Christopher's Baptism

This baptism was a little bitter sweet, since it was just a few months after Brian passed away. We were able to do it in Arizona before the move though, and that was a blessing. As with Ben's baptism, Brian's brothers performed the ordinances and his family was there supporting Chris, of course.

Christopher is such a cutie. I love these pictures, even though he and Ben both have a tendency (they've yet to outgrow) for making goofy faces at the camera. Chris was really excited to get baptized, and since moving to Boise he has shown a lot of personal motivation for reading the scriptures on his own. It's so nice to see.

Anyway, his baptism really was a great day.

Roadshow

Shortly after we moved here Kevin and I somehow got wrangled into the Roadshow. I wrote most of the script and directed one of the scenes (the Avatar scene). Kevin helped with props and lighting. John, being a young man now, was actually in the Roadshow, as one of our commercial announcers. Being the ham he is, he really got into it and did a great job. The whole experience turned out to be a lot of fun. I don't have many pictures, just these few from the staging room before the show.

John and his co-announcer for the commercial.

For the Avatar scene. LOVED their costumes!

For the Tangled scene.

Elf Queen, Shelob the spider, Frodo, and Golom for the LOTR scene.

VA-ROOOOM!!!!

It's Blue and Gold time again, and our fabulous scout leaders pulled out all the stops as usual.

The theme this year was Route 66, which I thought was so fun. The boys were supposed to decorate a Route 66 cake to bring, so this is what we spent the morning making:

John did just about everything, from helping with the batter to putting on the frosting. But he did let his little brothers help put on the candies.

And here's what everyone else brought:

I love the one with the road on it. We almost did something like that, but I couldn't resist the lure of cupcakes. Cakes intimidate me, but cupcakes are easy!

The tables were decorated with Route 66 placemats, and these cool centerpieces. Chris W. made them of course. :)

They had plenty for the kids to do, including this bean bag toss. There was candy in each bucket and if you got a ball in, you got to take out a piece of candy. The furthest bucket had full-sized candy bars in it! Ben did pretty good at this - I think he walked away with three prizes.

There were also plasma car races:

Fun!

This Blue and Gold was special because both of John's Grandmas were able to come. Kathy had to leave before I could get her picture taken (I know she's just heartbroken about that) but I got one of the boys with my mom:

But the true highlight of the day (no offense Mom) was this:

No, not the hauler, what's inside the hauler.

Oh yeah...

Oh baby...

See all the grown-ups hanging around the car? That's what it was like the whole time. I just don't think the kids appreciated it the way we did. Although they did "ooooooh" appreciatively when Bro. Foster told them how much the car was worth (a half a million dollars, in case you're wondering). Anyway, my kids looked at it and were gone so fast, I didn't even see them. I had to bring them back to get pictures of them inside:

Then it was MY turn:

Man I wish I could've taken it for a spin!

Take a look at the engine on this thing:

I was going to make a crack about there not being much room for groceries, but I'm not sure these guys would've thought that was funny.

After awhile, the crew turned it on, warmed it up, and revved the engine. (Turn your sound up to get the full effect.)

It was totally awesome.

After I'd had my fill of the car, I gathered the lady folks for a couple of races:

Apparently I thought leaning forward would make me go faster...

It didn't work. What you need to go faster is...

A push.

My mom gave me a push at the end and I was so glad! My arms were getting tired!!


The photographer of the day must've thought I'd like this for some reason:

Dear hubby's foot! :)

Oh yeah, I guess the whole reason for this is to present awards to the boys. John was able to earn his rank advancement in time for the Blue and Gold (just barely!). It's kind of a neat pack meeting to get that kind of award.

This picture cracks me up because John looks mad, but it was just the timing of the camera. I think he's just thinking. :)

Nylene, being the awesome cub committee chair that she is, arranged for the boys to give their parents a thank you note, along with a flashlight for the dads (for lighting the way through scouts) and a flower for the moms (for helping to plant their cub scouts seeds, even though everyone knows it's really because moms love to get flowers for any reason).

It was another great cub scout activity. And just for fun, here's a little Ferrari tribute, courtesy of Ferris Bueller's Day Off:

P.S.

Freaking ROME!! I about jumped out of my seat when President Monson announced there's going to be a temple in Rome!! As if I needed any more reasons to go! Oh my holy. My frenzied thoughts went along the lines of: "I'm SO going! I'm gonna be at that dedication! I'll save every penny between now and then. I want to be there. I'm GOING to be there! What more worthy reason could I find? I'll set a goal and I'll do it!" (Repeat about a hundred times.)

Then Elder Perry talked about financial prudence and being debt-free and I thought, "Oh, well, I guess that would be a better goal." So maybe I won't be going after all.

But if I win the lottery, I'm SO GOING!!!!

General Conference and Me

Weren't those primary children magnificent?? I actually found a blog entry by someone who works behind the scenes of conference; click here if you want to see her crazy schedule.

I've debated whether or not to post my thoughts about conference, just because it's a little more personal (or more spiritual) than what I usually post. But I'm going to anyway, mainly because I want to hold myself accountable. How many times do we set a goal only to forget about it or leave it half-done? I've had several impressions during conference (particularly during Saturday's sessions) that I want to follow through on. I'm hoping making them public will help.

Family Home Evening:

Many, many times I'd be listening to a talk and think "we should do a FHE on this." I made a note of it each time, along with any ideas that would come to me for related object lessons or activities. While there was a (brief) time when I was pre-planning our FHE's, these days more often than not, our FHE's are thrown together about five minutes before they start. I've been unhappy with this and resolving to do better, but... well... I haven't.

I like to work on things in big chunks when I'm feeling motivated. So what worked for me before was to plan out several FHE's at once, print them out on one sheet of cardstock that I kept near my computer, and pick our FHE's from that. I'm going to do that again, and be better about restocking my supply of planned FHE's as they get low. (By the way, that was how we got a lot of John's scout stuff done too.)

I also feel we need some sort of loose curriculum to help me put all my ideas and goals into a format that's not too overwhelming (while eliminating the need to reinvent the wheel every week). For months now I've been wanting to steal an idea from a friend of mine, and utilize this great book called The Other Eminent Men of Wilford Woodruff. I have the book, but that's as far as I've gotten. Now I have all these ideas from conference too. So, to try to get it all organized in my brain, here are my thoughts about this so far:

I'd like a monthly testimony meeting (the Monday before Fast Sunday would be perfect) where we review principles of heartfelt prayer and testimony. We've discovered our children need frequent reminders about this (just like adults do). I think for the first several lessons, I can focus on a single principle from Elder Bednar's fantastic talk (Saturday afternoon session). The activity will be bearing of testimonies.

I know a lot of people spend the six months in between conferences re-reading all the talks. I think that's amazing. It's something I'd like to do myself (especially with President Monson's admonition), but I've had that thought before and never even come close. (Translation: I pretty much never re-read any talks.) So, believing in baby steps, I'm going to select a few talks for us to review for FHE, once a month or so between now and April.

On my list right now:

• President Uchtdorf's Saturday morning talk on Hope (isn't he the most amazing speaker ever???)
• Elder Oaks' great talk about Sacrament meeting worship. (I've tried before to sit quietly before the meeting starts, but it's such a huge part of the culture to talk to and greet each other during that time. How are we supposed to say "I'm trying to contemplate and prepare for the sacrament" without sounding rude? Then it came to me: have my scriptures open on my lap, and either read them, or look like I'm reading them while actually pondering my own thoughts. I don't think people will interrupt that. So that's what I'm going to try. ... Getting there early will probably help too.)
• Neil Anderson's story about the little girl born deaf and the little boy in the wheelchair. I want to share that story with my children again. I may or may not add more to it, using that little girl's statement "Jesus will make everything alright" as our theme.
• President Eyring's talk on unity, particularly family unity.
• I had already planned on a "What's Great About America" FHE (inspired by a scout requirement) that we'll do the Monday before Veteran's Day. I'll also incorporate some thoughts from President Packer's talk on pioneers, persecution, and patriotism.
• Stripling warrior FHE with the theme about how we should not be "consumers of vice" but rather "guardians of virtue," as in Sister Dalton's talk. We'll talk about the 13th Article of Faith too.
• I want to re-read Elder Cook's talk about the two pioneer women. That may be a good FHE as well.

We (I) need to make a set of cards for the apostle memory game. I want all of us to know their names and faces better than we do. That can be our go-to game for FHE when I don't have anything else planned.

Personal Application:

Well... no, this is too personal. I'll keep this goal to myself, but I will say I found Elder Bednar's talk incredibly inspiring.

I also need to revisit Elder Christopherson's talk, because the kids were really distracting me and I missed most of it. I want to see what the three things are we're supposed to do to build Zion.

I loved what he said about being content with what we have. I do believe that is a true principle, and I think I live it for the most part. But there are times when I find myself comparing what I have with others, which is never a good idea. It's good to be reminded of all the great reasons to be grateful and happy, and to focus on the things that really matter. When we leave this earth, what do we really take with us anyway?

I also want to remember what our prophet has counseled us to pray for, in both personal and family prayers.


And those are my thoughts about general conference. It was, as always, an amazing experience. Whenever the last session of conference ends, I always have the same thought: "I can't wait until next time."

General Conference and My Kids

This weekend is General Conference, something I look forward to every April and October. It's always such an uplifting, inspiring, and encouraging experience. I just love it.

Last Sunday we had a number of talks about conference, and one in particular (Sean A'lee's) inspired me to make conference a truly special experience for the whole family. My children are still pretty young, but not as young as they used to be. I decided we could step up our efforts, and get them on the next level so that someday (hopefully) they'll be listening to each speaker with their ears and their hearts.

We had a FHE about it on Monday, and everyone got really excited. We each have a copy of Genny's fabulous Conference packet, along with various plans and ideas intended to get the children really involved. In the past, I was happy if they were just quiet (my primary reason for using packets in the past). On Saturdays, I didn't even make them watch at all if they didn't want to. That certainly made it easier for me to pay attention. But this time would be different.

The children were excited about it all week. An improvement right there. And they eagerly participated for the first hour of the Saturday morning session.

The second hour, not so much. I heard more complaining and cries of "when's it going to be over?" I started to wonder how we were going to get through the next three sessions. More than that, I didn't want their enthusiasm for conference to turn into dread.

Then, something miraculous happened. The closing hymn was "I Need Thee Every Hour." This is the hymn we've been memorizing as a family, the first hymn we've ever done that with. I love this hymn for so many reasons, the most recent of which is that I've come to think of it as "our family's" hymn.

The children's enthusiasm returned as they recognized "our" hymn and began singing with the choir. I felt encouraged, and grateful. How wonderful to end the session like this, I thought.

But the choir was singing it very, very slowly. It was beautiful, but about half way through my children were bored again. So much for ending on a good note.

But that's okay. I still felt encouraged. I felt I had been reminded that life is a process. My children are still young. We have plenty of time. We'll get there. It may be years before we have the family general conference weekends I envision, if we ever do at all. But we're trying our best, and that's all I can ask for.

Dads and Donuts

This post is WAY overdue, so overdue in fact that I should have just let it go. But I like these pictures too much so I'm posting it anyway. This was from our Primary Activity Day back in early June. We invited Dads to come with their kids, and served donuts afterwards (thus the title). It was a "carnival"-style event with different booths, all with the theme "All I Needed to Know I Learned from My Dad." I was mostly busy helping with the event so I didn't get a ton of pictures, but I got a few.


The shaving booth (whipped topping and popsicle sticks):

The Plasma Car races:

The craft:

I was in charge of the paper airplane contest, and so John could fulfill one of the activities for the Faith in God Award, he was in charge of helping me. I decided the plane we'd give instructions to build would be The Dragon, because it was easy to make and flew fast and straight.

(Okay, who am I kidding? I chose it because it's called The Dragon. I mean, how cool is that?)

John helped assemble the signs with the building instructions. He also helped make this sign. I wrote the lettering, but told him he could color it in however he wanted. This is what he did, and he was so proud of it!

Unfortunately, I don't have pics of the actual contest, which was fun. It was done in a pretty laid back, come and go style, with no real winners or prizes of course, but we did keep track of the longest throw. I don't remember the distance exactly, but it seems like it was over 40 feet. Maybe longer. I can't remember. It was awesome, and John did a great job helping with the booth.

There do tend to be perks to helping with activities like this. In addition to snacking on extra donuts, we got to play around on the plasma cars after everyone else had gone home.

Yeah, it was fun. :)