'Kinder' pillow treat

I don't know how many times I've bought the 'Kinder' eggs, chocolate etc before, and it was only the other week that I noticed (while I was trawling the sweetie aisle to get some inspiration for YW camp) that it actually says kinder!!!  Doh!  How have I missed that all these years!??!

So I then rushed home with my chocolate stash determined to find a quote from General Conference that used the word kinder, and instantly loved (and remembered) this quote from Gordon B. Hinckley.

I then used glu dots to stick the chocolate to the card so that the Young Women could keep the handout after camp (hopefully some of them did??), and then popped them into a sealable cellophane bag.  Job done....and now the agonizing wait to give them to the girls!!  

The girls loved them, and were the same as me about not noticing that it actually said 'kinder', glad I wasn't the only one, lol!?!

Just right click on image above 

& 'save as' to your computer

(for personal use only)

Now that our camp is over, there will be more Young Women's camp ideas coming your way soon....seriously can't wait for next year, I love our girls!!

General Conference Oct 2014

I can't believe how quickly Conference comes around!!  

Yesterday my lovely friend (who's three days away from having her sixth child!!) invited a group of us to her house and let us loose on all her craft items to make conference bags/activities for our kids...it kept mine quiet for the majority of one of the sessions which was brill :)

I had Conference Booklets printed for our notes this year, even my four year old was keen to have one....he's filled pages with lots of lovely letters.  My six year old was chuffed to bits with his drawing of a Minecraft scene on the back cover...well at least they are listening??!?

After Conference I was just downloading some of my photos off my phone and spotted this one, and thought it went perfectly with a quote from President Uchtdorf's talk.

Can't wait for tomorrow :)

Temples are more than stone and mortar

Boo hoo, ohhh how I missed blogging!! 

Recently I've been extra busy with family, work and church, but hopefully over the summer (if the kids will let me) I'll be able to start sharing some of the things I've been up to recently.

But in the meantime, here's a photo I took of the Preston Temple with a great quote from Thomas S. Monson.

I'll be in touch soon, woohoo!!

Marking your General Conference Ensign

I thought I'd post the way I mark my General Conference Ensign...bazaar I know, but I might do something that's a bit different to everybody else??!?!

I'm a bit of a sucker for the good old paper copy, none of this technical stuff when it comes to studying and making notes.....I love the feel of the magazine in one hand and a pen poised ready in the other.  Don't get me wrong, I do use the 'technical stuff' a lot for lessons, FHE, listening to as I fall asleep of a nighttime, so here's the link for all the General Conferences that are currently available online. 

Right back to my paper copy of the Ensign....firstly, I write my name on the contents page (we buy copies for all the family, so they all need to be clearly labeled in our house, it also helps you not to lose it at church too!!).

Secondly, I find the email/post from my Stake Presidency telling me what talks will be studied for 'Teachings for our Times' during Relief Society/Priesthood, and then I label the talks on the contents page with the month written next to them.  It makes for a great reference for future months.

When I read a talk, I mark it as I would my scriptures by underlining, cross referencing etc....I also write goals, ideas in big writing in the margins.

Then on completing the talk I tick it at the end (I find this helps as sometimes I don't mark bits of the talk and with distractions from the kids etc it helps me know that I've definitely finished it, lol!).

I also circle the page number of the talk I've completed on the contents page so that I can clearly see what talks I have read and have yet to read.

I know its not much, but that's it....just thought I'd share it with you all :).  Please feel free to share ideas and suggestions of things you do too, I'd love to hear them.

Chalkboard Missionary Badges

Conference was amazing, each of the talks were just so inspiring, I couldn't get enough of it.

I really am going to try to be a better missionary and try to 'hasten His work'.

As I listened to Elder S. Gifford Nielsen's talk, he mentioned how we could pray for the missionaries serving in our area by name, here's what he said....

Second, pray for the missionaries serving in your area and their investigators by name every day. The only way to do this is to greet them, look at their badge, call them by name, and ask them who they are teaching. Elder Russell M. Nelson wisely contributed, “Until you know a person’s name and face, the Lord cannot help you know his or her heart.”

I don't know about you but my memory is crazy since I've had kids, and I find it really hard to remember things let alone new people's names....and with the Elders sometimes their surnames can be pretty hard to remember.

So I made some chalkboard fridge magnets with Elder across the top, so that we could then write the surnames of the Elders serving in our ward underneath....and then when they move, we can then change them.

I got some mdf cut the same size as a missionary badge, and then painted it with three coats of chalkboard paint.  When it was dry, I used a Sakura souffle pen to write the 'Elder' across the top...it looks very clear and watery when you first write it on, but give it a couple of minutes and it goes super white like in the picture above...it's like magic, it's soo cool!!  haha, what am I like??!?

Then put a magnet on the back and you have your fridge reminder or what the names of the missionaries serving in your ward are...we are one step closer to being better missionaries :)

I then decided to make some as gifts, I made them permanent though, one for my nephew who's on his mission now and the other for my friend who's just about to leave.

I'm so grateful for the missionaries who are currently serving all over the world, and for the wonderful work that they are doing.  I hope that I can be a better missionary, and even if what I am doing feel like baby steps, in the famous words of Walt Disney I've just got to "keep moving forward".

Missionary Badge Pocket

I was desperate to share this post before Fathers day so that others could do it, but alas as I was giving this gift to my hubby, I had to wait.....but hey there's still upcoming birthdays, Christmas, returning missionaries etc. that it would be great for.

This was another idea inspired from General Conference (April 2013), it was from a talk given by Neil L. Andersen entitled It's a Miracle where he said....

And returned missionaries, find your old missionary tag. Don’t wear it, but put it where you can see it. The Lord needs you now more than ever to be an instrument in His hands. All of us have a contribution to make to this miracle.

It took me all of 5 minutes to make this gift, especially as I got lucky and found my hubby's missionary badge right at the top of the first memory box I opened :)

I simply got one of my sons shirts and cut around the pocket, leaving enough excess material so that I could wrap it around the back of the glass in the frame....sorry about the photo quality but this was being done late at night, whilst trying to be quiet and quick about it!  There's nothing like the last minute rush!??!!

I didn't attach the material to the glass as I thought I could then take it off and wash it if needs be...as I slipped the badge on I got all choked up, it looked really lovely for more reasons than one.  I hope that my three sons will be inspired by seeing it daily around our home and that they too will choose to serve a mission when they are older. 

I'm thinking that I might make a frame for each of my boys with their names and the phrase 'I hope they call me on a mission' printed on the shirt pocket where their badges would be, so that we would end up with a wall of frames.  Then when they've served their missions they too can put their badge up as a reminder to themselves and us all to be missionary minded at all times.

For Peace at Home

I can't believe it's been two months since Conference, time is just flying by!!?!  I loved conference and didn't know where to start with the things I've learnt and the FHE's and activities that we've got planned....soooo excited, can you tell??!?  We decided to start with Elder Richard G. Scott's talk entitled 'For Peace at Home'.

As Elder Scott spoke the words below in his talk an image popped into my head and I sketched it down in my notebook so that I wouldn't forget.

I’m sure you can identify the fundamental principles that center your home on the Savior. The prophetic counsel to have daily personal andfamily prayer, daily personal and family scripture study, and weekly family home evening are the essential, weight-bearing beams in the construction of a Christ-centered home. Without these regular practices it will be difficult to find the desired and much-needed peace and refuge from the world.

I'm still not super duper at doing graphic images but I'm good at sharing (lol) and hopefully getting better at it as I go?!!  Well this is what I came up with.

to download file

click here

We used this talk as our guide tonight for FHE, there was sooo much in the talk that we could focus on, and I didn't want to leave any of it out, so I broke it up into smaller bite size chunks/topics so that the kids could take it all in.

I stuck a picture of the Saviour in the centre of a piece of paper and after we had read each of the quotes from the talk, we discussed them and then wrote on the paper what we could do to make Christ the centre of our home.

This is now stuck on our kitchen door as a reminder of what we are going to try to do to make our home more peaceful (here's hoping!!) and Christ centered.

For the activity at the end of the lesson, everyone got a strawberry lace and we put a big bowl of Cheerios in the middle of us all.  One by one we had to say something that made us 'cheery' (aka happy), and then we could put one cheerio on our lace...we set a time limit of 5 minutes to do it, so everyone was trying to think of things to say as quickly as they could.

It started off well with the kids saying things and quickly threading on their Cheerio so that they were ready for their next go.  It was only as we were half way through the game that the older kids noticed that every time they were saying something my three year old was repeating it and handing a Cheerio to his dad to thread on...hence his lace had lots more than the others, then everybody just went for it and shouted out lots of 'cheery' things with no waiting this time...it was really funny, and we had such good giggle at it all.

I really enjoyed the lesson and game tonight, but more so the game...it wasn't particularly peaceful, but hopefully we heard some of the things that makes others in our family happy, and will look for ways to make them cheery in the future.  Playing the game was easy, but the further it went on, the harder it got...but as I heard some of my children's answers it made me reflect on lots of wonderful things in my life that have brought me so much happiness and joy.  We are all so blessed in so many different ways, we've just got to stop, look and think and we will find things that make us 'cheery', no matter what our circumstances  :)

Preparing for and Reviewing General Conference #3

One of these days I'll be super prepared and get my posts on here before General Conference starts, lol!!  Well it's another 'can' idea but for General Conference this time, also below is a great link to 'The ultimate guide to General Conference with kids'...a must for anyone with children :)  

General Conference Preparation

I've made a 'can' for each of my kids this year and have filled them with pens, felt tips, crayons (for the younger ones), and some sweets...I find doing these quirky little things generally helps with my kids concentration and also they get really excited for Conference too.  I printed the phrase "I 'can' listen to the Prophets and Apostles" on some card and used lots of my 'DIY Mod Podge' to stick it on.  Voila!...job done :)

I put a big packet of love heart sweets in each one and the plan is each time they hear the word love (or something about love) being mentioned they get to have one....I'm guessing the younger ones will have finished theirs before the opening prayer, lol?!!?! 

General Conference Review

Very similar to the above except with the words 'I 'can' listen and obey the Prophets and Apostles'.  On the Monday after Conference for FHE we are going to go through our General Conference Notebooks and decide for each talk what conference square picture to stick at the top of their named lollipop stick.  

Conference Squares

Then on the back of the stick we will write a goal/idea of what we can do to follow the council given and review these during the next six months for FHE/family councils/goal setting etc.

This is going to sit on our mantle and I'm hoping it will be a daily reminder for the children and us to look through and remind us of the talks and council given at conference :)

Looking for other ideas??  The website shown below has a stack load of great links for all different kinds of activities, colouring, games etc, why not take a look it's great :)

livecrafteat.com

The Ultimate Guide to General Conference with kids

lds.org also has a page specifically designated for General Conference Activities for Children too.

Hope you enjoy watching Conference with your family and loved ones xx.

General Conference Rocks!!

I've been hanging onto these leftover mosaic tiles from our bathroom just in case I could use them for something, and yep four years later and I've turned them into fridge magnets...woohoo, I don't know how I do it, lol!!?!

I used some masking tape to attach some tissue paper to card so that it would go through the printer (I got this idea from several blogs) but as you can see from my photo below my printer didn't seem to like this and chewed it up a tad.  Fortunately I managed to salvage a few squares so it wasn't a total failure :)  Your printer might be kinder, so you might be able to get a whole sheet??

I cut the non-smeared/chewed squares and stuck them onto the tiles using my DIY Mod Podge.  When they were dry, I trimmed off the excess tissue paper and used my hot glue gun to stick a magnet on the back....yep, I'm sat on my bed in my PJs making rock magnets, awww my kinda heaven :)

I used quotes/themes from General Conference for my rock magnets but you could use scriptures, children's names, a phrase...anything!!  As I was giving mine as a gift I made a little label for the top out of card, I  kept smirking at my play on words, haha!!

Rock on!!!!

I know it. I live it. I love it.

I loved Ann M. Dibbs talk at General Conference and as soon as I mentioned the story at the beginning of her talk about the girl in the T-shirt my kids remembered it too!!

Once we'd finished the story we all had a piece of paper with her chosen T-shirt statements on (I'm a Mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it), and we each wrote down how and why we knew it, lived it and loved it!  It was lovely to watch the children sit and think as they wrote down their feelings and answers to these simple but profound sentences.  I got all choked up as we shared what we had written down, we were basically sharing our testimonies of the gospel with each other...it was one of those special memories.

We each had a cut-out card T-shirt to decorate (on both sides if we wished) with either the words or drawings showing our beliefs....if you've got some old plain T-shirts laying around you could use these instead, or if you are a very hi-tech family you could design them on your computers and then print the designs onto T-shirt transfers.  I thought teenagers might enjoy the latter one, but as I have none yet I am only guessing??!!?!  It could also make quite a good activity for Faith in God too?

We finished the lesson by reading Sister Dibbs testimony at the end of her talk....

I have a testimony of our Heavenly Father’s great plan of eternal happiness. I know that He knows us and loves us. I know that He has prepared a prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, to encourage us and help guide us back to Him. I pray that each of us will put forth the effort to be able to confidently declare, “I’m a Mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it.”

For the treat I was soo excited when I found these mini football shirt biscuits, how perfect are they??!!?  And as with most of our FHE treats we had to cover them in lashings of frosting and hundreds of sprinkles...nom nom!!

See Others As They May Become

President Monson gave a wonderful talk during the Priesthood session at Conference which I was asked to teach and discuss in Relief Society...unfortunately two of my children were sick the night before and then I became ill too, so I never got to teach it :(

It has a wonderful message (as expected), and as I was preparing my lesson this sentence popped out at me.  Now weeks later, as I looked over it again I noticed that it was also the summary heading of the talk...and it reminded me of the image that came into my mind.  So I designed it, and now I'm sharing it...hoping that although I didn't get to teach my lesson, somebody may be touched by this wonderful statement of truth. 

Consider the Blessings

I loved General Conference, and where better to start than with the prophet's talk entitled 'Consider the Blessings' for our FHE tonight.

We started by singing the obvious choice of song, 'Count your Many Blessings' (Hymns #241).

I asked the children to listen carefully as two verses from the scriptures were read and to share with us which verse showed someone who was counting their blessings and someone who was not.

First we read 1 Nephi 2:11

11 Now this he spake because of the ^astiffneckedness of Laman and Lemuel; for behold they did ^bmurmur in many things against their ^cfather, because he was a ^dvisionary man, and had led them out of the land of Jerusalem, to leave the land of their inheritance, and their gold, and their silver, and their precious things, to perish in the wilderness. And this they said he had done because of the foolish imaginations of his heart.

Followed by 1 Nephi 2:13

 16 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, being exceedingly young, nevertheless being large in stature, and also having great desires to know of the ^amysteries of God, wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did ^bvisit me, and did ^csoften my heart that I did ^dbelieve all the words which had been spoken by my ^efather; wherefore, I did not ^frebel against him like unto my brothers.

We discussed theses verses and decided that Laman and Lemuel were doing alot murmuring and complaining whilst Nephi who was also in the same situation chose to pray and gained a grateful heart for the situation they were in.

Then we read the following quote from President Monson's talk -

My beloved brothers and sisters, this conference marks 49 years since I was sustained, on October 4, 1963, as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Forty-nine years is a long time. In many ways, however, the time seems very short since I stood at the pulpit in the Tabernacle and gave my very first general conference address.

Much has changed since October 4, 1963. We live in a unique time in the world’s history. We are blessed with so very much. And yet it is sometimes difficult to view the problems and permissiveness around us and not become discouraged. I have found that, rather than dwelling on the negative, if we will take a step back and consider the blessings in our lives, including seemingly small, sometimes overlooked blessings, we can find greater happiness.

I then showed them the poster with the title of the talk on and an outline of a body (that is somewhat misshaped, haha!!), and we took turns writing in the body how we would feel if we didn't see, notice or consider any of the blessings in our lives.  We had answers like, grumpy, unhappy, unthankful etc.

I told them that the 49 colourful circles around the edge of the paper represented each year that our prophet has served as in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency...and that from today each FHE till next General Conference we would decide on 2 specific blessings that had happened during the week to place in our empty body, so that by the time April comes it would be full of lots of colourful blessings.

The children chose coats (as two of the children had just got new ones) and Sister Win (who is a lovely lady in our ward) and wrote them on 2 circles and stuck them inside the outline.

A bit of cheese now, but I'm so grateful for General Conference and for the spiritual uplift that I receive from listening to the General Authorities of the Church that helps me and my family, and I'm also grateful for this blog, it's helped me in so many ways especially being more confident on the computer...I know I still have a long, long way to go yet but I'm getting there post by post xx

Preparing for General Conference #2

I had every intention of posting this before General Conference, but didn't get around to it!!...at least it will be ready for the next one or for when you watch sessions you missed this time :)  So here it is....

It's that wonderful time of the year again, and so I thought I better whip up something different for my children to do during General Conference.  For all the sessions we are still using our Conference Journals but with a twist this year for the kids.

I thought I'd give my kids journals a little tweak this year and make some photo stickers of the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles including names so that they can stick them in their books....I don't know why we didn't think of this one earlier!!

I don't know if it's the same in anybody else's house, but in ours it's usually a frantic rush when the name of the speaker comes on the TV screen as all the kids scramble to get it written down correctly before it disappears...except more often than not, one or more of the kids doesn't get it down on paper, so we end up with lots of questions (and sometimes tears) until we have helped them by spelling it out, or writing it down for them, which results in us missing the beginning of the talks...sound familiar??!?

I copied the pictures from the Conference Ensign April 2012 and just added the names of all the Prophets and Apostles and printed them on sticker paper (you could just use paper and glue)...if you would like a copy of my outlay, just let me know and I will get one to you via email.

My kids have really enjoyed the stickers so far, they used the centre page of the last Conference Ensign to sort their stickers in order with the right name and then put in their books...I'm hoping this activity will also help my children to become more familiar with the General Authorities names and faces.

**And because I'm late posting this I can tell you that this idea worked really well in their journals :) ...and don't stop reading when you see the conference jars below, because I tweaked that too!!!  It was really, really lovely and would definitely recommend it to everyone that has younger children to do for a session or two**

To change things up a bit, during one of the latter sessions, we are going to use the idea of the key word treats, mmmmmm!!  I'm looking forward to this one :)  I used old jam jars and my DIY Mod Podge to stick the images on, and included an image to help my 2 and 4 yr old remember the key words.

As I was doing the shopping for the treats I suddenly thought I'd try to link the treat with the theme of the jar....some are very loosely connected, but hey, you get the idea.

"I am that bread of life" John 6:48 = breadsticks

 When we serve, we generally use our hands which have....fingers :)

I really wanted something that was seed like, but unfortunately my kids don't like pumpkin seeds :( ...and poppy and sesame biscuits were too big to fit in the jar, so I went for....pistachio nuts, huh!!!

I was let down by my local supermarket as they had no jelly babies, so instead, I bought.....goldbears (they kinda look like little people)

There were lots of things I could have chosen for the 'love' jar, but I decided to go with these = jammie dodgers mini

And finally, for the 'Obedience' jar (aka Choose the Right), I chose.....chewits!!  Do you get it, chew the right.....I don't know if my kids will either, but they will understand the whole listen for these key words/principles during Conference and when you hear them you get a treat.  Wahooooo!!!

Because of the time difference where we live, we watched some of the sessions later on, so we could pause the session...this came in handy for these jars.  We all continued to take notes, but after EVERY talk we would pause it and get one jar down at a time and discuss whether we had heard this word or principle being taught in the talk....it was really lovely as we shared and heard each others experiences, and were all strengthened from it.....and of course we got to get a treat from the jar too :)

Hope you enjoy(ed) your Conference weekend.