From My Nest

our new way for family scripture study

We kinda hit this road block with our family scripture study lately. Awhile ago we were all sitting together in the family room, with scriptures in hand, taking turns reading, and ummm...let's just say it wasn't going very smoothly. (I'm sure you all can relate!) I surveyed the situation and, while containing an inner groan, I thought to myself, "there has got to be a better way to do this!"

What really got me worried is that we were just beginning Mosiah and you all know what comes next - Alma! Now, I have nothing against the Book of Alma. I love it. Wars, contentions, secret combinations, destruction, murder, betrayal (and good things too). I think they make an exciting plot, but my kids... they just look at the fact that there are sixty-three verses and runaway screaming.

I toyed with the idea of a family scripture journal. While I really like the idea (I really do), I needed something that would work with our seven year gap between children. I wanted everyone to be involved (readers and non-readers). So I went back to brainstorming.

I wasn't until The Red Headed Hostess came out with her map of the Book of Mosiah, that I instantly knew what our solution was. After I printed out her map, I started to draw it onto poster board. (If you don't want to draw your own, you can take the printed out 8 1/2 x 11 to a copy shop and have them blow it up. Then glue it on some poster board for stability and durability.)

At this point my kids noticed what I was doing and wanted to get involved. They helped me draw everything out and trace it. We talked a lot about the characters and the story line and how it all fits together. They also added their own touches. Like King Noah, for example, didn't look wicked enough so they changed him and now all the stick figures have faces.

Here it is in it's entirety and it now hangs up in our home. It is brought down when we do our family scripture reading and notes are added to it as we read by everyone (ok, not the 15 month old, yet). Note: these are all before pictures, I didn't take any progress pictures. 

(This is how our poster is hung. I taped an old bread closure tab thing to the back of theposter board and it makes it easy to remove and hang back up as needed.)

I love so many things about this. It's simplicity, how easily it shows what is happening, and that everyone can be involved (readers and non-readers). Most importantly, it shows and reminds my children - as they walk by it everyday - that not only do we value family scripture study, but that they play an important role in our study together.

Now to start on her maps of Alma...

Map One

Map Two

Map Three

over the weekend in the sunshine

• First diapers on the line this season.

• Discovering the joy of being outdoors.

• This mama thinking about how to get things done inside while keeping a good eye on the one year old outside.

• Realized that both can't be done at once and stayed outside.

• Bringing all the fun of the outdoors to be enjoyed in the sunshine outdoors.

• Exhausted from the first BBQ of the season at Grandma's house.

over the weekend

Spring looked like it might arrive, then we had freezing rain.

I did a bit of rearranging and reorganizing with some of our homeschool materials. (The above picture may or may not have been the reason behind it.)

We added a bit of green to our day...

...and this mama was happy to come up with simple things that only required one dish with food coloring.

 

 

a drawer of his own

The time finally came when he needed a drawer just for him. With such a small kitchen, I had to do a bunch of tweaking and organizing, but I managed to give him an entire drawer just for him. I filled it with a bunch of kitchen toys that my girls have outgrown (small pots and pans, a carton of wooden eggs, wooden food, and wooden spoons and knives).

You see, we had been fighting a little battle between the two of us. I was continually taking him to the other room to play with toys and he kept returning to the kitchen to be with me. That first night while cooking dinner, with his newly filled drawer, I looked down and realized he was exactly where he was supposed to be and he was trying to tell me that the whole time.

 

snow week/slow week

Thirteen inches....

Ice storm....

Branches and trees crumbling....

Power out for almost five days.....

Trapped in the house (our drive way and road)...

.... and in between all that was going on, this little guy turned one. With the help of four wheel drive, we managed to make it to Target to buy gifts and headed Grandma's house who had the electricity to bake a cake.

a conference tradition

Blanket forts. A simple conference tradition that we started a few years ago by accident. That year nothing seemed to keep our kids in the room where the computer was streaming General Conference. We tried books, coloring, toys, etc. But the fun seemed to be in all of the other rooms of the house where our kids couldn't hear conference. So, in desperation, we made the room where you could hear conference the "fun" room to be in.

Now, every conference the blanket forts are expected, planned, and anticipated. Tonight all the blanket fort making supplies are coming out, but the final blue prints are still in the works. 

independence day was....

Parachutes.

BBQ.

Lighting off your own fireworks.

Cousins.

Snakes.

Blankets.

Firsts.

Bug Spray.

Staying awake as long as possible.

drawing lessons

For the past couple of weeks Becca has been getting drawing lessons.  And what better teacher is there than your older sister, Hannah, who knows you best?  You see, Hannah loves to draw and wanted to share that with Becca.  So she decided to teach her how to do it. Step by step Hannah carefully explained and showed Becca how to draw each part then patiently waits for her to complete each detail.  The results have been amazing.  Apparently Hannah saw some potential in Becca's usual stick figures that we didn't see.

Some days, it has taken up a good portion of our school day, but by watching these lessons I've can see how they really know each other and get how the other one thinks.  It's a special thing to have someone like that in your life and it's even better if that person is your sister.

six o'clock

It was 6:00 in the evening and cookie dough had magically appeared on my kitchen counter. (I'm still wondering how that happened.)

The first batch was coming out of the oven when my husband (who is starving) returns home from work.  Being greeted by the aroma of cookies baking, instead of dinner, he asks if this is what we are eating for dinner and his only complaint is that I didn't use the mini-sized chocolate chips.  (Some days I wish we could eat chocolate chip cookies for dinner.) After winning the award for Best Husband of the Year, he took Isaac from me and while I worked on something that had a little bit more nutritional value, he managed to do what I had been working on all day long...

...get Isaac asleep and set him down without those bright eyes popping open and wondering why you can't hold him all day.  Later than usual, a dinner was served that could not be dunked in milk and that stood up the the guidelines of the Food Pyramid. 

And, yes, there were cookies for dessert....

slime

 

Becca loves to read crafty blogs with me.  She browses through and lets me know which posts she wants me to read first on my Reader.  Usually she looks for the kid crafty things.  (This is a girl who watches clips from the Martha Stewart show for fun.  Hmmn, I wonder where she learned that from? Ahem.)

On this particular day there was a post with links to some fun stuff to make.  Slime happened to be one of them.  And in that moment, just like on Phineas and Ferb, we knew exactly what we were going to do that day.

This recipe was actually very easy to make.  Thankfully, because right when we got started making it, Isaac woke up from his nap.  So most of the process was done with me dictating from the couch nursing.  They did an awesome job and played for hours with their new "toys."