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We were listening to our Bari Koral station on Pandora today when Brent said to me, “I’m so excited for Bari’s new album to come out! When is that again?” “Why it’s Valentine’s Day, dear!” I replied. It’s a cheesey intro, I know. But it was a real conversation. So if you, like us, love Bari Koral, I thought I’d share her news with you.
We’ve loved Bari Koral since our first listen through of Rock and Roll Garden in 2009. We even had an interview with her on the release of Rock and Roll Garden in Jan 2010. Then we adored her first music video for The Backpack Song. We never tire of Bari Koral’s music. And so we’re really excited to receive an advance copy of her CD soon so we can share our review. To whet your appetite, here’s a sneak peak at her new album with the song Anna and the Cupcakes:
We can’t wait to hold the new album in our hands! Yeah, Bari Koral. You rock, girl!
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After we partied in style, we woke up and celebrated Scott’s first birthday. He got dressed up in a new outfit from my grandma and we headed to church. Unfortunately, Scott fussed a lot on his birthday. I was sad with him that he just seemed unhappy so much of the day. But that evening we found the culprit: his first molar coming in. It had already cut the skin. Poor kid. Cutting molars is the pits.
To ease his pain (he, he) we gave him a birthday giant marshmallow. I ran out of energy to make him a cake so we snacked on leftover goodies from the NYE party. He didn’t seem to mind so much and enjoyed the marshmallow enough that he left his hat alone.
Sammi wrote him a couple letters, very sweet and thoughtful, and a coloring book, mostly blank pages. Elli gave him something she pulled off the school shelf and Mom dropped the ball on a present at all. My goal is to get it done by the end of the month. It will still count, right?
Here’s part of his birthday song. I love the eye thing he does right at the beginning. It’s my favorite!
I have never gone all out on party decorations before. Usually I’m still trying to get cleaning done as guests arrive. So this year felt extra special because of all the help I had to get it all done and how wonderful it turned out. I really liked how everything looked. And now we have a gold clock hanging back in our bathroom. It’s just too cool. Makes me want to spray paint the wall silver!
After snacking for a while the girls made their New Year’s self with party hat and blower. They seemed to enjoy it and it was simple enough that all the girls finished theirs. While they were working on that, the grown ups were blowing up all the balloons I didn’t use in decorations. Once that balloons were blown up and the kids played with them for a bit we decided to do the kiddie countdown earlier than originally planned. It worked perfect though. We did the countdown at 8:3, popped all the balloons (my favorite NYE tradition) then headed outside to do some fireworks provided by a family that came to the party. All the kids did tons of sparklers, including Scott who was mesmerized and didn’t even try to put it in his mouth. There were some bigger fireworks and then we headed back inside.
Three little girls got jammies on and snuggled up in Elli’s bed. Scott and Brady fell asleep and shared the crib. Jaylee fell alseep in her Daddy’s arms and was snuggled into our bed. Then the games began. Brent was such a trooper and played all sorts of games with the older kids: Chutes and Ladders and The Tinkerbell Game.
The grown ups played the sign game. I remembered that I am really not good at that game but it is fun just to laugh and relax with friends. I love the mirror ball and plan on keeping that safely tucked away for next New Year’s Eve. It was just the right length for the tall guys to bump their heads on it, but no one seemed to mind too much.
Sammi made it all the way to midnight. It was fun to have her sit on my lap and Brent at my side as we counted down to the new year. Lots of kisses and hugs. Then jammies and bed for the rest of us. Overall, I feel blessed to have ended 2011 on such a great note and to have begun 2012 with friends and loved ones in out home.
Hope your 2012 is off to a great start!
I’ve been enjoying Pinterest more than ever as I’m trying to find ideas for celebrating New Year’s Eve and sneaking in a bit of a birthday celebration for Scott. He turns ONE on January 1 which makes it his golden birthday so I’d like it to be a little extra special, at least for those of us who will remember! Side note, it also occurred to me today that it will be Brent’s golden birthday on the last day of January. I think extra special birthday celebrations are in order for January!
Click on the picture to see more of the pins on my board.
I’m particularly intrigued by the yarn balloons. We tried them once, but we didn’t wrap them with enough yarn. We may have to try again. My plan is to use white yard and then spray paint them either silver or gold. I’ve also gathered a selection of mini silver, blue and gold ornaments to make garland to hang down from the ceiling around the food table.
What are your plans for New Year’s Eve?
We’ve baked up a storm today making chocolate chip cookies and ginger snaps to leave for Santa. Sammi also thought it would be prudent to leave Santa a gift. She chose to give him cookies for the ride home 
We’re off to read the Nativity Story and
open our new Christmas jammies.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Merry Christmas!
I have always loved Nativity Sets. My mother had a beautiful ceramic set painted in blue and white that I remember from my childhood. It was so soft looking that it helped me feel the tenderness of the Christmas story: the birth of Jesus Christ. Since I first went away to collage I have added a few nativity sets to my collection, including my mother’s set from my childhood.
At the beginning of each December we pull out our nativity sets. This year we have the same number of sets as people in our family: 5. Scott is using the Fisher Price Nativity Set we got when Sammi was a baby. As we set up our nativity sets we read the Bible verses about each character. Then we sing a song about each character. This has proved to be a successful activity with young children.
This year it was all about Elli’s wise men visiting Sammi’s Jesus. It’s so fun to see the girls finding each person or animal as we read about them. Then when we are finished reading we play with the sets, retelling the story or parts of it. I love starting the Christmas season this way because it puts the Christmas story of Christ’s birth in our minds and hearts as we go about the rest of our holiday preparations.We also read the story and sing the songs again on Christmas Eve.
Here are the details of our Nativity Story and Songs for each character:
Mary: Luke 1:26-38 “Silent Night“
Joseph: Matthew 1:18-25 “The Shepherd’s Carol” CS, 40
Jesus: Luke 2:1-7 “Away In a Manger” or this version
Shepherds: Luke 2:8-20 “Angels We Have Heard on High“
Wise Men: Matthew 2:1-12 “With Wondering Awe“
This year we are also making a little book that follows the order we read the Christmas story from the Bible. I wrote a short summary of each part with the verse references to put on each page. Yesterday we did the Angel Gabriel and Mary pages. We’re making three books, one for each child, so it’s taking a fair amount of prep work, but the pages yesterday turned out so cute and we had so much fun doing it that I think it’s worth it.
Today we did the pages for Joseph and the angel who comes to him in a dream. Sammi totally won the creativity award today. She made the best looking sleeping Joseph. I wish I’d done my arms the same way! If you’re interested in making this book, too, you can download the words and verses for each page here.
How are you sharing the Christmas Story with your family?
I have been thoroughly enjoying The Redheaded Hostess‘s great ideas for scripture study and teaching the gospel to little ones. I even ordered her brand new scripture journals for myself for Christmas, but shhhh it’s a surprise! I was totally inspired by Shannon to create something for our Primary children to record what they learn each month. The Primary Sharing Time Journal is the product of that inspiration.
As I’ve thought a lot about how Primary went this year with our focus on the Articles of Faith while the theme focused on the scriptures, I’ve been thinking what we can do for next year to build on that foundation. We’re planning on continuing to work on memorizing the Articles of Faith since it’s part of the Faith in God program. We did a reward system this year where they put scoops of beans in a large vase for every Article of Faith they memorized and passed off to their teacher. Once the vase is full then we have a party, about three a year. This coming year we’re going to focus on memorizing the scriptures that go with each month’s theme.
Also, I know (fingers crossed) that we’ll be moving this summer for Brent’s rotations. Last summer our presidency changed in June and then we all went on vacations for the summer and we spent all fall scrambling to put together the sacrament program. I don’t want to leave the next presidency in the same mess we put ourselves in so I created a Primary Sharing Time Journal to help the kids remember what they learn each month about the theme. Hopefully their written record of what they learned can be used to prepare the sacrament program and make that process easier for a new presidency.
My plan is that we will keep the journals all year handing them out once a month for the kids to update them and write what they’ve learned. Then in December we can give it to them as a gift and souvenir of their year in primary.
If you’re interested in using this with your children or primary, you can download the Primary Sharing Time Journal 2012 here.
This is a free download. I created the journal in Illustrator; translation, with a lot of tears and some gnashing of teeth. Please use these journals for personal, church or noncommercial use only (please don’t sell it!) And if you’d like to share it with others, please refer them to this post where they can download the file (don’t link to the pdf itself or host it elsewhere.)
My talented and creative sister-in-law started this tradition in 2008 and we decided to get on board, finally. Each November she celebrates NewVember where she tries to do something new everyday. Between her blog and Facebook statuses she’s done an amazing range of adventurous activities over the last few years. I’m always inspired by Ann.
So this year we are starting our own NewVember tradition. Yesterday we started our gratitude journals. Today we remembered to add to them at the last possible moment. Seriously. We had to wake Elli back up to find out what she was grateful for. She was so sleepy but got out “thank you healthy bodies” which sounds an awful lot like when she prays before a meal. Just too sweet.
So for today, we played in a leaf pile. This is new in comparison to last year when we didn’t rake a single leaf. Yeah, my last year’s pregnant self wasn’t that interested in taking care of the yard last fall. But to make it truly new, we added a favorite game of all three kids: peek-a-boo. Sammi loved getting all the way covered with leaves, over and over again. Elli loved covering her up, again and again. And Scott had a perpetual smile watching the whole thing go down. Check it out for yourself:
During all the fun, Elli and Sammi worked on their gross motor skills by scooping leaves and covering each other up. Elli practiced counting to ten and even made it to sixteen a few times. She loves the number three now, since it’s her age. And Scott practiced his gross motor skills by standing while holding on to my shoulder. He loves to be upright and to walk everywhere. I’m glad he’s finally tall enough that I don’t have to bend over when he holds my fingers and we walk, endlessly, around the house and anywhere else we are. Next I’ll be glad when he can do it without holding my fingers at all. Though his little fingers gripping my fingers is something precious.
What NEW thing will you do this month?
Happy November! We’re surviving the candy hurricane from yesterday. The wrappers are settling and mostly making their way to the trash. And the girls are trying oh so hard to eat their candy slowly. I’m actually very impressed with their “save some for later” attitudes.
I thought before we headed into another season of getting (from Halloween candy to Christmas presents) we would take ALL of November to thing about our abundance and develop a deeper feeling of gratitude.
We started at lunch today. I shared a scripture verse about living in thanksgiving daily. We talked about blessings and being grateful for them. Then I brought out the thanksgiving journal. Each day we will go around the table at dinner or lunch (depending on our schedule) and write down what each person is thankful for. These are some scriptures I found on “thanksgiving.”
…that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you. Alma 34:38
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. Psalms 100:4
If thou art merry, praise the Lord with singing, with music, with dancing, and with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. Doctrine and Covenants 136:28
This works well for us since Sammi is a beginning writer and still writes very large following practically no spelling rules and Elli isn’t writing words yet and Scott just coos and looks adorable. For this year, either Brent or I will write down everyone’s “I’m thankful for…” sentence. Since I made the rule that we can’t repeat anything we’ve already said, it will be fun to see how specific or general we become in our gratitude.
I found some other ideas about bringing gratitude into the hearts of your family that I thought were adorably fantastic.
Chocolate on my Cranium: Blessing Boxes
Almost Unschoolers: Flock of Thankful Turkeys
Latter-day Homeschooling: Gratitude Posters, Leaves and Letters
We Talk of Christ, We Rejoice in Christ: Thanksgiving Advent Calendar
What are you grateful for this month?
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I have a huge aversion to spiders. Seriously. I literally cried when the park ranger walked by me with a tarantula at a show we went to. Then I turned around and carried the snake around for all the kids to see. It’s just spiders. They freak me out. So celebrating spiders on our Halloween Countdown took a lot of will power for me. In the end, it was one of the more fun days we had!
We made spider snacks:
They are cute and I know you want to make them, too! Here’s the how-to on spider cookies.
Supplies for Spider Cookies
- Oreo cookies
- Pull apart Twizzlers
- Chocolate chips
- gingerbread house frosting (best edible glue, ever!)
I made the frosting first following our gingerbread house frosting recipe. I was a little distracted and added almost two pounds instead of one pound of powdered sugar. I added some more milk to thin it down and smooth it out. I was worried it wouldn’t hold well with the, uh, alterations. But it did great.
Next we pulled apart the Twizzlers and cut them into little leg-length pieces. Then we twisted the top of the Oreo off. We pressed eight legs into the cream filling. Then added a little frosting to the backside of the Oreo and put it back on top to cover the legs. Then we dipped the chocolate chips in the frosting, generously, and put them on to of the Oreos for eyes. I love the look of a little extra frosting around the chocolate chip. Looks like real eyes to me.
This was great work for little fingers. Sammi (5) and Elli (3) both helped put legs on and dipped eyes in frosting and added them. Sammi also loves to twist off the Ores tops. Once she worked through the process on one cookie with me, she did all the rest of hers on her own without any assistance from me. I love how independent she is now!
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