OUR SUPER FAM: April 2013

Apr 8, 2013

General Conference April 2013

General Conference is wonderful...to hear from our beloved Prophet and Apostles is a choice experience....but can also be quite difficult with children...

anyone with children knows what I mean...

We could "banish" them from the house for 2 days...not really an option and I wouldn't feel good about that :) Also, I want them to start learning from our inspired leaders.

What to do?

We've tried a lot of different things over the years. Here is what we tried this year. One thing I think helps make conference time exciting for kids is to make traditions...

We always set up a tent in the house during conference

Don't have a picture of it, but the boys always melt chocolate chips on Cheerios. Super tasty treat and they love to bring them around and share with the family.

We have a little girl who loves to "lead" during musical numbers so she really enjoyed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

We played scripture pictionary while listening....okay, hard to listen during it but we were doing scriptures...

Jonah, Baby Jesus, Brother of Jared

Moroni, Joseph Smith, King Benjamin (Porter guessed the tower in about 5 seconds)

Also: we review the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 Apostles (that's the 3 Tree: Perry and 10 hen: Eyring)

The Last Supper

What 5 year old would get this? My Bobo

President Hinckley

We have the book that talks about his tree becoming the pulpit in the Conference Center.

We always print off "tie coloring" pages and pages for the boys to write down things they are hearing and coloring pages.

This year, we let the older 2 boys type their own notes...BEWARE that this method may cause some headaches in the beginning. The boys were constantly asking us how to spell things and what was just said...which we couldn't hear because of spelling something for them! I am proud of the results though...

Some of Quincy's thoughts:

Jesus is Light. And open your hart to Jesus. And share the gospel. So we can be closer to god, and the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Book of Mormon is hope. and keep the commandments. agency is a gift. and heavenly father gives us commandments because he loves us. be friend people. have faith. the test of this life is obedience.

Some good thoughts to start working into the heart of my tender Quincy.

The Church is true. So thankful for the opportunity to listen, ponder, and then obey. Thankful for the GREAT task of teaching my children. It's hard. It's worth it.

Spring Break 2013

Who was ready for Spring Break? Everyone...

Ella was thrilled to have brothers home all week

We tried something new this year. Wanted to get more pictures, but life just gets busy and I forget.

We got a mason jar and put $100 cash in it. We talked during FHE that week that we had this money to use during spring break. The boys planned and planned how they were going to spend that money. They asked lots of questions and were surprised about how much things cost. Miles had a FIT when we wanted to go to the Zoo and it would cost HALF our money.

We did LOTS of free things....

Macey's Park (Treat at Costco for $2.50)

Mini Golf with Pass of All Passes

Ella was very content to hold a ball the whole time

"BALL" was her first word that happened this week!

We spent most of our money eating out....we like to do that apparently....

JCWs (BIG treat that is so expensive we normally don't go) $37

One of my favorite shots of spring break...

Miles is trying to give Ella some ice cream...

apparently she wasn't being patient enough for him.

We also ate at Pizza Factory $25

and then went to Cal Ranch to see the baby chicks...the boys love that!

Hmmmm....guess we did end up with $40 left....which means we could've almost gone to the Zoo...but Mom was done doing adventures! ha!

I'll organize that one better next year! It was fun to teach the boys about money and see them think through what was worth it!

Yeah, we are pooped!

Miles' note to his brothers and Dad:

Spring break also means BALL GAMES

baseball and basketball!

He wanted everyone to know that his team is AHEAD!

EASTER 2013

Easter always seems to creep up on me. It's always a battle to figure out how to balance the real reason for Easter and all of the other "fun" stuff like eggs, candy, etc...

We talked a lot about Christ and the "true" meaning of Easter. But that doesn't mean they weren't super excited for candy, eggs, and such

(No Easter bunny at our house....can't bring myself to do that)

We actually dyed eggs this year, even if it was on Easter and didn't get to hide them.

The eggs got named, and the boys had a hard time cracking them to eat them :)

How did I not get pics of Easter basket goodness....usually everything is spring/summer oriented. Shorts, swim trunks, bubbles, beach towels, etc...

the only pic I got of basket treasures...I was thrilled to find a replacement Bobo. Porter's Bobo is looking so so nasty and this is an exact duplicate except for the embroidered hearts. He promptly told me "yeah, now Bobo has a girlfriend" NOOOOOO! If you know me well, you know that I am not big into stuffed animals and I was planning on replacing not adding to the collection.