Family Home Evening

Each week we try to have one night that we spend as a family. We have a lesson, activity, treats, and fun together. Last Fall a group of my friends got together and we made a year of Family Home Evening lessons. We centered them around the Primary theme for each month. Each person took a month and planned 3 lessons that went along with that theme. So we have awesome lessons for 3 of the weeks and then on the 4th week we can teach something specific for our own family. I was in charge of February and we have had fun doing the lessons. Last week it was about our bodies.

We started the lesson by standing at the top of the stairs and looked down at our pajamas laying down on the floor. We talked about how our spirits were in heaven and needed to come down to Earth to receive a body. I asked them questions like, "Could your body dance without your spirit in it? Eat? Play? All of which the answers were no. Then I had them go down to Earth, put their pajamas on and now their spirits were in their bodies and could do all kinds of things (which we had to try out for awhile). We also read from a talk given by Russell M Nelson called, "You Are a Child of God." 

Then we sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and "Hokey Pokey." We finished by tracing their bodies onto paper and they got to color them. That was their favorite part. 

I will try to share more of the FHE's that we do throughout the year...the ones that go really well at least!!

Allie's ponytail was flipped up so that looks cool and she was totally into this...making sure she matched her pajamas!

Katelyn's little buns on the top of her head made her look like a frog and she drew a couple squiggles and called it good.

{Love}

It's amazing how much love surrounds us if we just focus on it. While there may be a lot of heartbreak, hard times, trials, and sadness, our lives are filled with LOVE. Mostly our Heavenly Father pours His loves on us each and every day and I feel it in the smallest of ways. Our Savior is our very example of what and how to love. His is the purest, sweetest love of all. We have the greatest family who helps each other, supports each others, wants to be involved in each others lives, and prays for each other. Our friends help lift us and bring joy, fun, and laughter into life. My kids test me everyday and I am frustrated so often but I look at them and feel their spirit so strong and my heart overflows with love for them. I know I am blessed with love all around me. I'm glad we have moments that we can stop and reflect and truly see that beautiful love.

We had a fancy dinner and dance on Valentine's day. We decorated, put makeup on, put nice clothes on, ate a nice candlelit dinner, danced the night away, had chocolate fondue, danced some more...then tuckered out. It was really special time together. 

 Allie's Valentine's from Preschool

Decorating with Dad

Chicken Roll Ups shaped somewhat like hearts

We {LOVE} You!

Wednesday

The middle of the week. Is it really February 6th already? That is so strange.

The Good:

Woke up at 5:40 to work out with my ladies. It's always hard to get out of bed but it's always awesome.
I showered before my kids were awake, which is an achievement to say the least.
Doug and Katelyn were feeling good this morning after a nice little "bout" of something yesterday.
I had joyschool for Katelyn and we had us some good times.
I vaccuumed...even the upstairs (which rarely happens).
The toy room was organized and rearranged.
I went to mutual with the sweet Beehives and their moms. It was so awesome to see how close they are with their moms. I hope this can be me with my girls (xoxo).

The Bad:

The dishes weren't done until 10:00 PM

I ate a lot of cookie dough followed by 4-5 cookies. Ugh!

The Ugly:

Katelyn went through 3 pairs of pants. I will spare you the details.

Retreat

We recently had some changes for our church boundries. I work with the youth girls in our ward ages 12-18. We had planned to take them up to Donnelly for a winter retreat. Since the changes happened our fearless leader, Suzy, invited the leaders to up her parent's cabin there for the weekend instead. I love these ladies with all of my heart. Serving together brings you closer together than anything else. They have such strong testimonies of the Savior, love for the girl's in our ward, they are wonderful examples to me and have taught me so much about myself, life, fun, motherhood, and everything.

To sum it up: Too short, so fun, beautiful, much needed break, best friends, tons of laughing, and food of course!

(I'm having a hard time picking pictures for this. If I had it my way there would be 75 pictures...but I will try to condense!)

We played this game called, "Quelf." You should play it...it is crazy!

Oh Ali got the best cards!!

My stylin' bracelet

Lisa in her fort 

The best picture of these two!

Suzy workin' that game box. ("Wacca, wacca, wacca")

Little Brighton got to join us and was a little trooper!!

Pancake House in McCall: A must! The food was awesome and considering we didn't eat breakfast until 11:00 we scarffed it! 

The ginormous cinnamon roll. Marie ate the whole thing. Nah, we all ate it and then some!

It was the ice sculpture festival in McCall so we drove around the masses of people and looked because finding a parking place was useless.

Their cabin is right by the lake and it's frozen right now so we went sledding and had a blast acting like teenagers.

You should have seen these hills. They were crazy huge and super scary!

We missed those who couldn't come and are planning on this being an annual retreat. Love you all so much!

Our Week

Starting any week off with a paid day off is great! We love having Doug home any chance we can especially since he's been so busy on Sunday with his calling as Ward Clerk. And this week he was home for 3 out of 5 days! Sweetness. 

I started an exercise group that meets at the church every morning at 6 AM and this was Week 2. It has been one of the best things. I am not a morning person but have loved starting my day that way. And I have been waking up on my own at 5:30 now. Crazy stuff! We do Zumba, Turbo Kick, Hot Hula, Functional Training and Circuit Training. Good times with good friends and healthy lifestyles! WHOOT WHOOT!

We had the Young Women and leaders over for our annual Civil Rights Oreo Party. What better way to celebrate our equality than with the perfect blend of black and white!? It was a great time and we love having the youth around...they are so refreshing and fun!

I had a date with my little Katelyn Bug. We went to Cabelas {huge fish tanks, free fudge, cool dead animals, camo}. It's pretty great!

Allie had a preschool fieldtrip to the Discovery Center and I was able to go with her. It was so fun to see her with her friends and that place is always great!.

Doug took Thursday and Friday off so we could go to Utah and see the family and some friends and go skiing. But we got some freak ice deal. All the roads were just straight ice and we decided to stay here. A wise decision, but a hard one. So we went to Jump Time and the girls were in heaven!

 Allie was crying because she climbed to the top of the slide and didn't want to go down. We insisted that she did while all the parents sat there judging us. ;) This is her going down the slide with Doug, holding on for dear life. And on the right is her going down 100 times afterwards. Loved every minute of it. Silly girl!

And this little daredevil was in pure heaven. Nothing will stop her and it scares me. Why can't I have one in the middle somewhere!? Some lady turns to me and says, "You better have good insurance for that one!" She would hang from the bars and drop into the foam pit and just start laughing. I don't even think I could do that! She's my little crazy girl.

They earned their new Tinkerbell movie by filling up the jar with all the good things they had done over the past few weeks. So we had a good family movie night.

We also went on a date to the Cheesecake Factory and were reminded why we never go there. It was $30 for 2 appetizers and ONE cheesecake. Ugh! Why do I love that place so much!?

Between all those wonderful things we also had many tantrums, parents losing their tempers, fighting, peeing pants (but less than before...she is almost 100% dry all of the time). 

And if you made it through this entire post...congratulations.

Here is a video!