Free Stuff

Who doesn't love free stuff? I found this site via one of my favorite sites I like to read, The Lazy Organizer, and it had all these free giveaways that people are posting on their blogs. It is pretty cool. I saw it this morning and when I went back this afternoon the list had doubled! Check it out!

Pioneer FHE

• For this week's FHE we are going to talk about pioneers, tell family members that you are going to have to leave your house, ask them what things they would take with them if they had to leave and not come back. You could even have them gather up some items if you wanted to. Now tell them that your only mode of transportation is your feet and a wagon. I am going to have my little ones place the items in their wagon so they can get a feel for what it must have been like. Will they need to reevaulate what they take with them?
• Explain to family members that many of the early saints (and may be even your own relatives) were challenged with this problem.
• Use GAK pictures 409-415 to talk about pioneers with your family, or share some of your own families pioneer stories.
• Finally have a treasure hunt to help teach your family about some of the things that pioneers encoutered.

Additional activities (we are going to do these at our park day with our friends on the 24th of July)

Make covered wagons (from the July 2007 Friend Magazine (pg. 36-37)
Play some pioneer games 1. Three legged race, tie inside legs of two people together and have them race against other pairs of people.
2. Chain Tag, in this game, two people are it; they clasp one another's hands, and they begin chasing the others. When they tag someone they link hands too, making the chain three people long. The chain grows longer as more people are tagged.
more games can be found here

Zoo Days...

We went to the zoo this past week with my mom, sisters, sister's kids, and some friends. I hadn't been to the LA zoo since I was in elementary school....it is so much bigger than the Santa Barbara zoo! We were there all day and still didn't see it all. My mom got some great photos of the animals, it was really cool how close some of them were. We joked with her at the end of the day that she had 90 pictures of animals and only 10 with people in them!

Towards the end of the day we would walk a few feet, sit down, and then walk a few more...it was so hot nobody could muster the strength to just walk all the way back to the front of the park. Despite the heat we had a wonderful time, and the little ones were asleep before we even left the parking lot!

When Mom's away the kiddos play!!!

I had the opportunity to take a very quick trip to Utah to attend a reunion with friends that I worked with at Academy for Girls at BYU when I was in college. It was so much fun to see so many friends that I hadn't seen in years and to rekindle friendships with each one of them. Lyndie had her first plane trip as she got to accompany me and made lots of new friends who were just her size.

Lyndie is the third from the left.

She also mastered rolling while we were away, I guess it helps to actually have a carpet to lay down on. (It inspired us to finally find one for our family room and we have all had enjoy laying in front of the TV and being able to lay on something other than hard floor)

Lainey in mid-air as she jumps off a sand hill!

Justin and the girls survived just fine...even though Lainey called me crying a few times...it sure is nice to know that you are missed! They played at a friend's house, went to Chuck E. Cheese, out to eat, to a hot dog and smores roast at the beach, to the Lowe's kids clinic where they made little trucks, attended a pirate festival at the harbor, made an impromtu stop at the beach where they jumped in the waves, ate hamburgers at in-n-out, and rented movies...all in a space of 36 hours!

Justin and Malia making smores!

FHE Ideas...I've enjoyed scouring the web for FHE ideas over the last few weeks so thought I would post our lessons for anyone who wants to use them and or pass them along to others.

Here is one for this week...
Freedom FHE

Object Lesson - Have one of your children volunteer to help you with an object lesson. Sit on a chair and have your child sit on your lap. Put your arms around him or her so they are snug and tight, holding the child in place. Proceed to tell your child that you and the child are going to sit there the rest of the day and that they can't go anywhere....no food or friends today!! Ask them, "You didn't want to go outside and play today, did you?" or "Now did you really want to eat again today? You ate yesterday!" Playfully tease until they get the idea and have them sit back down. Get them to think about what it might be like if they didn't have any choices. Ask your children some of the following questions:* How did it feel to have me hold you tightly on my lap and not let you move around as you wished?* What does the word freedom mean? * What would it be like if all your decisions were made for you by someone else?Freedom is an important part of lives, and many have given a lot to have it. Whether a long time ago, like in the Book of Mormon, or even today, we continue to fight for this privilege (idea from www.sugardoodle.net)

Talk about and share some pictures of military servicemen and women. Show them a map of the middle east where many of them are currently stationed. Discuss how they help to protect our freedom and the freedoms of others.

Review the story of Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty.

Draw and or write pictures to send to service people.
Review the story of The Title of Liberty

Have you ever tried to take pictures of 3 little ones?

I had to settle for pictures of them alone...and in the process still got the camera dropped out of my hand...I hope I can get it to work again.

We've finally entered the BLOG world...

I enjoy reading everyone else's blogs so much I decided may be, just may be someone might enjoy reading mine too.