, and on the opposite wall in vinyl letters, have Alma 37:37 37 "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for bgood; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the cmorning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."

Family Room (Family)

On one wall, I am going to make a picture family tree like my aunt did. I may use wedding couple pictures instead of individual pictures, I am not yet sure.

In Zerin's room (Heroes)

I love this pic "Come Forth" by Walter Rane. Captain Moroni is so awesome, isn't he? In each of my kids' rooms they will have a temple pic...they can pick their favorite one...Zerin's favorite changes from week to week so we'll see what it is when we come around to buying it :) On another wall, I'll have Alma 48:17 " 17 Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men."

In Liah's room (Real Princesses/Learning)

I'm a bit of a Walter Rane fan I suppose, but Liah will have "Add to your faith" by him on one wall. A temple picture on another wall, and the Young Women's theme in vinyl letters on another wall.

Main Bathroom (6 B's)

I am going to use vinyl letters and write the 6 b's by President Hinckley around the room. Then, I will have a 4 original artwork pieces by my kids (or more if I have more kids). These will be hung on a curtain rod and suspended by ribbon on one wall. The pictures will be of one of the 6 b's.