An interesting conversation

We learned two songs in Primary this Sunday. One was #277 from the green hymn book called As I Search the Holy Scriptures. I had the junior primary help me come up with hand movements to help us learn the song. We're also doing the movements when we sing the song in the primary program. We taught the senior primary the song/movements as well. Their favorite movements were "spirit" - where you start with your pointer fingers and thumbs interlinked like a chain and pull one hand away from the other in a floating spirit like movement - and "study" - where the left hand is flat and the right fingers are pointed at the left hand and wiggled like you're casting a spell on the book in the left hand. We even had them stand in the front of the room in front of the teachers to practice their song. This way they can become accustomed to performing in front of other people.

The second song we learned was page 77 in the primary song book called Did Jesus Really Live Again? It's a 3-verse song we wanted to learn so that we could sing it in primary on Easter as an Easter song. Not many of those out there. So the junior primary learned the song as just a song. No big deal. It was fun and that was all. The senior primary, on the other hand, was a little different. The first two verses just ask if he really came. The third verse said, "And there were nail prints in his hands and a spear wound in his side. Did Jesus really come again after he had died?..." One of them said, "I didn't know he was wounded by a spear. That sounds painful. Why do we write songs about that?" Such a deep question from our youth just floored me.

So, I explained about crucifixion, what it was, how they did it, and how painful it was. How if they wanted you to die quickly they would break your legs, but they didn't do that to Christ. How the spear was used to make him bleed out as another form of torture. Then I took them through one of my favorite sacrament hymns, Behold the Great Redeemer Die, and read through all 6 verses focusing first on the pain and suffering of the Savior (including the crown of thorns they didn't consider), and then on what his suffering meant for us. It was amazing to see the eyes light up with understanding as they realized that we write songs like these to remind us of what he did for us. These songs start as teaching tools for the kiddos, then turn into discussions and reminders as they get older.

They become more than just songs. I am humbled to be the one to have these conversations with them when singing time becomes more than music and turns into a true Gospel teaching moment. Just wow.

Don't stop the music!

It's March now, and that means a new song in the Primary program. This month we're working on Stand for the Right. It's a really short song. We're going to sit while we sing it and stand at the end when we sing "stand for the right". Once we learned the song, I brought out a stop sign. Each of the kiddos got to stop us at any time through the song, and we had to pick up where we left off. They had fun stopping us in the middle of "prophet" and half-way through "stand". Some of them stopped us after every word, so I had to help them calm it down a little.

We had a visitor in primary named Timothy. I introduced myself and said hi, but he was so shy that he barely shook my hand. By the end of singing time, he was giggling and laughing just as much as everyone else. I think that was one of the most fun lessons I've done so far. Even the senior primary wanted to do this game, and usually they're "too old" to do the fun stuff.

Because this is such a short song, I'm going to start working working with the senior primary on their solo song Praise to the Man. I'm going to teach them the parts for their performance, so I think we should use all the time we can get even though it's not in the program to learn until May. Considering they've moved the Primary Program up from October to September, it gives us less time to practice. I know these kiddos will do splendidly!

A Hair-Raising Valentines day

Friday afternoon, I retrieved my kiddos from the bus and took them home. Audie successfully completed his first week in the new disciplinary program we co-designed, so he got to play on the Wii for 30 minutes all by himself. Chloie then joined him. While they were otherwise entertained, I took my shower and started the 1.5 hour process of putting my hair up for the Sweetheart Dance at the church. This was the final result... I had to take a picture for a friend at work whose advice I received while trying to figure out what to do with it all. She liked it, so I'm happy.

The dance itself was a lot of fun. There were a lot of songs that I didn't recognize, but Tim and I got to dance to our song. I think we were one of 3 couples out there during that particular diddy (compared to a packed floor for others), and I'm sure we got some weird looks as we sang to each other. They did have a couple fun songs like the Electric Slide and the Twist. Oh, and the lasagna and cake were awesome, too. I didn't do the cake this time, but it was nice to just attend and enjoy myself.

Saturday morning we had pink heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast.Tim and Audie changed the oil in the Trailblazer, and then we worked on cleaning house. Sunday we made valentines during singing time as we talked about Heavenly Father's love for us. Our valentines said, "I love you like He loves me. In my heart you'll always be." The kiddos and I visited Sister Fanning in Martinsburg to give her valentines we'd made for her and to say hello. When we got home, Audie and I put the wheels on his pinewood derby car (pics on that later), and I helped Tim put some cables on his motorcycle. We were having trouble putting the seat back on, but then we realized that the front bracket was on upside-down. :)

Crunch!

So this is what the Trailblazer looked like when we dropped it off at the body shop for repairs on Saturday. My poor baby!

I know, it's just a vehicle, but I like my Trailblazer.

We dropped it off after I delivered a cake to my SIL in Winchester. I tried calling Tim to have him meet me at the shop, but I couldn't get through to his phone. We are SO getting him a new phone soon. His is one of the original iPhones (not the 3GS). We could be sitting side by side... I'll have 5 bars and no issues, he is "searching". Sure, try to call him. It'll ring and go to voicemail without even registering on his phone. And he'll be sitting right next to you.

Deep breath. Calm down, Erin.

Sorry, I get a little worked up about his phone. Anyway, we ate lunch at China City Buffet and went grocery shopping at Martin's. I spent the evening making cakes for our Stake Presidency for Ward Conference on Sunday. The, ahem, "cake fairy" left them each a Triple-C for them to take home, as is the tradition 3 years running now. I love the looks on their faces when they realize what is in the box. Even better, I got to hear the bishop and President Grow speak. I love listening to them.

In singing time, the junior primary kiddos got to divide into teams and compete to see which side sang better. The teachers sat in the middle and were our judges. At the end, they all did so well that it was a tie (the intent anyway!) so everyone got a mini cupcake. In senior primary, we worked on note names. I'm reminded of a poem that helped me learn them...

A, B, C, D, E, F, G
Music letters stop at G.
If you want to name a space,
just remember they spell "FACE"
If you want to name a line,
just remember, "Every Good Boy Does Fine"

And you thought you wouldn't learn anything new today! They had a lot of fun with it. We worked on the song for January and practiced our conducting. I'm worried about one of the boys in senior primary, however, because he helps his mother in nursery. I'm sure that he's serving valiantly, but he is missing out on the lessons in his classes, in sharing time, and singing time with me. I worry that he is missing out on a "spiritual recharge" that I've seen from experience attending class. I feel it, too, because I haven't been able to attend Relief Society because of my calling. I miss the contact with other sisters, hearing their experiences and testimonies, and understanding the Gospel through their involvement in the lessons. Maybe I'll get lucky. We're handing out new visiting teaching routes at the VT Conference this Sunday, and my new visiting teachers might come see me and fill that void.

The tummy bug

I stayed home with Chloie Friday. My poor kiddos have been passing around this bug for a week now. First, Dougie got sick on Wednesday while he was with my mother. He said he went to go poop and his butt peed. Ah, the 5-year-old's definition of diarrhea. He also threw up, which I'm sure added to his discomfort. We babied him Thursday, and his tummy got better. That and a little Pepto.

Chloie woke up Friday with the same thing. We kept her home, did a little grocery shopping later that afternoon when most of it had worked out of her system, and babied her as well. I figured that Audie would be next on Sunday.

Man-o-man, I hate it when I'm right. Audie woke up on Sunday feeling icky so Tim talked me into letting him keep Audie at home. Good thing, too, because he ended up getting sick at about the time we were in Primary.

The bad thing is that I started feeling bad at about the same time. I was roasting in the primary room (thanks to the sun on our backs) and just out of it. I'm trying to teach the kiddos the second verse of 'If I Listen With My Heart' and losing my place. The kiddos liked using the squirt bottle filled with koolade to help their singing voices. I was able to use that to help me feel "better" so the kiddos didn't know I wasn't feeling well. I couldn't focus. I think I worried the teachers, but thankfully class was over sooner than later. I got a drink of water, took a quick pit stop, and stood outside for a minute or two to cool off and felt a lot better for the senior primary class. Especially after we opened the windows a little bit.

In senior primary we worked again on conducting in 4-4 and about the up-beat. I also selected two "guest conductors" to help me for the last two run-throughs of the song. They're doing very well. I think we might have gotten a little carried away towards the end, but they had fun, but I'm grateful that they're willing to learn. I even had one of the kiddos ask me for help afterwards because he'd missed the week before. I spent a couple minutes working with Jacob, who has graciously agreed to learn 'Praise To the Man' for the program, helping him with the rhythms and notes of the right hand. He's doing well. I've also decided to print off the music so that the senior primary can learn to read the music as we sing it in preparation for Young Men and Young Women. I'm confident that they will grasp it with the same enthusiasm as they have everything else. This week we'll be learning notes (whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth).

Back to the bug...

I managed to get Dougie and Chloie to my parents' house where Tim and Audie (feeling better) met us. We had Mom's breaded chicken dipped in the Honey Chicken sauce from our home-made recipe to dip it in. We agree that we like it better with the battered/fried chicken, but this was still a tasty alternative. We even tried the white chocolate raspberry cheese cake the kiddos and I made Saturday night. It tasted good, but I've decided to make a few adjustments to the recipe. I couldn't even eat a piece until after Tim drove us home and I spent 5 more hours getting over the nausea (we left his car there since I didn't feel up to driving).

I thought I was doing better last night. I was able to eat the spaghetti Tim made for dinner while he babied me, and I even got to eat my slice of cheese cake while we watched Golden Eye (skipping over the not-so-kid-friendly parts). I went to bed feeling like I was over it, but woke up this morning feeling not so nice. I didn't want to stay at home so I headed in to work, but I couldn't stomach the toast I made for breakfast. Maybe a little ginger ale and lunch will help.

Oh, one final thought...

The kiddos got to don their Sous Chef shirts to help me Saturday night making the cheese cake. Here are the pictures of their new "uniforms". They get to wear them when the help me in the kitchen from now on. :)

That was sNOw coincidence.

I promised pictures of the snowman I made for the ward Christmas party on 12/11, so I finally sent myself the pictures from my hubby's phone. Here he is, Elder Snowman! We carried him in in pieces (one ball at a time) and assembled him on the table. He's even got a name tag and tie! :)

The best part was the name tag. I love details like that!
Nobody wanted to cut him. I had to do it before anyone would eat it. I did make Cody make the first cut because it was his "likeness". After that I continued the demolition. I will say this... putting fondant on a sphere-like cake is not fun. Just sayin'.

The kiddos and I spent the weekend baking and making the tasty goodies for our bonanza. I spent a couple hours dividing all of the treats among the boxes we're gifting out this year but realized too late that I'd forgotten the chocolate-covered pretzels. Go figure.

We got to hand a bunch of the goodie boxes out at church on Sunday morning. Even better, the Primary kiddos got to sing Have a Very Merry Christmas to the congregation. They did SO well, and I'm SO proud of them.

Sunday we had a fun activity in Primary singing time. My kiddos made some felt ornaments from Michaels as wee gifties on Sunday (we had penguins, Santas, reindeer, and gingerbread men). On Sunday, I selected a seeker to find some random adult in the hallway and bring them into the Primary room (we had a member of the presidency standing by for assistance). While they were seeking, I selected a wrapper to pick an ornament and decorate a gift bag with felt holiday stickers like trees, gifts, mittens, candy canes, and snowflakes while the rest of us practiced a Christmas song from the songbook. Then our guest was brought in (quite surprised, I might add), we gave them the gift, sang them our song, and wished them a Merry Christmas. We never knew who was coming, and they were always so suprised. It was a lot of fun, and both the junior and senior Primary kiddos enjoyed themselves. I'm definately doing this again next year. The joke was, however, that this was a new program to make sure the adults were in their meetings instead of in the hallways.

We had the Markland family over for dinner Sunday evening so that Nora and I could work on selecting music for the first quarter in January. We've decided to do an opening song that they either know or one that we can teach easily, spend 10 minutes learning our Program song for the month (or part of it), then sing a song we know and learn a new one from the songbook. This way they're being exposed to more of the songs and giving us more options to select from later. I'm also going to work with the senior Primary to teach them more about the music itself... reading and conducting, singing in parts, etc. Things that they don't normally learn. I figure this way it will prepare them for Young Men and Young Women where they aren't sung the song to learn it. It will also build their confidence as they learn to conduct and lead others. I'm excited about the new year! The last thing we've decided is that I'm going to build a huge set of scriptures for the Primary room (since this year's theme is the scriptures), and having a member of the ward dress as a character from the scriptures and visit us on the fourth Sunday of the month. So one day we'll get a visit from Adam and the next time maybe Joseph Smith.

The Grateful Pumpkin Says Thank You

I might have officially lost it, but that was the best I could come up with. I bought a little pumpkin a couple weeks ago from Wal-mart for $.50 on clearance to use this Sunday. We talked about translations don't always fully cover the meaning of a word or phrase from one language to another, but there is always a way to say thank you. We even learned how to say it in 10 languages (I didn't know there was a primary song already, but we still had fun). Then we learned the song "My Blessings" and played hot potato with the pumpkin, and who ever had the pumpkin when the song was over got to say what they were thankful for. Even the senior primary had fun with it.

The kiddos and I did our grocery shopping Saturday, then started working on the dressers. The 1/2 round and coving are now on both of them, and the base has been attached to one. The runners have been attached to the drawers, but not the dressers yet. This weekend I hope to do the base on the second dresser, put in the cabinet pieces of the runners, and start polyurethaning the snot out of them. Soon, very soon!

We did get to surprise Tim on Friday. He's been bugging me to let him get the new Call of Duty, but we haven't had the money. I talked to the kids and asked if they wanted to get it for him as an early Christmas present. They were super enthusiastic about it, so they each pulled $20 out of their piggy banks and we went to the Game Stop in the commons. I thought it was funny to see them put their crumpled, kid-folded money on the counter; that poor lady had to unfold it all. I paid the tax, and we met Tim at Chick-fil-a for dinner. Since he's been working overtime we haven't seen him much, so I thought it would be a nice night out. We gave Tim his game at dinner, and he immediately opened it to read the book inside. It would still be a couple days before he would actually be able to play it, but he was very appreciative and thanked the kiddos with big hugs.

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. :)

When to stomp two feet in the puddle

I've decided that if I don't jump in with both feet I'll be timid for months. Annabelle will be there for a couple weeks to keep me straight and help me if I get stuck. I guess it's better to get the initial jitters over with sooner than later, so I spent some time yesterday obsessing about this Sunday's Primary lesson/sharing time/music time thing I get to do from now until I don't know when.

... OK, in reality I've been obsessing since they sustained me Sunday morning. That's not a bad thing is it?

Sunday afternoon and evening I sat at the piano with the primary song book, Annabelle's lesson plan for this week, and the kiddos to learn the songs we'll be singing. They helped me learn all of them except the one I'll be teaching them. Now I can't get them out of my head!

I got up in the morning humming them;
I drove to work belting them out in the car;
I find myself humming them at work;
I sing them on the way to get Dougie;
Dougie and I sing them on the way to get Audie and Chloie;
the four of us sing them on the way home;
I hum them while they do their homework and sing while I'm cooking dinner;
I probably sing them in my sleep (much to Tim's dismay).

I will say this for primary songs... I am now intimately familiar with the correct order of the books in the Book of Mormon. Who knew?

I sat with Annabelle last night after the pack meeting to pick her brain about this Sunday's music lesson. She said she hadn't worked on it at all, but thoroughly loved what I'd come up with on my own. Without giving too much away, we're going to see what 2,000 warriors looks like, dress and sound like warriors, and learn a new song about them. I've already tested these ideas out on Tim (as an age-group-appropriate gage for success) and he loves the ideas so far.

Maybe this isn't so bad after all. I'll let you know for sure after this Sunday.