My talent on display

I had the talent for FHE tonight and realized it this morning as we were getting ready for school.  So before we left, I chose a project and spent the morning working on it.  I plan on making a small quilt for a teacher at school and she loves owls, so this is "two birds" with one stone.

But the point of this post isn't to brag, rather to laugh.  I was nearing completion of the block and sewed on the beak of one of two owls.  Here it is.

And then I noticed that I didn't see the 2nd block I was working on.  Oh, here it is!  I sewed it behind the first one...right at the beak!  Duh.  I didn't want to spend so much time unpicking on this project!  But what a talent!  LOL.

Family Home Evening...Collett Style

Monday nights are reserved for family time in our home.  It is counsel from wise Church leaders in order to strengthen family relationships and counter the destructive influences of the world.  It also something our kids look forward to.

This week we had a typical Family Home Evening (FHE).  

Sarah conducted the meeting.  She welcomed everyone and announced each part and who would be doing it.  Then she thanked them when they were done.  This is to help the kids learn to be comfortable conducting meetings when they get older!  ;)

Chad had the song.  I don't remember what it was, but it was something the kids would know...a Primary song or simple Hymn.

Technically, I had the prayer, but since I was teaching the lesson, I traded with Nathan and he offered it.  Rest assured, it was short!  :)

Daniel's responsibility was the scripture. He shared a scripture mastery: Moses 1:39.

Next was the lesson.  We used to have each of the kids teach lessons until we decided they needed some better examples of what we wanted from a lesson.  We are getting close to handing over some of the responsibility to the older kids, but for now, I taught what would have been Nathan's lesson.

I gave everyone a piece of paper and asked them to write down everything that was important to them or that they were grateful for.  I just wanted them to write, write, write for 5 minutes.  This was Sarah's paper. I snapped a picture of it because her spelling was so cute.  (Translation: food, houses, families, popcorn, movies, light, couch, cars, beds, clothes, scriptures, Idaho.)  Chad and I noticed she is already learning to use an apostrophe incorrectly.  Haha.

After the five minutes was up, I directed everyone to chose the 3 most important things on their lists and cross out everything else.  Or in other words, what would they be willing to give up over another on their list?  Some of them struggled a bit there!  The point of the lesson was to recognize what we value the most and consider what we are doing to keep it a high priority.  If one of our priorities, was wrong, we needed to reconsider our choices and correct it.  Otherwise, we should always remember to keep our activities and priorities in check so as not to lose what is most valuable to us.

I was happy to learn that my children's three top choices included God, Christ, family, temples, scriptures and the Gospel.  :)

After the lesson, Leah had the talent.  She performed a death-defying head stand on a pillow.

 

We always clap for the talent, no matter how awesome, confusing, silly, crazy, boring, or repeated it might be.  Everyone deserves some clapping once in a while.

Rebekah was in charge of choosing the activity this week.  She first suggested taking dinner to the park to eat to count for the activity, but I didn't think I could pull that off.  So her second choice was Sardines. I don't know if you've ever played this game. I grew up playing it in the twilight of evening with my neighbors.

It is played by sending one person off to hide while everyone else stays together, counting to 20 with closed eyes. Then everyone breaks apart (similar to breaking the balls in a pool game) and goes searching for the person hiding.  If you find them, you quickly and quietly join them and wait for the next person to discover the hiding spot.  This continues until the last person finds the group (who is now uncomfortably squeezed into a space that is fit only for sardines) and becomes the next person to hide.

In our family, the rule is to leave the lights as they are at the start of the game.  Some places are better with shadows to disguise the hunched forms.  It also makes it a little creepy.  Bwaahaa!

Here is most of the family hiding "under" Daniel's bed.  I was 2nd to last to find them.  Daniel was last.

Daniel then chose to hide in an 8" space between the washer and dryer.  I was first to find him and will never understand how I squeezed in there with him!

When Joseph found us, he didn't have much trouble sliding in!  (The picture was taken in the dark, so the flash is a little hard on the eyes.)

Unfortunately, Daniel chose a hiding spot in a construction zone.  He continued slipping further behind the dryer and up against the walls we recently removed paint from.  He has powdered wall texture all over him!

At one point, Sarah chose a hiding place under the computer desk.  Nathan found her second.  Joseph found it just after I did.  (That's his back in the bottom of the picture.)  We were looking for her forever!  A tiny person has much more success in this game than a big person.

After we'd gone several rounds of Sardines, it was time for the treat.  This was Joseph's choice this time and he'd planned for snow cones.  (I froze extra ice during the day for him.)  You can see that he has some "helpers" who want to be sure he can handle the job.

That is FHE in our home.  It's loud, and gets us to bed later than we'd like.  But it's a great way to teach family values and strengthen bonds.  It also helps us sharpen our fighting skills.  *sigh*

Gingerbread Houses 2011

*This post contains a personal recommendation of a product for which I received no compensation.*

We didn't make Gingerbread Houses last year (and by that, I mean 2010) because it was in the middle of our "no candy" challenge and I didn't want to deal with the disappointment of loading up a house with candy and then not being able to eat it!

But this year (and by that, I mean 2011), candy was not an issue. ;) And I'd seen an advertisement for this cookie cutter set from Wilton. It cuts out a perfect-sized gingerbread house and it cost me less than $8 at a party store in town. No more templates or bad measuring for me! I made 3 houses and "glued" them together earlier in the day of our event.


Every "team" got a bag of royal icing, which we called glue while we worked. We didn't hold back in our use of glue, just like in real life! Daniel is prepping his work space with glue.


Rebekah and I worked together on a house. She really likes gumdrops and made sure to line the peak of our roof with it. We used Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal for the roof shingles.


Nathan, Joseph and Leah were another "team." They also used gumdrops on their roof. It was a popular idea!


Sarah was her own team. She didn't build any houses, she just ate as much construction material as she could. And she stayed in the middle of the table the whole night.


Luckily for her and the rest of us, there were plenty of construction materials to go around.


So how is it that she was running out of something to eat?


Rebekah was dedicated to finishing our house. I took breaks in between snapping pictures to help her. Doesn't it look good enough to eat??


Chad and Daniel were a team and they specialized in using as many M&M's as possible, as well as one other thing.


Chad dedicated his creative skilz to the development of gumdrop/pretzel people. He had even more fun placing them into crazy situations. I had been so tempted to send in a few pictures to his co-workers, but I just never got around to it. (Shucks!)


Here is Nathan, Joseph, and Leah's house. I think it just dripped creativity! Do you see the little car on the right that Nathan engineered?

Rebekah and I had a small zoo in the yard of our house...

...as well as a kid in a large snowsuit riding a sleigh, followed by a reindeer. Rebekah came up with the reindeer after watching Chad make his clumsy people!

What a happy bunch of construction workers! Sarah's face tells the story of her participation.

What a nice contrast to the pictures of December 2008. I had yelled at the kids during most of the activity and you can tell what effect it had the kids. This image has been burned into my mind and conscience and I am happy to say that I have mellowed a bit since then. Maybe they won't need therapy for that night anymore.

So sad. Not one of my better parenting moments!


I've learned that there are a lot of traditions surrounding gingerbread houses. Most traditions seem to not include actually eating the house. What a tragedy! We started eating our houses nearly right away. Here is what they were starting to look like after the kids left for school the next day. They were yummy and we were ready to throw away the left overs when they became too hard to chew.

FHE in the river bottoms

One Monday evening we decided to explore the river bottoms for our FHE activity. The river has been flooding here (though it's gone down significantly now) and we wanted to see what the situation was like.

We first walked by a stagnant pond that didn't smell so good, but we got a few rocks to skip on it!

Then we walked into the trees and hiked a bit.

I feel blessed to live in such a beautiful area. (I still miss the green of Washington, but this is beautiful, too.) It's nice to walk without actually walking to anywhere. Sarah was taking full advantage of the opportunity to explore. :)


This is a road, disguised as the Snake River. We've driven on this road before. Today we waded on it.

You can see the rapids way out in the flooded river. This is usually a shallow shore, but you can see that little tree out there has been taken by surprise. The kids enjoyed getting their feet wet in the water.

On the way home, we got a little silly.

Sarah never likes to be left out of something like that!

And she didn't...

...tire...

...easily.

If nothing else, they are able to have fun!

Valentine's Day (for real)

Our last day of Valentines included a special dinner (pink waffles, raspberries and whipped topping, heart-shaped sausages, apple wedges and pink fruit dip) and this on the garage door. I took so long getting everything ready, that I was still putting all the hearts on when Chad pulled up. Oh well, it's no real mystery how these things happen.


Since it was Monday, we had FHE. It was Joseph's turn for the lesson and he wanted a lesson on Joseph Smith and how he loves us. Chad did a good job with that interesting twist.

Then we play a hide and seek game with a little, red heart. (You can hear that game happening in the background of the video of Sarah I posted a couple days ago.) We had pink, heart-shaped rice krispy treats for the treat.

Afterward, we had the kids get pajamas on and got ready for bedtime. But before...

...we gave the kids their v-day presents.

I found a deal to get 6 knock-off Pillow Pets for $40...shipped. That is a perfect number for us! I also made each of the kids a personalized book with special things about them. Scripture reading went very smoothly this night...everyone was hugging their pillows.

That night, Chad presented me with a (real) Pillow Pet of my own...a Valentine's Day puppy. I think he was building on the theme. The kids were tickled by it.

Snowmen

Rebekah directed our FHE activity tonight. She chose to have a coloring contest and the theme was Winter. Everyone drew whatever they wanted that had something to do with Winter.

Chad drew a snowman.



Rebekah knows a good idea when she sees one! Not a bad copy, I'd say. :)

FHE cookout AND Our Lambs

We grabbed a chance at decent weather (notice I didn't say pleasant weather), and had a little cookout for dinner/FHE. We roasted the ever-healthy hot dog, enjoyed it with potato chips and washed it all down with Kool-Aid. And for the FHE treat we had s'mores...of course!

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that CHAD roasted and everyone else watched. We tried roasting these corn cobs, but the contraption was really meant for the BBQ, not getting so close to a fire pit. And it didn't help that this corn was older than Joseph. Some things get lost in the freezer around here. Anyway, we didn't end up eating it.

Sarah was there, too. Get that girl's toesies closer to the fire...she'll freeze!


Joseph's first fire-roasted s'more (I think). He liked it. And he got way more sticky than was reasonable.


The very informal FHE lesson was to tell your favorite scripture story. We need to study the scriptures a little better. Afterward, we set up this sports thingy. You're supposed to use it to practice your pitching, etc. The kids used it to cheat death. It's really not advisable to stand inside while the ball is being thrown in.


Onto a completely unrelated topic, we've acquired a few more farm animals. Meet Steam and Smoke. (Guess which one is which.)

We saw an ad on Craigslist for some bum lambs up in Archer. (Anyone like Chad is now reaching for their map or logging onto maps.google.com to find where that is.) We were only prepared to get two that day. The kids named them on the way home. It was interesting to hear the tiny bleating the 40 minutes home.

The next weekend we saw and ad for 10 lambs and added them to the collection. Meet the rest of them...too many to name.

They LOVE a nice, warm bottle of milk! I don't think Leah expected to be rushed by 7 lambs.


This one is hoping for a treat from Nathan's pocket.


It's so cute to see them following Joseph.


This was the view Nathan had as he tried to take a picture of them.

Many people have asked if we're raising them for 4-H. Nope. We're just putting more lamb in our freezer, and keeping the pasture grass down. A lot of people don't like lamb, but we've grown to like it. However, I really doubt we'll need THIS MUCH lamb come January (or so). Anyone want to buy a lamb (pre or post butchering are the options)?

I'm looking forward to the day they won't need so many bottle feedings. I've been going out during the day to feed the smallest ones.