Umbrellas, Paint and More!

We've had a lot of random fun that never got shared, so here it is.

UMBRELLAS
We've had some rainy days here in Florida, so the umbrellas have been thought of and pulled out.  It hasn't rained inside yet, but it never hurts to be prepared! :D

 PAINT
Brayden got a little pain kit from Auntie Julianna for Christmas and we finally got around to pulling it out during a Zander nap.  Brayden LOVED it and was actually pretty good.  I let him paint all by himself by the end.

 BUBBLEGUM
They got bubblegum in their Easter baskets, but they haven't had much exposure to gum and 2 of the 3 other times Brayden tried it he swallowed it.  So, it's been unopened.  But, after explaining to them so many times why I didn't think they were ready for bubblegum, they finally talked me into letting them try it.  They have been very good at spitting it in the garbage can with a couple exceptions.  I did find three barely chewed pieces in the kitchen sink after I took a trip to the bathroom.  The pictures below are of them eating bubblegum on the back stairs.  Brayden's idea :) 

 HAIRCUT
I cut Brayden's hair the day after Easter because I felt slightly embarrassed that his hair was so out of control for all the Easter pictures we got.  This doesn't really show off the cut so much, but it does show the fact that there was hair all over.  Brayden sat very still for me, but didn't want a towel over his shoulders :)

 DIY BENCH
I saw an idea on pinterest (of course) to make a bench using a bookshelf type slab of wood.  Well, I just so happened to have a bookshelf scrap and a little table I got for free at a yard sale, so I went ahead and made a small bench that would fit the table.  I think it turned out cute.  It's not perfect, but still pretty cool to see something I made getting used and loved by my cuties.

 MARKERS
Thank goodness for washable markers.  Zander went to a 2 week phase after discovering our markers that coloring was all he wanted to do.  So, he got left alone with just him and the coloring book at times.  One morning I helped him draw a circle a few times and then told him to practice.  I left the room and was with Brayden in the kitchen when Zander came running out saying "Circle! Circle!!"  I assumed he had drawn a circle on his own, but since he was so excited I went to look.  Sure enough, he had a drawn a circle!  A pretty good one too.  I hadn't had experience with the markers on the wall yet, so I was pretty concerned it wouldn't come off, but I had to praise him for his artwork too.  So, I told him it was very good and then told him that the wall is a no no for markers.  We cleaned it up together using a wet wipe and it luckily came right off! He then got the idea to start testing markers on all the accessible surfaces at the coloring table (the table, his clothes, skin).  He has now lost most curiosity and does very well, but he did get pretty good at wiping up marker!

Brotherly Love

Today at the library Brayden came walking out of the baby book area beaming and holding a book about trains.  He was in the process of telling me he found a book he wanted to take home when another boy who was probably around the same age or maybe older came around and grabbed it claiming he had found it first.  I hadn't seen what happened, but I followed instinct and grabbed onto the book calmly and asked both boys to let go.  Brayden was crying saying "No! It's mine," but let go obediently and the other boy held tight saying "I had it first!"  Wow.

Isn't it crazy when you're the adult and still don't always know what's best??

Well, I quickly made the decision to let the book go and try to help Brayden find another one.   Brayden was of course in tears and the other boy went straight in to the baby room again, set the book down on a rocking chair and left the room.  Meanwhile, I was explaining to Brayden that even though I didn't know what happened or whose book it should be, people's feelings are more important than books.  Since I had noticed the boy set it down and Brayden had calmed down significantly, I mentioned that he could go grab the book because it was left alone.  Of course he was thrilled and the problem was solved.  Preston wisely pointed out that even though Brayden let the book go, he did the right thing so he got it back.

What I really loved about the experience was a quick moment that was probably unnoticed by everyone else.  Right as I let the boy take the book back, Zander came running over behind the boy saying "No. No. Braydens!"  It just made me feel so good seeing him care about Brayden enough to stick up for him.  Very precious.

They are becoming very good buddies.  I love watching them play together and the way that they create games out of nothing. Brayden calls Zander pet names like "Sweetie pie/sweet heart, Little Buddy, Zandy Babes, and Zander Boy" (which he picked up from me).  Zander laughs when Brayden's trying to be silly and gives Brayden the best hugs.  And even though he is a HUGE tease to Brayden when it comes to sharing things that he knows Brayden wants, I know he loves him and would look out for him.  I got my proof today :)

Conference 2013 FHE- Andersen

I have decided to review all the first presidency and apostle's talks for the next few FHEs.  So Monday afternoon I was struggling to decide how to choose whose talk to review when it occurred to me that I didn't have to choose all of them.  I asked Brayden instead.  He chose Andersen.  Uchtdorf and Andersen are usually his favorites.  Funny how a 3 year old has decided his favorite apostles. I sometimes wish I could get in his head just to see his reasoning.  Anyway, when I looked up his talk on my phone all I had to do was read the highlighted text at the top and the idea came to me.  Inspiration at it's best.  I read:

"If you’re not a full-time missionary with a missionary badge pinned on your coat, now is the time to paint one on your heart—painted, as Paul said, 'not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.'”

I just knew I should cut out some little hearts and write something on it to remind them of this concept.  I skimmed over the entire talk and then got to work cutting.  When I was done, I decided that I would just write "I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" in the style of a missionary badge (see below).

Then we could talk about how the missionaries want to share their love of the gospel and how we can show our love for the Savior and the gospel too. And that was it.  I read the quote, summed it up that way and we were done with our "lesson."  Then we glued a little picture of Andersen on the front just to involve a craft and to remind them whose talk we discussed.

As an activity we played charades with one turn for each me, Preston and Brayden.  We had to act out a way that we could show our love for the Savior and gospel. I "read my scriptures," Preston "prayed," and Brayden covered his ears. . . ???  We interpreted it to be not listening to anything bad or scary. Haha.  He said we were right :)  gotta love 3 year olds!  We had sort of lost Zander's attention at that point, so we didn't make him do one.  But we mentioned that sharing, and saying nice things also helps people feel loved, which is a feeling from God.  So, there ya have it.  Simple, fun and I thought effective.  Oh, and the hearts were hung by their beds for the week so they could remember to show their love for the Savior because Elder Andersen taught us that that was good.

Super Reader FHE

If you haven't heard of the show "Super Why" this is nowhere near as cool.  But, my boys love the show and I was inspired yesterday to have a little Super Why activity.  At first I thought maybe for primary, but then changed my mind to use it for FHE.  It was a hit with the boys :)  I cut out some green foam masks just like Super Why's and planned the lesson to be a whole adventure with finding our own "super story answer" by looking in a book.  Our story was from President Monson's talk on Sunday in General Conference about when he was young and started a fire with his friend even though he wasn't supposed to.  So, when we got to the part of the story where the fire was out of control, we identified that as our "super big problem!"

The boys put on their super reader masks and we "flew" together into a book.  Which happened to be the Book of Mormon. 

Look at the excitement on Brayden's face!

We used a story from the area we've been reading and it was about when Jesus came to the Nephites. 
The story starts with a big storm and thunder, so Brayden helped me with some flickering lights.  Then it was dark for 3 days, so we closed the bathroom door and were in pitch black.  We decided it was scary and we should help the story by finding a flashlight.  Low and behold, there were super letters with the flashlight! Go figure.  We were on our way to our super story answer!

The next part of the story was when they heard the voice of the Lord and wished they had repented and come unto him before.  So, we found out biggest picture of Jesus and went to him.  More super letters were waiting to be found!

Then we got to the part when they couldn't understand the voice of the Lord until they listened.  So, we looked to a picture of Christ on the wall for our next letters. 

Finally, the people heard Heavenly Father introduce Jesus and he came to the temple.  So, I explained that Jesus was there where they could see him and they could see how tall he was. . . the next letters were on their ducky measuring thing hanging on their wall.  And we finally had all the super letters from this story.  We had to review that the story was about people who had to repent and listen to Jesus in order to find peace and happiness. 

Off we went to the super duper computer where we put our letters in order and found our super story answer! dun dun dun. . .

OBEDIENCE!!  But why?  Because if President Monson had been obedient he wouldn't have gotten in trouble with the fire.  Then we watched the 45 second clip on lds.org from Monson's talk and raised our hands whenever he said "obedience/obedient."

General Conference

Another successful General Conference this past weekend.  You just can't beat hearing living scripture from a living prophet and apostles all weekend long! Of course, I can't pretend that I really listened to all of it because Motherhood doesn't stop even for other important things.  However, I lived up to my goal after last conference and re-read all the talks over again at least once, so I am determined to do it again.  The things that stand out in my mind are:
- Perry's talk on Agency and Obedience
- what I do is important because I am important (from Elaine S. Dalton)
- and that we should go out of our way to be a true friend (can't remember who said that).  Due to an experience today I translated into we should go out of our way to do what's right.
- and due to my calling as primary chorister, I also quite enjoyed the phrase "children who sing are happy children" which was from one of the Seventy on Sunday afternoon - Falabella or something like that. 
 I really should just go get my notebook and look up who said everything, but it's good memory practice to see what stands out :)

Anyway, conference has messages for everyone in every circumstance, so if you weren't fortunate enough to watch it during the weekend, go look it up now!  In fact, you can just click here for a shortcut.  You will receive peace, comfort, direction and answers.  Kind of important stuff.

I went a little overboard in my planning this session, but I actually liked it.  I learned a few things to make it even better last time, but I loved having so many snacked planned and ready and changing them up every session to keep our tummy and mouths happy too. I tried having mostly healthy snacks available all the time and all the sweets were "listening treats" for if they heard specific things (like Jesus, family, prayer and temple and music).  I did learn that I had too many listening treats the first session and we tried just one at a time for the other sessions. I also tried to have several activities, but I learned that we need to review the activities before conference next time because I didn't want to sit and explain things to the boys once it started.

Here's some of our setup and snacks.  And here's a special thanks to my special boys for enabling us to watch as much as we did!  They are great boys.  It elated me to hear Brayden shout with joy when he would see the prophet!

Saturday snacks

Treat snacks.  The pictures reminded us what to listen for.  The hugs were if the speaker got emotional.  The snickers were for when a speaker made people laugh :)

We borrowed the seminary cords so we could watch on our big screen.

Our apostle activity found from lds.org (I enlarged it a bit)

A little bike practice in between sessions Saturday while Zander napped.

Our completed conference activity

 We had fun with the Bells again too.  It was nice for our kids to be able to have some extra interaction on long days in front of the TV :)  And it was nice for us to share a special time with some good friends too!

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

I can't resist putting these pictures up together. . . good times.

 

This is what I meant to do in the beginning when I posted the dryer pictures, but I got lazy.  Thanks for your comment about the pictures Liz! It motivate me to look for our college pic! Hehe.

Who says you can't play with food?

I play with recipes a lot lately.  At least more than I used to.  I feel much more culinarily competent (pretty sure I made up that term) than I did 5 1/2 years ago when I was newly married.  Cooking every night will do that I guess :)  Anyway, so I have fun cooking and the boys like to help.  Here's some of our recent creations!

Pizza night!

This is the "apple doozie" pizza I found on pinterest

My own creation sort of, but it wasn't the best.  Too much cream cheese in the quesedilla.  Another recipe to play with though!

It's still difficult to cook when Preston isn't around for dinner.  But, since he's planning to be gone in evenings for the next few weeks due to research, I decided I better just do it anyway.  I am happy that the boys have eaten half of the time! :)  We do get more leftover nights too!