FHE: Reverence

At some point or another on Sundays MaKenzie seems to really enjoy running through the church screaming at the top of her lungs. Hopefully todays lesson on reverence will help a bit . . . here's hoping!

Reverence

Opening Song

"Reverently, Quietly" Children's Songbook p. 26

Resources

• August 2008 Friend Magazine "I Can Be Reverent" by Diana Eckersell Janson. Copy and paste the following link:

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=e648dd48c4a6b110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1

Lesson Materials and Preparation

• Print out the activity from the link above onto cardstock. Cut out each page and turn it into a book or a flannel board activity
• A felt board
• A picture of a child folding their arms
• Ingredients for “Disappearing-Marshmallow Rolls”

Lesson

1. Go through each page of the story “I Can Be Reverent” and have your child repeat the words of the story and do the actions together as a family.
2. Show a picture of a child folding their arms and explain to your child that we can be reverent at church each week to show Heavenly Father that we love him.

Activity

"Disappearing-Marshmallow Rolls," Friend, Apr. 2003, 31


You will need: eight large marshmallows, 1 tube (8 ounces/ 226g) refrigerator crescent-roll dough, a cube of butter/margarine, and 1/2 cup sugar mixed with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.

Ask a grown-up to melt the butter. Coat the marshmallows with the melted butter, then roll them in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Enclose each marshmallow in a section of dough, pinching the dough to completely seal the marshmallow in.

Ask a grown-up to bake the rolls as directed on the tube.

I Don't Get It . . .

What is the difference between a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that has been cut into four little squares and one that has not been cut?  (I know this sounds like a cheesy laffy-taffy joke, sorry to disappoint.)  The only difference I've noticed so far is that my toddler would NEVER even THINK about touching the whole sandwich, but she will down the four little pieces in a heartbeat.  I don't get it?

Lessons on Uptightness

I am a situationally uptight person.  Getting ready for a finals week in collage made me uptight.  Getting ready for a camping trip and doing all I can to prepare, and then getting there only to realize I've forgotten something extremely important like the matches makes me uptight.  Having people over to my house for dinner and trying to get the house clean and the food ready can make me uptight.   I can get extremely uptight trying to get everyone to church on time on Sundays.   What's worse is that once I realize I am being uptight, I get more uptight because I feel guilty for being uptight in the first place.  Well, a few days ago I realized that things are starting to change . . . 

It occurred to me as I was sitting and nursing the baby one afternoon that things really have changed.  As I sat down to nurse and watch Aladdin for the 523rd time it clicked.  You see, our television is our toddlers favorite toy.  The buttons, the music, and the characters that that box contain are absolutely thrilling to her; so, naturally the screen is ALWAYS covered in toddler sized smudges.  About a year ago, this would have been a great cause for uptightness in my world.  I used to HATE glass smudges.  I cleaned all the mirrors in my house almost every day - windex was my best friend.  As I sat there looking at the TV I realized that it hadn't even occurred to me to care about the extremely dirty television (I think I even saw some peanut butter from the previous days lunch). 

Boy am I glad that some switch in my brain seems to have triggered so a less uptight mode.  Being uptight as a mother can only lead to disaster.   The TV is destined to ALWAYS be smeared in finger prints, the kitchen floor (particularly in the area where the toddler sits) will never be clean for more than three of four seconds, there will often be blow-outs and major spit-ups at the most inconvenient times, and your toddler will throw temper tantrums in public places.  For someone like me who seems to be programmed to stress out over such nonsense, I am proud to say that these moments of  motherhood don't seem to affect me like they should.  I can't say I'm perfect, I definitely have my snapping moments; but I seem to be getting better with time . . .   

 

Obsessions

Kenzie has had many different obsessions over the past year of life. It all began with Elmo. Anything Elmo was a reason for great celebration. She would jump up and down, raises her little pudgy fists in the air and shout "Yay Elmo". Well, from Elmo we went to Dash, and her most recent obsession is any Mary Poppins song. I must sing "Let's Go Fly a Kite", "Supercalifradalisticexpealidocios", "I Love to Laugh", and "A Spoon Full of Sugar" at LEAST ten times a day.

We've also had our obsessions with different treats. There was once a time when Goldfish were our staple food. We've since gone through fruit snacks, pirates booty, and we are currently on those cheese and peanut butter crackers.

Then there are some obsessions that aren't quite as convenient. There was that week that Kenzie was obsessed with the toilet paper. When the house got quiet, you could be sure to find her in the bathroom happily unrolling all of the toilet paper on the role. A few weeks later she observed daddy getting a bloddy nose and noticed that he stuck little pieces of toilet paper up his nose. Well, she decided to try the same thing. We spent a few weeks in a row in which I was pinning her down on the ground with a pair of tweezers extracting little balls of toilet paper from WAY up in her nose. There was also once a time when unfolding any bit of laundry was an absolute must. And now, the kid has an obsession with string. Yes, string. Any bit of string that she can get her hands on she EATS. We are passed the obsessive stage of everything goes to your mouth. She KNOWS the difference between food and all that other junk that a baby thinks to put in their little mouths. For some strange reason, string is in the eating category of Kenzie's little mind. When she notices string unraveling from a sock, a blanket, or an article of clothing, she promptly helps to unravel the stitches and eat them. Yesterday we found a piece of string on the floor and I asked her to throw it in the garbage. She ran into the other room to throw it away - or so I thought. She quickly entered the room again pointing at her little mouth saying "garbage, garbage". The worst is what goes in, must come out and I have pulled some pretty long string out of this kids little bottom! Well, we will keep working on it and hope that this obsession will pass as quickly as the others . . .

A Texting Experience . . .

Just a few days ago my husband and I had the following conversation while texting:

ME: WHY does one wake up just as I put the other down? I swear they are passing an invisible baton back and forth.

GARRETT: Probably are

ME: Little stinkers.

GARRETT: Ha that's funny

ME: Now I am a stinker too - in a much more litereal sense. Jordyn just spit up on me AND blew out on me ALL in one swift motion. Ah, the smells of motherhood . . .

GARRETT: Oh crap

FHE: The Plan of Salvation

Here was this weeks lesson on the Plan of Salvation. See the post before this for an explanation of why this is here. :) Also, does anyone know if you can just upload a word document to your blog? Then the whole lesson is in the right format with the bullets and everything and it looks a little bit neater (yes, I know, the anal neat freak is coming out in me . . . ).

The Plan of Salvation

Opening Song

"I Will Follow God's Plan for Me" Children's Songbook p. 164 - 165

Resources

January 2008 Friend Magazine "My Life is a Gift; My Life is a Plan" by Linda Christensen. Access by: www.friend.lds.org and click past issues, or copy and paste the following link:

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=427cf44804d17110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1

January 2008 Friend Magazine Coloring page Access by: www.friend.lds.org and click past issues, or use the following link:

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=eb6df44804d17110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1

Lesson Materials and Preparation

Print out the activity from the link above onto cardstock. Cut out each shape and use a hot glue gun to attach felt to the back of each shape so that the shapes can be used on a felt board

Print out a coloring page from the link above for each family member

A felt board

Pictures of the children as newborns

Pictures of family members who have passed away

A picture of the earth

A picture of Christ's second coming

Lesson (this LOOKS long all typed out, but it is really only 3 or 4 minutes max)

1. Hold up the figure that says "Premortal Life" and ask your child to say "Premortal Life". Briefly explain that our premortal life was when we did not have bodies and we lived with Heavenly Father and Jesus. One of the things that happened during our premortal life was that Heavenly Father presented a plan to us that allowed us to return to him, but he needed a helper to fulfill that plan. Satan and Jesus both volunteered to help. Satan wanted all the credit for himself, while Jesus said that Heavenly Father could have the credit. Satan convinced a lot of people that his plan was best and he was sent away. Allow someone to place the "Premortal Life" figure on the felt board.

2. Hold up the newborn pictures that you have gathered and talk about who is in the pictures. Then briefly talk about how we were all born and received a body here on the earth. Hold up the figure that says "Birth" and have everyone repeat it. Allow someone to place the "Birth" figure on the felt board where it belongs.

3. Hold up the picture of the earth and talk about what it is. Briefly explain that we are here on earth to receive bodies and learn all kinds of lessons like how to keep the commandments, how to have a testimony, and how to be a family. Allow someone to place the "Earth" figure on the correct place on the felt board.

4. Hold up the pictures of someone you know that has passed away and explain that everyone will pass away at one point while they are on the earth and then they will go to the spirit world. Place the "death" and "spirit world" pictures on the board where they belong.

5. Continue in a similar way until you have briefly explained each figure.

6. Bear your testimony of the plan of salvation.

Activity

Everyone colors their own copy of the coloring page and read the statement at the bottom together.

Family Home Evening with a Toddler

Does any of the following sound familiar?

Monday night rolls around and it is time for FHE. It seems to take all of your strength and imagination just to get everyone sitting down in the same room, and you still have prayers, music, and the lesson to get to. The song seems to go well since your child knows all the words to "I Am a Child of God" and lets you know it by screeching the words at the top of her little lungs. ( I really shouldn't say "little lungs", that seems to imply that its not very loud.) During the prayer your child actually bows her head and folds her arms, but she chants Jesus' name through the entire prayer. Then comes the lesson that you have worked so hard to prepare, we'll just leave that one to your imagination . . .

I don't know about some of you, but I for one have found it a little bit difficult to find toddler friendly family home evenings. When it was just Garrett and I, it was easy. We would just work our way through different manuals, listen to lectures on C.D., or read from the Ensign for our Family Home Evening lessons. Now that there is a little girl involved you need the visuals, the activities, and the fun finger plays and songs to go along with the lesson. So, I have been saving all of my family home evenings and organizing them by subjects into large manila envelope. I thought I would share the lessons that I am creating with all of you. I put the lesson into a word document each month anyway so that my kids can one day have access to all the stuff I put together, so I figured, why not post it here too? Now, I can hardly take credit for half of the stuff that I do. I get plenty of help from the Friend, the Ensign, from the new nursery manual, from all the primary manuals, and from many other websites that I will share as well. I simply take a little from each to get what I want in the end.

Some weeks I must say that my preparation feels like it goes to waste. Kenzie seems to be in her own world wanting to watch a show, grab the visuals and run, or try and engage us in a wrestling match; however, I know it will all pay off in the end. The First Presidency Message in April's Ensign by President Eyring was very inspirational:

"We have the greatest opportunity with the young. The best time to teach is early, while children are still immune to the temptations of their mortal enemy and long before the words of truth may be harder for them to hear in the noise of their personal struggles.

"A wise parent would never miss a chance to gather children together to learn of the doctrine of Jesus Christ. Such moments are so rare in comparison with the efforts of the enemy. For every hour the power of doctrine is introduced into a child’s life, there may be hundreds of hours of messages and images denying or ignoring the saving truths.

"The question should not be whether we are too tired to prepare to teach doctrine or whether it would be better to draw a child closer by just having fun or whether the child is beginning to think that we preach too much. The question must be, “With so little time and so few opportunities, what words of doctrine from me will fortify them against the attacks on their faith which are sure to come?” The words you speak today may be the ones they remember. And today will soon be gone.

"The years pass, we teach the doctrine the best we can, and yet some still do not respond. There is sorrow in that. But there is hope in the scriptural record of families. Think of Alma the Younger and Enos. In their moments of crisis, they remembered the words of their fathers, words of the doctrine of Jesus Christ (see Enos 1:1–4; Alma 36:16–19). It saved them. Your teaching of that sacred doctrine will be remembered."

While it may feel like a roller coaster now and all that you feel is happening is that you're regurgitating a lesson on a topic that you already know inside out, you will be surprised what will sink in. Just a few weeks ago we were have a lesson on Joseph Smith and the first vision. That particular night was quite frustrating. I had attached several figures to popsicle sticks in order to reenact the first vision. All Kenzie wanted to do was snatch the sticks away from Garrett and I and try to pull them apart (I had used bright blue tape as an adhesive and she was quite intrigued by it). The lesson felt rushed and confused and Garrett and I just sighed in relief when it was all over. I was shocked this week when I was putting the figures and the other pictures from the lesson away to have Kenzie walk up and point at the pictures and say "Prophet Joseph" loud and clear . . .