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.