'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!!

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".

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  :)

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. 

Keep Calm and Call Your Visiting Teachers

My family and moi have been poorly over the Christmas holidays, so we've all curled up and hibernated for a couple of weeks...I personally can't think of a better time for it to happen, new toys on hand, great tv and lots of goodies too (if you can stomach them!).  But it also means I couldn't make it to my family party and give them our gifts, so I can't post anything yet until I've handed the goods over, I can't wait to share some of them :)

Soooo, in the mean time, I know I'm probably going a bit overboard with the whole 'Keep Calm' thing, but I love 'em, and this idea came to me as I have just been assigned some new sisters to visit. 

I made the one below so that you can put your phone numbers on and make it into a fridge magnet.  

And of course, I had to make some for the home teachers too....

I've made free printables that you can download and play with of both types of images. Enjoy!

                                 VT Printable                                                                                      HT Printable

Keep Calm and Remember It's Christmas

I loved making my last 'Keep Calm' image and it has already had over 200 views since posting it two months ago!!  And although that is great, and it has a wonderful message....it just hasn't sat with right with me.  As I spoke with my mum on the phone today and the obvious topic of Christmas came up, she said how we (especially mothers) can put ourselves under so much pressure for that one perfect Christmas day....a perfect dinner, present, decorations, clothes etc.  Now don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and all of it's trimmings, but when I think of a perfect Christmas it's time spent with family, laughing, sharing, talking, looking out for those in need, that is what I love about Christmas...and isn't that the way it should be.

So when the turkey gets burnt, a bauble gets broken, the latest gadget is out of stock and your new clothes are less than desirable, I think  I/we need to step back and remember what Christmas is really about......

Merry Christmas xx
 

Keep Calm and Enjoy Christmas

I designed this last night....sometimes with all the hustle and bustle leading up to and during Christmas we can forget the true meaning of it all.

The Race of Life

What with school holidays, visiting family and our Conference Highlight Night, tonight was our first FHE from the April 2012 General Conference...how time flies!!!

Where better to start than with the prophet's talk entitled 'The Race of Life'.  I focused on the part about the toy boats what with all my kids being young, so after dinner we set off for an adventure to a nearby canal.  Before we reached the water, we stopped to have a little lesson.  I asked the kids if they would be able to sprint to the top of the nearby steep hill, my 10yr old son was sure he would be able to do it, my daughters were not so confident...as we talked about the distant etc he realised that he wouldn't be able to do it either....but they all knew they could walk it, or even jog bits of it, because we had walked to the top several times before. As Thomas S. Monson said -

 “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”¹⁰

 Actually, the prize belongs to him or her who endures to the end.

We talked about what the above quote meant, and then shared with the children how President Monson made toy boats when he was a little boy, and that each of them had to find a 'boat' before we got to the canal so that we could race them.  We had all shapes and sizes, one sunk, several got stuck but the rest happily bobbed along the canal while we talked about the boats.  My daughter then read this quote from the talk -

Our Heavenly Father did not launch us on our eternal voyage without providing the means whereby we could receive from Him guidance to ensure our safe return. I speak of prayer. 

I speak too of the whisperings from that still, small voice; and I do not overlook the holy scriptures, which contain the word of the Lord and the words of the prophets—provided to us to help us successfully cross the finish line.

We asked the children what 3 things mentioned help us on our voyage here on earth, which they answered surprising quickly...normally we have to prompt them or reread it...and after that it was time for us to go home as several needed the toilet and one had trodden in something...ewww!!  We ate our treat on the quick march home.

After we all got cleaned up and before we had family prayer, we recapped on our little adventure and finished with this quote -

It is the celestial glory which we seek. It is in the presence of God we desire to dwell.

 It is a forever family in which we want membership. Such blessings are earned through a lifetime of striving, seeking, repenting, and finally succeeding.

The kids, went straight to sleep with no fuss tonight...I think we might have to have more FHE ramblings :)
I really like this bit at the end of the talk too...

I'm so grateful to know where I have come from, why I am here and where I am going, it has helped me so many times during my journey here on earth.....and I also need to remember that it's not a race and to slow down a bit too :)

Free Facebook Covers

When I was offered a facebook new timeline, I thought why not...but I was a tad surprised that my 'cover' would be available worldwide?!!?!...I personally don't like the thought of my family photos available to anybody, so luckily one of my images from an earlier post (Tuesdays with Morrie) fitted in perfectly, so I used that.


I fancied a change so I made some more this weekend that you are more than welcome to use too, if you want. If you need instructions on how to do this they are below...and I hope they make some sort of sense!! 

...and this one, because I just couldn't resist using these cute buttons :)

Below is how I copy images from the web, I don't know if this is the quickest or easiest way, but it works for me...and hopefully for you :)
Instructions - right click on the 'fb cover' that you like, and select 'save image as...', next click 'save' (you can change the file name before you save if you want).  
Sign into your fb account and then hover over the bottom right corner of your current fb cover till you see 'change cover', choose 'upload photo' from the list and then find the saved image using it's title, press 'open' when you've found it (sometimes it takes me a while to track down what I've downloaded!!).  It will then upload the image and then press 'save changes' and it's done, phewww!!!


Let me know what you think...and any other ideas/links for future fb covers would be great too.

p.s. I have 'windows' installed on my computer so I don't know if it's different for other programs??

Tell Me the Stories of Jesus

After hearing this talk in General Conference in April 2010, I made the chart below for help us to read and study John in the New Testament...each of the squares represent a page in the LDS edition of the Kings James Bible.

As you can see it has also been used to practice spellings on and just general scribbles, makes it look loved, don't you think??!!?...I made a simpler chart below where one letter can be coloured in when a chapter is read.  Feel free to copy the image and photocopy it for personal use.

This is the bit from Neil L. Andersen's talk that mentions reading the book of John....the rest of the talk is lovely too - 

Do our children say, “Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear”? ³³

To the youth and children: Live up to your important responsibilities and great spiritual capacities. Seek to know more about Jesus; open the scriptures. One idea would be to read again the book of John and then discuss it with your parents, teachers, and each other.

Our family have really felt the spirit and a greater love of the Saviour as we have read, we have yet to finish...but we are loving every minute of it. 

Rice Hand Warmers

I can't bear to throw my material scraps away, but the challenge is finding what to do with them all!!

Well, my fleece scraps finally have a purpose, yeahh....I found loads of tutorial for making fleece rice hand warmers, and couldn't believe that all I had to do was sew two pieces of material together, leaving a small gap so I could put some rice in, sew the gap, and that was it!!  I don't know why in my mind I pictured it being more than that, but they really were so quick and easy to make, which was very 'handy' as my scraps will soon be no more, mwahaaha!!

picture source

I whipped up some pink ones for my mother-in-law....and she loves them, I think??!  I made a little tag to go with the gift too...

....in my rush I forgot to take a photo of the finished project, whoops, still getting use to all this documenting your every move blog thing.  I then wrapped them up in some cellophane and attached a ribbon.

Daddy's interviews

We've decided to try and make our children's interviews more of a regular occurrence, so every first Sunday of the month is what it's gonna be...so 6 down, only 10,000 more to go!!

As my husband started interviewing our oldest child (interview #1), they were discussing Jesus' life and stumbled upon the scripture below-

From this my husband realised that we needed to help the children to set goals in all of the areas mentioned in this verse to help them to grow up to be good people, who followed the example of the Saviour.  So from wisdom=education, stature=physical, in favour with God=relationship with God, in favour with man=relationship with family (and friends).

We've laminated these for the kids on different coloured card so that they stick them next to their beds, so that they can see the goals they have set and rub them out when they're done and put on a new one.

This scripture has now become our motto for the year, and I will hopefully get around to stencilling it onto some wood soon (well, I'm hoping to do it before the end of the year!!!)

Tuesdays With Morrie

I'm so glad that I stumbled upon this film 12 years ago in Blockbusters, it was the only one left on the shelf and I had never heard of it before...but all the other films I had already seen, or wasn't interested in, so 'Tuesdays With Morrie' was hesitantly rented and taken home.  I watched it, loved it, bought it, even bought the book.....which is a rare occurrence for me!!  It was really inspiring, and I know it sounds cheesy but it has a place in my heart.....especially as it started my love of true story films, that has then gone on to inspire me, my husband (who was a bit reluctant as first), and now my family....maybe at a later date I'll do a post of similar films that are my favs??!!?


So what's so good about 'Tuesdays with Morrie???'  Well, at that time in my life it helped me put my life in perspective and made me realise how I could be the one to make a difference in someone's life....now, you might watch it and get a totally different thing, haha!!
Anyway, I thought I'd share some excerpts from the book (and film??).....who knows it might cause a ripple effect, yikes!!

I drafted this post a couple of weeks before my husband's grandad died of cancer, and these words really touched members of his family.

loved this one too...

......I hope you enjoy this book and/or film as much as I do.