Reading with Dr. Seuss

March 2nd is Dr. Seuss's birthday, so as a pre-school, we decided to celebrate it..... a little later.

We colored, cut and stapled "Cat in the Hat" hats.


Andi, Abree, Skylar & Emylie (missed you Audrey).

Instead of doing our normal "circle time", I gave the girls lots of blankets and pillows and told them to get comfy. Then we read lots and lots of Dr. Seuss books.

Next, we played a rhyming game. They did pretty well, but sometimes they would get mixed up with the first letter sound for a rhyming sound.

"Snake and sock do not rhyme, but they do have the same beginning sound."

We talked about all the unusual creatures and backgrounds in Dr. Seuss' books.

Then each girl created their own crazy creature using a variety of supplies.

I believe this crazy creature's name was cupcake.

This was my version of the Dr. Seuss' truffula tree.... a yummy snack.

The girls LOVED the cotton candy and pixie sticks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Dr. Seuss!

Relief Society Birthday Dinner

Tuesday was our Relief Society Birthday dinner. We planned, decorated, and prepared food from 10am to about 4:45pm. Then we quickly ran home and showered and were back by 5:15-5:30 for our 6:30 meeting!

Does this flower balloon look familiar? Yes, of course it does...it's my party decoration go-to. Notice how many their are.... I think like 15. Each flower takes 7 balloons and yes, I blew up up all of them all by myself.... plus a few extras for the kids that were hanging around us. My lips were a little chapped and I was slightly light-headed for a bit. :)

Keri made this smaller banner to put by the food table. So cute!

"Charity Never Failith"

Our fabulous "floating" birthday sign.

Each table had an assigned color. Each name tag had a colored dot. We asked the ladies to sit at the table that coordinated with their name tag dot... trying to mix things up a bit. Not completely successful, but still a lot of fun.
Each chair had a "get to know you" question attached with a magnet. The ladies were to ask each other their questions and hopefully learn something new about the person they sat next to.
The magnets were gifts to each sister, along with the Relief Society declaration.

Keri also made Relief Society trivia questions and put them at each table. Do you know the original name of the Relief Society?

A variety of cupcakes were our centerpieces (and dessert). We attached a single helium balloon to each cupcake holder.

Everyone enjoying their Hawaiian Haystacks for dinner.

We had a musical number.....

...and 3 women, from 3 stages of life, talk about what R.S. has meant to them over the years.

There was a quilt to tie...

...and a Hawaiian hula dance to be learned.

Our evening ended close to 10:00pm with clean up.

Whew! A long, but nice day. :0)

Happy Birthday Relief Society!!!

New Calling

I was recently released from my calling as CTR6/7 Primary teacher. I don't want to sound ungrateful or too excited, but yippee! I was REALLY ready for a change. Love the kiddos I taught, but am really looking forward to being with and talking to adults.

My new calling is, "Second Assistant on the Relief Society Meeting Committee". What?! Basically, I'm on the Enrichment Committee.

My dream calling. I'm not number 1 in charge and I get to help plan "parties"! Yes.

Our first "Relief Society Meeting" together as a new committee was the Relief Society Birthday dinner celebration.

My friend Keri and I wanted to make a birthday banner to decorate with. So we got together one day and came up with this.

We used 12x12 paper to make it big enough to be seen from a distance. She printed the letters using a ton of black ink...because neither one of us had a cool Cricut. Then we cut circles and squares and randomly mixed and matched them. We punched holes at the top of each letter and then used black embroidery string to hang them.

We hung it in front of the dark green stage curtain. The string blended in and made for a cool effect. It looked like the letters were floating. A happy accident.

I think it turned out cute.

More pictures to come.

Goody, goody!

On one of the "bargain blogs" I frequent, I saw a post about getting a free goody bag, filled with offers and coupons, when you do a baby registry with Target. I immediately thought of Candice and emailed the link to her. ---She's been wanting to start couponing for diapers. --We could hardly contain ourselves and wanted to go that night or the very next day, BUT we made ourselves wait until AFTER the ultrasound to find out if she would be registering for a boy or girl.

By the next week, we knew she would be registering for a baby boy, so we made a mommy-date and met at Target.

Candice was SO THRILLED that I had brought along my camera, to document the event. Can you tell?
After entering her information, she was given the promised goody bag and a scanner and we were off to find fun and needed baby items.

Candice kept wondering out loud, "Why am I doing this?... Who is actually going to see it?... It doesn't really matter what I enter, does it?... I'm not telling anyone, are you?"

Yes, I am!
Candice is registered at Target. She likes the brown and blue color combination for clothing, blankets, accessories, etc. She likes polk-a-dots and the jungle-themed items they had there. The monkeys were especially adorable!

I had to go, before I saw what was in the goody bag, so I don't know if it was worth the registry to Candice or not. It was worth it to me. I had a fun time hanging out, looking at cute baby stuff and having adult-girl conversation.

So Candice, what WAS in the goody bag?
A blog post would be nice. Hint, hint. :)

Dancin' Queen

Recently, Taylee has been excited about participating in many different activities and clubs. She's in 'Paws'itive Panthers (a school service club), Basketball and Dance Club.

Dance Club met after school, twice a week, for approximately 30 minutes. They learned some basic dance moves and then put them into routines for a performance.

Thursday was their performance. Three small groups and one big group danced. Taylee was in the big group. She was excited to show off what she had learned. The music was catchy and the moves were cute. (I can't get one of the songs out of my head!)

It was fun to have Grandma McKinley, Tim, Karen, Audrey, Katelyn and Sydney there to watch. Jason was also able to get off work early enough to catch Taylee's performance. (Candice & family was there in spirit too).

If she didn't show her gratitude or tell you thank you, I want you to know that she really did appreciate you being there. Thanks for your support.... and for sitting on the hard gym floor. ;)

This is Miss Holden. She is Taylee's student-teacher in the classroom right now, along with being one of the dance teachers. I spoke to her after the performance and she had several complimentary things to say about Taylee. She said Taylee was a very sweet girl. She also said that she was a great communicator/deep thinker and that she could see her being a leader of some sort of movement or good cause.
I told her how we thought we had named her appropriately, Taylee ROSE. She loves Mother Earth, is a little "granola-ish" and almost always 'stops to smell the roses'. She's our groovy girl, born in the wrong era.

This is the other student-teacher Miss Balentine. I appreciate that she and Miss Holden, took time after school, to teach these girls and give them a fun experience.

Thank goodness for good teachers!!!

Lesson by Taylee

We had another wonderful FHE lesson given by Taylee, Monday night.

This is becoming a regular occurrence. I love it!

First, she had us put together a puzzle to give us a hint about our lesson topic.

A Taylee original.
We were instructed to complete the puzzle, BEFORE guessing.
A hard thing for Abree and Treyson to comply with.

I'm guessing Noah's Ark....how about you?
Then she had each one of us pick an animal and read what was on the back. We learned a piece of Noah's story or answered the question.
The kids were surprised to learn that there were more than 2 of some animal. Noah took more of the animals they used to eat and sacrifice.

Next, we read/paraphrased the story out of the Bible.

I appreciated, when we had been discussing the story, then got off topic and Rylee asked, "Are you done yet Taylee?" She said, "No. I would like to bear my testimony......" And then she did.
Sometimes I worry if the good things are sinking in or if I'm being a good enough mom. I don't know, but I was glad to hear Taylee's budding testimony and was proud of her willingness to share it with our family.

To help us keep record of our FHE's, Rylee filled out
"Our Family Home Evening Journal".
This FHE journal was given to us, as a Christmas gift, from Grandpa Waite. It's really cool. It has some expected things like; Opening Song, Prayer, and Lesson Topic. But it also has things like; World/Community Events, Family Goals and Weekly Family Plans. It's been nice to set a family goal each week. This week's goal is: Everyone is to have their bedroom picked up and bed made by 8:30am.

Treyson says THUMBS UP, to another great Family Home Evening.