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.

FHE - Patriarchal Blessings

Yes we do still have FHE every week, I'm just not finding time to blog them all. 

This week we talked about Patriarchal Blessings because we had talks about them in Sacrament a couple of weeks ago. It made me really want to read mine, but it's stored away in a big box in the garage under about 6 other big boxes. When I do get around to fishing it out, I'm going to fill in the page below. I've never thought of it in different parts like this before so it should be interesting what I find and learn in the process.

.....And I made a primo pav for our refreshments. Sorted for christmas this year Grandie!

New Book of Remembrance Pages

I remember when I'd just had Faith, a mother of 6 children and a few grandchildren gave me some great advice. 

'Don't do for your first what you can't maintain for all of your children.'

So with that in mind I decided that each of my babies would have some form of 'first year calender' and a Book of Remembrance of some sort and they've each got a shoebox of stuff that's too bulky for the folder (I'd say that at some point over 18 years or so that shoe box will turn into a 60L box but that's gotta be the limit. Then when they move out I can give them a big kiss and wave them off with their box....maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself thinking that far down the track!)

With all the work I'm doing at the moment I'd gotten quite behind in adding pages, so I've made a list of what I'd like to add for each child and over the next week I've got to smash them out

Each child's folder (Seth and Dallin's still a little unfinished)

There's quite a mixture of collage pages I've made on the computer, art they've done at school/kindy and a few pages I've written myself. There's something about seeing your Mum's handwriting that I think is really cool so I try to remember that when I jump on the computer again to quickly type something up.

I don't often get the folders out, only when I'm adding something really, but I can already tell they're really precious to my babies, the big girls at least. Whenever they see them come down out of the cupboard they run in and steal them away so they can look at them AGAIN. They giggle over some pages and ask questions about others. Makes me want to get mine out of the garage now.

School Holidays Week 1

Ella's family 

This kid is obsessed with going to bed in his tiger hat and always has to have his 'fluffy fluffy' (aqua blanket). If it's in the wash I can appease him with another blanket from the cupboard but it HAS to feel fluffy and soft when he puts it up by his face

Ella's school holiday spot...nail polish on the deck. She can stay there for 3 hours straight easy

My big pig tails girl (she always goes with her hair out and pretty scruffy and her teachers tie it up for her)

 Seth thought it would be funny to walk down the hallway with his yoghurt and drop spoonfuls of it onto the carpet. Dallin had it all under control by the time I got there!

Ella     'Mum, can we do some fireworks tonight?'
Mum     'No not tonight'
Ella      'Dad can we do fireworks tonight?'
Dad      'Sure, go and bring the box out'

Dall's wasn't bothered by the noise like I thought she might be, but the poor thing missed the whole point. I tried to get her to look up for the whole 10 minutes we were doing them and she only watched the ground where they were being lit, never once seeing the actual sparkles up in the sky....duh!

Marmite n Chippy Sandies after our outing to Westwave

Thanks Grandie for the Coconut Choccie

 Our stake did a Time Out for Women style RS activity on Friday night. It was really well done and cool to hear from 6 different women with different messages and backgrounds.

I left with a lot to ponder regarding 'striving to be whole', 'what are my talents?', and remembering that 'I am good enough'

Ella's letter to Aunty Beezy (couldn't put it on IG for some reason so here it is B). She's getting really good at sounding out but I translated just in case

At our Teacher only Day last week we spent a lot of time talking about how important it is for kids to play. It was really interesting to listen to people's perspectives on the value of play and on what holds us back from letting kids do it more freely. For myself I know I think 'waste of time, messy, pointless, toddler stuff....'. But by the end of the day I did gain an appreciation of how important it is for kids to be kids and play and discover and interact with the world around them without being structured or guided by adults. And then I read an article later on about how anxiety and depression in children has increased over the years and correlates not by coincidence  with a decrease in 'play time'. There's a lot more to it I'm sure, but it made me interested to watch Ella play on Saturday cause she's really good at it (if it's possible to be good at playing?). I would usually shut it down after half an hour and tell her to put all her things away (messy!), but I just left her and watched and she had such a great time being a nurse for her sick unicorn. Note to self: Let my kids play more often!

This big kids 'play time' is watching TV at the moment so I've gotta crack her out of that lazy habit!

After watching her millioneth Teen drama for the day we finally finished the Boxcar children. Took us about 4 months and 10 overdue notices but we did it. We actually only read it about 10 times so it didn't take that long but we had massive gaps in between. Great story. Note to self: Read together more often. I see children her age who love reading and we haven't got to that point, it's still a bit of a chore and when she does read at nights I think it's a whole lot of skimming and not so much getting 'lost' in a good read. Trip to the library tomorrow I think

So cute to watch this little Petunia Picklebottom play with the blocks. It took a lot of concentration and fine motor skills to join the blocks and pull them apart. 10 points for trying doll

Selfie of my first official child free Sunday School and RS. Dallin has started in Nursery!!! So after I've suffered through Sacrament, all the kids go to their own classes and I can listen and learn for myself. That feels like such an accomplishment that I made it this far!

TROUBLE in his new shirt and tie

Faithy's at a great age to read stories from the friend and do the activities. She loved doing the wordfind yesterday. And Ella cuts up the pictures on the back cover and uses a whole glue stick to glue them to another page (and the table!)

Shared dessert night for the Bishopric families. Great adults and kids right there!

And now we're into week 2 of the school holidays. My tidying list should be getting smaller but it feels like the same length it was last Monday. How does that happen?