It Takes Two

Parenting is hard work.  It’s so much better with a good partner!

One More Soccer Season Down

   We made it through another fun soccer season.  Emma loved her teammates, they are a good bunch of girls. 

The second to last game was played on the muddiest field I have ever seen.  It was disgusting.  Thankfully Emma didn’t roll in it when the game was over like most of her teammates. 

They didn’t have as good of a record as the last few years (6-1-5), but they played well together and had fun.  Way to go Daredevils!

Of course the season wouldn’t end properly without a pizza party and trophies. 

We were thrilled that Coach Bill came back mid-way through the season.  He is a fantastic coach and the girls were happy to have him back. 

Good job Emma!  We loved watching you this season.

Mommy School-Halloween…or Not

I set very low expectations for Mommy School the week before Halloween.  There were so many activities that I wanted to do with the kids, but I also knew it was a busy time.  Between the Primary program, Isaac & Grace’s birthday, Emma’s birthday and a haunted house being set up at our house, along with normal Halloween festivities, there wasn’t much else that was going to get done.  I planned a few easy things that I thought we could squeeze in.  That was obviously still too much because none of it got done.  We did have some fun dinners.  We had dinner guests every night that week, some nights they got normal food, other nights they got such things as mummy pizzas or mummy dogs.  They were good sports.

Not my mummy dogs picture…ours were eaten before I got the camera out.

I had planned on the kids helping me make candy corn cookies.  Instead I made them late one night well after they had gone to bed.  I don’t think they missed making them, they just enjoyed eating them.  The cookies were cute and yummy!

We read lots of Halloween books. 

My favorite again this year was Cinderella Skeleton.  I don’t think Isaac and Grace get it all, but Emma and I love it!

We did play a Halloween matching game a few times.

Isaac and Grace did some pre-reading activities.  They were convinced that the signs outside our house said “haunted house”.  They read them to me over and over.

And I also managed to pull out our Five Little Ghosts story.  Isaac and Grace loved it, especially the ghost that turns into chocolate chip ice cream, and it was the perfect diversion as we waited to go trick-or-treating. 

My favorite part of the week was Isaac and Grace asking when we were going to have Mommy School.  I think they like it!

FHE with the Bedlamites

Lee and I loved Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s comment in the April 2011 General Conference about holding “family home evening in spite of the bedlam that sometimes reigns in a houseful of little bedlamites”.  We laughed when he said it and we have often called our sweet children bedlamites since then.  Some Family Home Evenings go off much better than others.  Sometimes bedlam reigns and we wonder why we bothered.  Sometimes it’s hard to span the age difference in our kids.  Sometimes though, there is magic.  They are all engaged and the principles being taught have stuck.  Memories have been made.

Practicing having quiet and reverent turtle feet during a Family Home Evening last August.  Emma did a good job demonstrating for Isaac and Grace!

Recently Lee prepared a Tree of Life lesson.  We have done many lessons on Lehi’s dream over the years with Emma, but the twins hadn’t heard one yet.  Lee made an “iron rod” that wound around the backyard and led to a Tree of Life that was covered in white lights.  The kids couldn’t see the tree until right before they got there so they were in awe when they saw it.  Even Emma was surprised. 

They listened intently as Lee told them about the delicious fruit on the tree what it represented (the white fruit became powdered donuts for our purposes!) and how important it was to hold tight to the iron rod.  To make the evening even more memorable, it was cold and rainy outside.  The weather made for some good mists of darkness! 

We have had many opportunities to talk about the Tree of Life and the Iron Rod since then.  I had to laugh when both Isaac and Grace exclaimed that there are donuts on the Tree of Life during one conversation.  Another time Gracie was putting on her purple coat and said “this is my iron rod coat”.  Little things like that help us know that they remember the experience.  Hopefully they will learn that there aren’t really donuts on the Tree of Life, but they get the idea!

Another lesson that made a big impact was based on a story told by Elder Russell M. Nelson in 1997 about enduring to the end.  He told about going on a boat ride with his wife and young daughter and how in the middle of the lake their daughter decided it was time to get out of the boat.  They had to convince her that she needed to stay in the boat until they were safely to shore.  We talked about how we have a family boat that we want to stay in until we make it safely back to our Heavenly Father all together.  We discussed the types of things we need to do to stay in the boat.  In the last month since we had that lesson Isaac and Grace have asked often if what they are doing is “staying in the boat”.  If they make a good choice or do something particularly nice they exclaim “I’m staying in the boat!”.  We’ve also used the phrase to get them to think about what they are doing and whether it is something they really want to do.  Even Emma has been asked the question “is that staying in the boat?”!  I don’t have any pictures of the boat we put together for that lesson, but afterwards we had a good time making cookie ghosts to “boo” some neighbors with. 

Another lesson that has made an impression was one we did the week before Halloween.  I got the story of the Parable of the Pumpkins here.  The story is about two pumpkins, Perry and Patty.  One pumpkin makes good choices and is kind to everyone, the other not so much. The surprise comes at the end when we opened each pumpkin.  The nice pumpkin was all clean inside and the not so nice pumpkin was full of yucky pumpkin guts.  The kids loved it and they have all said that they want to be clean inside.  It’s another lesson that we have referred back to often. 

Successful Family Home Evenings like these have made all the not-so-successful ones worth it.  Monday night is a sacred night at our house and I’m glad for it.  Also helpful is to remember the words of Elder David A. Bednar:

“Each family prayer, each episode of family scripture study, and each family home evening is a brushstroke on the canvas of our souls. No one event may appear to be very impressive or memorable. But just as the yellow and gold and brown strokes of paint complement each other and produce an impressive masterpiece, so our consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results. “Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great” (D&C 64:33). Consistency is a key principle as we lay the foundation of a great work in our individual lives and as we become more diligent and concerned in our own homes.”

Mommy School-Pumpkins

We had such a great time learning about pumpkins in Mommy School.  This is a long post, but we did a lot of fun things!

Isaac and Grace loved the Five Little Pumpkins story.  They told it over and over with the felt version I made, and we also read the book many times.

We also made beaded pumpkins the day that I introduced the story to them.  They were so intent on getting their beads onto the pipe cleaners.

We read several books about the life cycle of pumpkins so we made a visual to go along with it. 

We also picked our own mini pumpkins from our garden.  It was totally perfect that we had five pumpkins left!  Grace loved to count them over and over and we told the Five Little Pumpkins story again.

That day we also made pumpkin pies.  This was one of their favorite activities.  They were so cute taking their turns with the rolling pin and stirring the filling. 

Isaac loved the pie, Grace not so much.  Crazy girl.

They were both proud of the final products and they were excited to give one pie away.

Isaac and Grace ate a few pumpkin-y lunches, I especially liked the jack-o-lantern quesadillas!

They also played a sorting game and laced a pumpkin.

Their favorite art project was definitely painting pumpkins.  They painted a big circle orange and then we painted green handprint leaves.  When it was all dry they added pumpkin seeds (well, they were actually acorn squash seeds..they didn’t know the difference!).

Emma was at a party one evening so we had our own pumpkin party.  We watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown while we ate Rice Krispies treat pumpkins.

Another favorite activity was making pumpkin soup.  First we read the book Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper, this book was definitely my favorite of the pumpkin books we read. 

Then we made pumpkin soup.  Isaac and Grace both loved it and totally got into making it.  It was so cute to watch them opening bouillon cubes!   I’m thinking they really enjoy any cooking activity.  Too bad they both hated the soup!  I thought it was very rich, but tasty. Idea and recipe found here.

Another day we played with a pumpkin faces book found here.  Isaac and Grace each chose a face to put on their own tissue paper jack-o-lantern idea found here.  I spread out contact paper marked with a circle for them to fill up with tissue paper squares.  I really thought they would enjoy doing this, but they didn’t.  They got frustrated when the contact paper stuck to their fingers. I ended up having to help a lot…maybe we’ll try it again another year.

They turned out cute and look festive hanging in the windows.

One day found us playing a puzzle/color matching pumpkin game.  Then Isaac and Grace colored their own little book with different colored pumpkins.  Grace is still carrying hers around. 

Emma joined us one night in making pumpkin candy bracelets idea found here.  They were actually kind of a pain to make, but the kids were happy!

The last pumpkin activity we did was go on a pumpkin hunt.  I got this idea here, she has some GREAT ideas on her blog!  First we read this cute book, Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin by Mary Serfozo. 

We talked about the different shapes of pumpkins.  I hid lots of pumpkins around the house, some were smooth and some were bumpy.  Isaac and Grace went on the hunt and then they sorted the smooth pumpkins from the bumpy pumpkins.  It was fun!  Of course afterwards they had to color their pumpkins.

There are so many fun pumpkin learning activities out there, I wish we had time to do more!  Thankfully there are also tons of pumpkin books, we didn’t have any shortage of those from the library.   I’m pretty sure that is my favorite part of Mommy School—reading good books with my kids.