December Enrichment Meeting

For our December Enrichment meeting I invited Shelley Wille to come and speak to our ward. She was so GREAT! For those who don't know of her she is an education week speaker and author who knows how to have fun at home.

She spoke about creating Holiday Traditions. So, I thought I would share some of them with you.
Christmas:

*Wrap a christmas book for each day and let the children unwrap a book every night and you get to read that story to them. You can buy the books or check them out from the library.
*Have an event calendar that has a family activity written on a paper for each day. These are things that you will do that day. Such as: go to the ward christmas party, look at christmas lights, get a back rub from dad, go to the school christmas concert.
*Go christmas caroling as a family. If you aren't musical you can kazoo carol.
*the night you decorate the tree, as a family, you sleep under the tree. You get your sleeping bags out and have a big family slumber party by the tree. Secret: once the kids are asleep you and can sneek back into your bed and set your alarm for a few minutes before the kids get up. Then you go and get back into your sleeping bag and they think the whole family slept under the tree.
*Have a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve. Make a birthday cake. Buy a bunch of candles. Have everyone take turns placing a candle around the cake, with each candle they have to say something that they know about the Savior. Such as: he was born in a stable, his mother was Mary, he fed the 5,000, etc. After you have said as much as you can you light the candles and talk about him being the light of the world and He is the reason for the season. They you sing Happy Birthday and blow out the candles.
*Christmas Bingo you play this every hour on the hour with everyone in the house. You have prize that they are playing for each time. You need to make each prize seem like the best thing ever, basically sell it to everyone prior to the game beginning. It can be things like a small hymn book, chocolate, first aid kit for the car, a small hand held game, gloves, inexpensive gifts that you have picked up.
*Drive around and look at the Christmas lights. Choose a winner for the best house as a family. Take them a box of inexpensive Christmas lights with a note saying that they won the Larsen award for the Best Christmas light display. They will be delighted to have won an award.

St. Patrick's Day
*Die all the food green for your meals...even the milk.
*Eat on green paper plates

Easter
*Have them go on a hunt for lunch. Wrap the different parts of lunch up in colored cellophane. Sandwiches in yellow, chips in blue, veggies in green etc. Hide some in the bushes, in the mailbox wherever you would like. They then go on a hunt to find how many items you hid. Once they find them you have a picnic outside.

April Fools Day
*Set the clocks in the house forward several hours while everyone is asleep. When the alarms go off do everything normal as if it really is 6:00 in the morning. See how long they wait at the bus stop before they figure out that it is just an April Fool's joke.
*Order pizza for dinner. But, make arrangments with the Pizza place to have them deliver a bagel pizza in the large pizza box instead of a large pizza.
*Show up at a friend's house (with the whole family) at dinner time like they invited you over for dinner. Walk into their house like it is not a big deal. Let them panic and wonder why they spouse didn't tell them that they invited you over. Ask if they need any help getting ready. After about 15 minutes of stress you can let them in on the joke.

Halloween:
*Eat dinner out of a hallowed out pumpkin, use that as the serving bowl.

If you would like a list of things email her at skwille@hotmail.com and tell her you would like to have a list of the ideas that she discussed at the Enrichment night in Lehi the beginning of this month. She said she would email the list out. You can also buy her books from http://www.shelleywille.com/

Reflections of Christmas

Wow, it is less then two weeks until Christmas. How time flies! It seems like I just got my tree up, well I guess that is because I put it up last weekend later then normal.

I remember Christmas growing up, which does not seem that long ago. I remember sneaking out to see if Santa had come. Whoever discovered first that he had been there would wake the rest of us. We would tip toe out and look at the presents under the tree. We would look through our stocking and go back to bed and wait as long as we could stand before we woke up mom and dad. Was there a rule that we couldn't wake them before a certain time? I don't remember that part. I do remember the magic of Christmas. I know that many years mom would tell us not to expect much for Christmas and every year to my astonishment we had an amazing Christmas.

I remember Christmas Caroling as a family and taking homemade candies and cookies. I remember reading the Christmas Story on Christmas Eve. I remember Christmas shopping and trying to decide how to spend my money on my family members, trying to find the perfect gifts. Sometimes that was really hard. I remember getting a new ornament every year. when we were little we made an ornament. The beaded wreath ornament was so beautiful in my mind. I remember decorating the tree as a family and then I would watch the bubbling candle lights, I loved those. I remember going on rides as a family and looking at Christmas lights.

I love Christmas! I learned to love it as a child. I think it must have been because it was a time when I absolutely could feel the love of my family. We spent a lot of time together getting ready for Christmas and doing Christmas things. I love my family and treasure the moments that we share together.

I love this time of year as people tend to be a little kinder, thoughtful and loving. Why can't it last longer then 3-4 weeks of the year? That is what I asked myself this last Christmas. Then the thought hit me, I don't have to let it last only one month of the year. So, I set a goal and it was to do an act of service for someone on the 25th of every month. I would have Christmas every month. As I went through the year I found that often times I became aware of opportunities to provide service more often then just once a month around the 25th. I have been more in tune with the Spirit and ways to bless the lives of others because, I was loving like Christ loves. That is what Christmas is about. The life of Christ and His example of loving and lifting those around us.

Merry Christmas to each of you and may your life be filled with His love!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Marta and Joel came to my house for Thanksgiving weekend. It was fun to have them here in Utah. Marta and went to a sale at midnight and stood in line for an hour...to find out that the good stuff was gone. We went home and got some sleep and didn't go shopping until late morning on Friday. We went to a wholesale home decor place and got some fun decorations, got our wall flower refills at Bath and Body works for $5 and bought a couple of things at Lowe's.

Saturday during the BYU & Utah football game we watched Music & lyrics. I know, we were totally breaking status quo on that one. But, it is a great movie that makes you laugh! Even Joel laughed at it...he was worried it would be too much of a chick flick.

Saturday evening we were unloading our shopping treasures from my trunk. When I decided that I would be tricky. I had the last load of stuff in my hands and thought I could balance it on my leg, if I put my foot on the bumper and close the trunk door. Yeah, well it didn't work out that way.

Thank goodness for Marta and her camera...she captured the events. I tried to put the slide show on my blog, but can't get it to work. So here is the link.

http://www.slide.com/r/3KahtdIh0j-J1wIgaSP4tcM86nqkQNB7

I hope you enjoy it, don't feel bad for laughing...we were laughing when it happened too. Weren't we Marta?

Hawaii

I was able to go to Hawaii for the first time this summer. I went to the O' ahu island. I would like to go back someday and see some of the other islands. I was surprised that the whole island was not a tropical paradise. I wasn't expecting to see dry barren areas.

There is a place called the blow hole which isn't far from Waikiki. It was really cool to see the waves come in and crash into the rocks. If enough water went down into the hole it would then blow out the water.

While I was there I went to the Botanical Gardens and got to see some really cool tropical plants.

This tree was called the cannon ball tree. It had these fruits that are big and really heavy. If they were to fall on your head it coulr knock you out! I thought it was kind of a funny tree.

Everywhere you went there were flowering trees and bushes. The air was filled with floral scents.

One morning I did venture up to Diamond head to try and catch the sunrise. Unfortunately, the sunrise was pretty much over by the time I hiked to the top. But, the view was still quite amazing. I think this is looking towards where Annika may have lived while she was there.

This is looking towards Waikiki from Diamond Head.

Sunset on Waikiki Beach

This was a lookout that we stopped at, I can't remember what it was called. It was super windy up there. The view was breathtaking.

I went to the Polynesian Cultural Center for a day. This was a lot of fun to learn about the different cultures of the islands.

The temple is right by the cultural center.

Thanksgiving Day 2007, in McCammon

When I was a little girl we would have thanksgiving at Grandma Raymond's. The whole family would be there. We had fun eating, playing with cousins and building memories. I got to go back to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving again this year.

Getting ready for dinner. Aunt Carla had made little name place cards with Thanksgiving trivia on the inside. We got to learn all about Thanksgiving as the dinner was cooling off...as if we werent hungry enough.

After our long wait for the turkey to finish cooking, Joel was designated the turkey carver. He seems to be treating the turkey like it is on the examination table at the hospital. Thanks for carving the turkey Nurse Joel.

ON GUARD! Aunt Carla was our constant source of entertainment. Seems like fencing isn't new to Aunt Carla, she has quite the stance. Joel, well...you may need to practice your stance a little more.

Aunt Carla, Aunt Becky, Joel, Marta and Grandma ready to eat dinner. Are you hungry yet?

I was sitting at the end by Aunt Becky.

Joel zonked out after the meal on the loveseat. When he woke up, there was no blood in his legs. He had a hard time standing.




We played Rack-O...and I was the big loser! Joel and Aunt Carla serenaded us while we played with show tunes and songs from back in the day.


Thanks for all the fun memories~!!