Primary Presentation 2015

A month or 2 late in coming, but here's a few pics of my babies on the day of their primary presentation. So proud of all of them even though it was touch n go there at the beginning with Seth. He was so good at practising his song at home 'Jesus said love everyone....', but his little brain short circuited just before it was the nursery's time to sing. Instead of standing up there proudly with a big beaming smile, he stood up there with a grumpy face and didn't sing a word!

 Thankfully by the time it was the Heke children's time to sing the 4th Article of Faith he'd had his happy pills and they all did really well.

Crazy to think that next year Seth might do a talk in front of everyone. Wow, this coming sunday is his last week in nursery, then he moves up to Sunbeams. Holy moly, how did that happen? I remember being the nursery leader when he was 'underage' to be in there. Time really does fly!

Minute to Win It- Ward Activity

This morning we helped to organise a 'Minute to Win it' themed ward activity. A little bit of healthy competition, fun for the whole family.....Such a great saturday morning!!!!

When everyone arrived we started off with a prayer and briefly explained each activity. Then it was basically 1.5 hours to go around and try everything, in whatever order you wanted....just go for it. And once you'd done everything once you could go back to challenges to try and get a better score. It was great that as more people arrived, they could see what was going on and join in without a problem. In the end we probably had about 60 people all fighting it out for prizes!

So here's the 10 activities that we did.

Choose a weight (kids 5kg, women 10kg, men 20kg) and do as many bicep curls as you can in 1 minute. The guys were a bit slow to warm up on this but in the end there was a show down with a few guys trying to beat their own scores, and eachothers.

That brother on the right of the pic had 4 goes at it!

Bishop trying to beat the younger guys

Tie an ice-cream container around your waist (with my dressing gown tie). The container had a piece sliced out like a mailbox (about 12cm across and 5 cm high). Shake around until the 5 ping pongs fall out. 60 second max, best time wins.

Connect the blocks in the correct pattern. How many can you get in sequence in 1 minute?

Throw the beanbags into the boxes and add up points in 60 seconds

I think I got 180 for this. Best score was 400!

Run between cones, each way is a point. How many shuttle runs can you do in 1 minute? I did 28, the winner got 34!

This was the coned off area to the right, under the hoop. 60 seconds to keep 2 balloons in the air (and in the area) by using 2 wooden batons. If they hit the ground, that time was your score (eg 43 seconds).

Put letters of the alphabet and numbers 1-10 in order in 60 seconds. At the end of the time, add up how many were in the correct order

Bounce ping pong on table and catch in cup, put in another cup and do the same, put in another cup and do the same. How many seconds to get them all done (7 cups high). If you finished before the minute was up, your time was your score.

Cover eyes with blindfold, one hand behind back, the other hand using the big spoon to scoop cotton balls from one bowl to another. At the end of 60 seconds, count how many you got over to the new bowl.

Put bikkie on your forehead and walk/run around a course within 1 minute. Score is many seconds to get back to the start

Each person running an activity had a kids score sheet and an adults score sheet so it was easy to identify the winner for each category at the end

We'd bought enough chocolate bars for each winner to choose one, and the kids to all get a funsize treat, and then someone turned up with a box of 50 kingsize bars, so everyone walked away happy!!!

It was great, definitely one to do again with different challenges next time. Some great ideas for FHE games. And one of the best things was that people could join in and we only had to buy balloons, ping pong balls and bikkies to do it. Everything else was from home (or school!)

Now I'm watching my hubby and Ella (and kind of Seth) make a step for the kids to stand on at the pulpit for the primary presentation....while Dallin cries inside next to me :(

General Conf. October 2015

General Conference done and dusted again and this time round it was such an enjoyable experience. We combined with the Leone's and Grandie which could have gone so terribly badly, but I really thought it was great....for everyone. And we did it where each adult chose a talk for us to watch (based on the talk titles). I felt it made it more captivating cause we were listening to talks that people in the room had chosen to watch, not necessarily what was actually in one session.

The new way forward for us I think.

So last night I got my Mrs Heke on and sorted out a rotation of activities for the kids. Definitely worth the preparation. And I've already got ideas for next years activities...

I was thinking I'd just put it all out for the kids to help themselves to, but then I remembered back to school and realised if I did that they'd flick through everything in 5 mins and then be hassling us for food or drinks or more activities. So that's why I went school teacher on them and organised the proper schedule. Talks are pretty much 15 minutes long give or take and I'd say they did about half of that time pretty focused on their activity and then  started floating around a little. Then just before I started the new clip, I got out the new activity for each group of kids.

It all worked out for everyone, no one had to leave the room, no one broke down, no one hurt anyone, Dalls went to sleep after 2 talks and slept for the rest. Sweet!

And the 'lollies' talk at the end was the final hit.

And then it was straight out to the deck for sausie rolls and salad wraps.

And just as we farewelled the Leone's and Grandies, Aunty Natty and the boys arrived, so now we're entertaining them (trying to keep them off the trampoline for the sabbath is no mean feat).

So after a wonderful, spiritual and family day, my hubby and I will probably sit down later and recap what we've learnt. At the moment I'm just happy to take the win with entertaining the kids. Gotta get better from here on out.