June 2017 Family Reunion ARMOR UP! Begins!! Fun Intro Night June 21, 2017

We looked forward to our first Daddy's family reunion all year long and after months and months of planning and preparing for it, it finally came!! Woo hoo!! Jon's sister, Elizabeth, volunteered to plan the first one and it was a major success!! The theme she chose was "Armor Up!" and centered around us all thinking of ways we could fend off and defeat the evil, adversary and darkness in the world today by putting on the whole armor of God, as talked about in the scriptures, Ephesians 6:11-17:

 "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."  

We were able to host the opening introduction night at our house and it was one of my most favorite parts of the whole experience! We were introduced to the theme, listened to some scriptures and powerful quotes on putting on the whole armor of God so we can be strong as individuals and as families, watched uncle Austin act out the difference between wearing our "armor" and not wearing any at all with the fiery darts shot at him by Grandpa (quite fun and entertaining to see!!) presented our individual family shields, and split up into colored groups- shields, helmets, swords, breastplates, and more and divided up into stations where we made fun memories and learned how important it is to ARMOR UP!!!

Station 1: Strenthening our family- Aunt Beka was in charge of the craft where we made picture frams from popsicle sticks and decorative tape to remember that strengthening our family can keep us strong!!

Station 2: We built super strong bridges with gumdrops and toothpicks to find the best shapes and engineering construction to withstand a stack of books! My yellow team (Michael, Juan, Katelyn, Samuel and I won this part!! Thanks to those smarty engineer minds on our team!! All we needed was a little of Uncle Ben's expertise and our bridge may not have fallen at all, even with 5 plus books staked on after 5 mintues too! Go orange team!)

Station 3: Building Rockets & Setting Our Goals High to Make it Back to Heavenly Father Some Day

Station 4: Coloring on Our Family Flag (or Title of Liberty!!) (aka tablecloth that we can pass around each year and put our reunion logo on it to remember each one!)

Station 5: Using Our Armor to Fight off the Fiery Darts of the Adversary Nerf Battle! This was probably the kids favorite one, it was intense, high energy and they liked each taking turns with the fantastic armor built by Uncle Austin himself! Super fun! Yay for putting on the armor of God!

Look at all these smiles!! These are some of our most favorite people all combined under one roof, it was such a wonderful time!! We missed Ben and Carli, who couldn't make it because they were touring the new Book of Mormon videos set and scenery (Carli's dad is producing the videos for the church) and couldn't reschedule that.  Also, Daddy had to go to the airport to pick Ben and Carli up, so he didn't get to participate very much either....But, we made the best time we could and one of my most favorite parts was working together in small groups, ALL WHILE singing to the reunion cd I had prepared including all sorts of disney songs, the fight song, don't stop believin and more!! Just absolutely LOVED hearing everyone pelting out all the words and singing and creating/crafting/playing together! I felt like time stood still and we were all so unified and enjoying ourselves under the same roof, it was magical and it was so much fun, love these memories and smiles to remember forever!

Oh yeah, and we had Austin-built life size Jenga blocks to play too to show how important it is to be careful builders of our fortifications to keep from crashing our towers down! Cute idea huh!

Hooray for the armor of God, families and armoring up!! We were in for an exciting next three days!!!

April 17-23, 2017 Our belated Easter week!

It was so fun to start our easter festivities with Aunt Beka here on her last day and a neighborly easter egg hunt with ward friends! What a happy bunch!!

Then, after Aunt Rebekah left, we kick started our own family traditional activities!!! Even though it was a week late, we couldn't miss these traditions for the world!! AND these little ones were sure hapy to keep us all on track! The Saturday right before Easter, we did our best to die eggs the night before, so we could have colorful egg-died Golden-Rod Eggs for breakfast!! This recipe has been passed down for more than 5 generations!! It was one of my first favorite foods! So sweet to see our kids excited about something I was always excited for as a kid, to have colorful creamed eggs on toast on Easter morning!

Little J and his "pop pop"

 

Look at those pretty eggs!

So many beautiful colors and many hands make for light work!

 

Happy Easter morning!! Complete with all of that TRADITIONAL yumminess! My grandma Pat and great-grandpa June would be so proud!

 

One night when I went to tuck in Nathan after putting Joshy down and saying goodnight to the girls, this was how I found Mr. Speed Racer-man....soo cute.  I thought THIS was THE SWEETEST THING, seeing he had fallen asleep with his flashlight and upright hand-holding position of his book all still in tact! He sure loves this book series right now, the Magic Treehouse books, one of the first chapter books he would take on reading all by himself! woo hoo N racer-man!

 

 

Here are some scriptures that stood out to me this week.  I loved remembering how Jesus Christ is THE ONLY WAY whereby man can be saved.  All of our eternal happiness and comfort, peace, strength and joy in this life can only be made possible through HIM.  I know that is true with every fiber of my being.  I am thankful for Him and so eternally thankful that I can yoke myself and partner up with him through my very best efforts and his infinite love and mercy and through the power of the Atonement, make it back to live with Him and my family forever someday.  It is my fervent prayer that I can live each day to remain close to Him as I seek to serve and lift others as he would do. 

 

I also loved the reminder that a "strong youth program" is not defined by the charisma of its leaders, "rather it is one that gives EVERY YOUNG PERSON the OPPORTUNITY TO LOSE HIS OR HER LIFE FOR THE SAKE OF THE SAVIOR."  I love service and what a powerful quote to help us remember that IS what THIS LIFE IS ALLLLLLLL ABOUT! SERVICE IN OUR HOMES, FAMILIES, with our friends, neighbors, anyone we may meet.  As we SEEK to SERVE those around us on a DAILY basis, and incorporate our youth into that SERVICE, they WILL FEEL THE SPIRIT as they DO THE LORD's work. :)  What a beautiful promise and I know I have felt guided by the Spirit as I have tried to serve those around me and have sincerely felt of HIS great love for them and us all.

 

 

We had the chance to go to a local organic farm with our homeschool co-op group and the kids had a blast!! We sampled their purple and orange carrots, went on a bug hunt, got to see lots of their successful growing practices and even plant our very own seedlings!  SUCH a fun day, these outings are the best when we can go learn about nature and the beauty of the earth around us wih great friends.  It was a definite score!

 

 

 

So interestingly, I had a friend in our homeschool co-op group who was interested in learning our LDS faith views on the nature of God. I described how we believe the godhood to consist of three different beings, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as three distinct beings.  He then went on o ask me when I thought Jesus was glorified, or if He always had been a God.  It was a very interesting conversation and I was excited to have him open up about his quesitons/beliefs and allow me an opportunity to share some of mine, and also for me to say that I was going to go and study some of those questions out a bit more and we could continue our discussion again too! So, here were some scriptures and references (especially those in the Bible, which he does believe in) describing who our Savior is and how He could be both the son, and a God, and still fulfill the mission He came to fulfill from before the foundations of the world. This sparked lots of more intense scripture study for me and I went to work finding references and manuals describing the divine nature of God including our Savior, Jesus Christ. I LOVE gospel conversation and discussions like that!! I FEEL in a small way that ITS LIKE I am getting some MISSIONARY experiences and OPPORTUNITIES, even though I never had the chance to serve a full-time mission myself! The Lord works in marvelous ways and truly knows the desires of my heart! <3

 

Flying paper airplanes contest at our homeschool co-op!! They had lots of fun with this science activity!

 

 

 

Nathan's class!

 

Katelyn's class!

 

Our lon awaited egg-drop experiments!! Woo hoo!! Our awesome insulated design with Nathan's group ALMOST worked when they were all dropped from a tall ladder!  Katelyn's group decided to be creative and crafted a parachute for the egg container to ease it's velocity and impact upon landing! Clever girls!! Nice work! Super fun memories!

 

 

Silly faces eating tortillas for lunch! AND AN AWESOME book list from Katelyn's 2nd grade work curriculum, she has to read 3, so she read, "A Lion to Guard Us," "The Sword in the Tree," and "Pirates Promise" by Clyde Robert Bulla.  Great reads!

The Easter week wouldn't have been complete without reading the scriptures to cooincide with each day of the holy week, and watching the lds.org Bible videos to go with them, nor without having our very own improvised traditional PASSOVER MEAL!!  We had fish sticks, olives, lentils, and grape juice to remember what the food might have somewht resembled when Jesus lived on the earth and had dinner with his disciples one last time in the Last Supper before Passover!

My handy-man awesome husband trying to fix the SQUEEEEEEAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLINGGGG noise of our very much loved and worn Civic.  After two solid trys, HE FIXED it!!! Go Daddy!

 

 

Katelyn's first Stake activity day girls activity after being baptized! They did this super cute lip sync where our ward performed the Moana song with blue ribbon wands. It was super cute and fun to see her let some of her singing and dancing talents shine!

 

 

 

Our belated Easter morning, revamping a Christmas tradition into an Easter one, morning pictures on the stairs!

Fun new surprises and remembering the gift our Savior gave to us of His life and the miracle of His Resurrection.  We are so thankful for Him and cherish remembering Him all week long through our Easter week activities and it is my motherly prayer that we can carry this kind of special remembrance of our Savior not just on the big holidays when we celebrate His life and gift to us, but that we may remember Him each and every day!

 

Happy Easter! Love this fam of ours!