Scriptural Easter Egg Hunt

I've been asked to cover my Primary's music time this Sunday and thought I'd do an Easter Egg Hunt, so I cut out some brightly card into an egg shape and wrote different songs on...I had some left over and thought I could use them for us tomorrow to help us read the Easter story.

I looked in John chapter 20 to see what verses etc I could group together and write on the eggs and couldn't decide as it was all so lovely (cheesy but true).  So I grouped them according to the six paragraphs already highlighted in the King James Version.

Egg 1 - John 20:1-10; Egg 2 - John 20:11-18; Egg 3 - John 20:19-23

Egg 4 - John 20:24-25; Egg 5 - John 20:26-29; Egg 6 - John 20:30-31

We are going to hide them around the room and one of the children has to find number one first and then we will read/discuss those scriptures and then we can find the next one etc...once we've read them all the children can then hunt for their chocolate eggs.

Happy Easter everyone xx

Two Instant FHE games

I think I've got a bit of a wild imagination as I regularly conjure up games out of nowhere for our kids to play after our FHE lessons...though this only occurs when my brain is actually in a fairly functional mode, lol!! ;)

You need no preparation and no supplies, so you can play them in an instant.  The two games are entitled....Sleeping Lamanites and Are you Reverent??

The idea for this game came from the story found in Mosiah 24 where the Lord made the Lamanites sleepy so that Alma and his people could escape.  

 19 And in the morning the Lord caused a ^adeep sleep to come upon the Lamanites, yea, and all their task-masters were in a profound sleep.

Basically the aim of the game is for a Nephite to sneak pass all the 'sleeping' Lamanites on the floor without waking them up and escape from the city....aka get from one side of the room to the other without being detected by the people lying on the floor.  

The Lamanites lay face down with their eyes shut (no peeking!) and they are allowed one 'twitch' each...a 'twitch' is when they move their arm or leg to try to touch the passing Nephite (very funny to watch by the way).  If they miss that's it, no more twitches for that person....and if somebody does manage to touch the Nephite then they get to be the next one to try to escape the city.  I hope these instructions make sense!?!!

We played this one just this Monday after we'd a rather irreverent day at church, but we have yet to see if it's sowed other thoughts into their heads of crazy things to do during sacrament or whether it's taught them how to sit reverently, hopefully it's the latter!! p.s. I don't expect my kids not to move during church, but hopefully musical chairs is a thing of the past :)

Right how to play...one (or two) people stand at the front, while the rest of the family sprawl themselves across the settee doing things that aren't particularly reverent...eg fingers in ears, upside down, on phone, sleeping etc.

The one/two ask those on the settee "Are you reverent??", to which everyone should respond in unison "No!!"...of course, you always get someone that answers 'yes'.

Then they have a certain amount of time (we chose a minute) to get them looking reverent either by physically moving them or by giving instructions eg turn round, feet down, fold arms etc...the latter worked better for the younger ones.

We have really enjoyed playing these simple games together over the years and hopefully will have many more years of them to come, and maybe your family will enjoy them too??!

Gorzal and the Hobsnatchers book

Well the past couple of weeks have been really busy as I've been helping my husband get his first children's book released for the Kindle...or in other words I haven't been able to get a look in on the laptop, haha!!  

So since I haven't had time for anything else I thought I'd share the book with you so I can get the vision of tumble weed blowing aimlessly through my blog out of my head, lol :)

Gorzal and the Hobsnatchers

(The Eiderworld Series)

I know I'm biased but I think it's a great story (and others think so too, which is always nice to hear!).  My husband wrote it for our four older children aged from 6-11 years...they really enjoyed the adventure, and the humorous bits had one of my daughters in a giggling fit.

Sorry, but my time is up for now....wow, that went quick!  Hopefully I will be able to get some more time on the laptop soon!!

Hope you enjoy this book as much as my friends, family and others have.

Family Chalkboard

Chalkboard paint is my new love at the mo, everything is getting plastered in it!!  I decided to make one for my brother & co. for Christmas with their family name across the top.  I think it turned out alright especially since I was making it up as I was going along.

After giving the wood three coats of chalkboard paint (my paint dried really quickly), I decided to use precut wooden letters for the name and stuck them on with my good ol' faithful hot glue gun.  I decided to keep my letters plain, but you could apply acrylic paint to add a bit of colour.

I then hunted around my local DIY store for something suitable for the chalk to sit on and found this piece of wood, I think it works quite well....sorry, I don't know what it is called but hopefully you'll be able to find something similar to it.  I used a hammer and nails to attach it, this was a bit fiddly to attach but luckily my husband was about to lend a hand...if not, you could always use the hot glue gun again??  At the back I attached a small sawtooth hanger.

Feedback...they love it and their kids can't stop writing messages on it, yeahhh, I love it when a plan comes together!!

Love Hearts

Just a quickie post, my kids made these for their school teachers and hid them in the classroom.  Super quick to make and with my hot glue gun at the ready the sweets actually made it to the card without being opened or nibbled at!....ok, we have a few spare packets to keep us going :)

I decided to make some for the sisters on my visiting teaching list too as they they are perfect for posting through the letterbox, it's always lovely to receive a nice note and a treat doesn't go amiss too!

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!!

I am a Child of God games

'Build a Beetle' is one of our family favourite games, so I thought I'd change it a bit to coincide with this years Primary theme, and we love it!!  Click on the link below to download the game and the instructions and get drawing some crazy stick people :)

Click here to download files for

I am a child of God game and Instructions

If you would like an easier version of the game, I found a similar type of game on Pinterest.  I downloaded the image and then typed the words above... 

gingerbread dice game

kinziekreations

I laminated both games to make them more durable and to save on photocopying...and the added bonus is that my kids love using the felt tips and then rubbing them out...the simplest of things amuse my kids!!?!

I am a child of God Totes

Include a die and felt tips and you have a great pressie and activity for all ages.  If you want to be extra crafty you can also make a 'I am a child of God' tote for the game to go in too.

Nephite vs Lamanite game

This game is basically naughts and crosses but with Nephites and Lamanites on the reverse side of the relevant symbols.  I made a drawstring bag to keep the playing pieces in with the square grid printed on one side and the title of the game on the other.

This is what it looked like on my computer screen.  I then printed them off onto my calico fabric using my 'How to print onto fabric using your printer' post as a guide.  Just a note when making yours, make sure you leave enough space around the edge to allow for seam allowance and more space/fabric at the top so that you can make it into a drawstring bag.  I also used the same technique for printing the cartoon images and lettering.

Unfortunately I can't share my file of this as I got my pictures from a disc I bought years ago called 'LDS Clips 10,000' by Inspire Graphics :(  But hopefully there might be some free ones that you can download on the web??

I made this for my sister's family for Christmas and they love it, now I've just got to crack on and finish making the one for us.  It makes a great family gift and doesn't cost too much for the materials etc...just takes a bit of time (and love) to get it made :)  It's also super for a FHE game and a Sunday activity.

I am a Child of God tote

Sugardoodle posted a link the other day to a wonderful blog entitled 'My Computer is My Canvas' that has a load of free printables and cute stuff????????  She's done some really cute images for the Primary Theme this year 'I am a Child of God'.

My Computer is My Canvas

From this site I downloaded the 'I am a Child of God' SUBW...6x20.jpg (1022KB), when I went to print I noticed that because of the American sizing I would miss some of the lettering, so I right-clicked on the image to copy it and then opened up Microsoft word and pasted it onto my page...I had to shrink it a whole lot to get it to fit, and then centred it and left more of a gap at the top of the page to accommodate for seam allowance and attaching handles (see picture below).

I then printed the above onto calico fabric using my 'How to print onto fabric using your printer' post.  I then used the printed fabric to make a cute little tote and drawstring bag, but you could make a cushion, frame it etc.  My little tote bag worked out to be the perfect size to fit a Book of Mormon in :)  And yes, I am still squealing with delight every time I print onto fabric, haha...what am I like!!?!!?