The ART of thankfulness

Yesterday was my first normal day in Primary. I say normal because it wasn't a 5th Sunday solid music block bonanza. It was a little sticky for opening exercises because I had practiced the wrong week of music. Oops. It didn't help that the kiddos didn't know one or two of the songs. No worries, though, because we'll learn them soon.

So then starts my 20 minutes with the junior primary. We reviewed "We'll Bring the World His Truth" that we learned last week, then launched into learning "I Am Glad For Many Things" and talking about being thankful. So I taught them the song and told them things I'm grateful for... warm fuzzy socks in the winter, hot chocolate, blankets, kiddos, and most importantly my Savior. They seemed to respond well and had some ideas of their own. So we sang the song, and then I chose 3 helpers to draw their ideas on the white board. We continued this cycle - sing, draw, sing, draw - until we ran out of time. They were grateful for many things, of which the most popular was family. There must have been 8 drawings of families up there; how humbling to know that children that young already know the importance of family! There were also presents, clothes, pets and the like. Such artwork!

I had a 20 minute break to rest the voice and ogle over Scarlet Markland. She is such a cutie!

Obviously drawing wasn't going to work on the senior primary... you know the older kids that are too cool to do anything like that...

Yeah, OK.

So instead we chose scriptures from the Topical Guide headers under thank, thanks, thankful, and thanksgiving. We sang and took turns reading between verses. I even got to offer a nifty tidbit of information about how the topical guide was formed and why. Love the BYU channel. In any case, they left with slightly more understanding than when they came in which is OK by me.

Then I got to do nursery. Oh. My. Goodness.

I think 10 minutes with them wore me out more than the 5th Sunday solid music block bonanza. I've discovered that until I fix the pain in my back that I shouldn't sit on the floor. Ever. The bitties seemed to have fun with the songs. Even more so when we sang "It's Autumn Time" and Sister Gilbert started making the leaves fall. Everyone got a sticker with a smiling sunshine on it and walked away giggling. It made all the pain worth it.

I'm still trying to recover. In reality it started a couple days ago, and not bad at first, but standing in the work shop probably didn't help, and neither did sitting on the floor. Tim has popped the difficult bones back into place twice in the last 4 days, and that's a record. Usually I only need it after a week of standing in the kitchen for a cake, so I think it *might* be getting worse. Maybe it's finally time to see a doctor about it... or not. We'll try a hot soak and icy-hot and see what we get.

In the mean time, I owe you an update on my mystery crochet-a-long progress, and I'll post pictures of everything I have done to this point tomorrow. I've finally finished clue 5. It only took me 2 1/2 weeks to do it, but now I finally have time to catch up on clues 6 and 7. You'll see why tomorrow. :)