Pie in the Face

Inspired by our leftover Easter dessert, Ryan initiated a pie-eating contest for our Family Home Evening activity this week.

It was a huge hit with the boys!!

notice the lonely piece of pie in the front there . . . I chose to eat mine with a fork after the competition ended :)

Joshua was the only one who remembered to keep his hands behind his back the whole time

Benjamin held his own for such a little guy!

This picture is totally going in the wedding video in 13 or so years!

Super Structures

We had a great Family Home Evening last night. In order to try to help there be a happier spirit in our home (and less whining), I gave a lesson about gratitude, using mostly President Monson's talk from the October Conference on Gratitude. We ended the lesson by introducing a contest to see how many "thank you's" or "I'm grateful for's" each person could get each day for the following week. The boys were excited about this, and were very polite and thankful throughout our activity! Hopefully this continues the whole week!

Benjamin prepared a fun activity that he had done in his G/T class at school last week: we made structures out of toothpicks and marshmallows. This was a welcome change from the activity the boys usually choose of playing the wii! Everyone had a lot of fun creating their structures.



This activity was such a success, that when Nathan and Benjamin got home from school, they chose to keep building instead of going out to play with friends. Nathan re-engineered his a little to make it stronger and bigger.



Elizabeth had been asleep for the activity last night, and was in heaven this afternoon when some of the structures got left on the table. I had already given her some out of the bag, but she was happy to keep eating . . . the toothpicks didn't slow her down too much! And now she has added "marshmallow" to her vocabulary :)

Conference Weekend

Here are some highlights from General Conference weekend:

* Our tradition: homemade cinnamon rolls; I halved the recipe this time and still ended up with almost 20 rolls!


* Beautiful weather for playing outside on Saturday

* I love this picture of how we kept Elizabeth happy for the last bit of the first session:

she's in the left corner of the pic, watching Mickey Mouse Playhouse on the portable DVD player

* Mom and the kids went to McDonald's for dinner on Saturday night

* Elizabeth found her new sandals and insisted that she put them on and wear them the rest of the day on Sunday -- she is a true girl and definitely loves shoes!




* The boys played Conference Bingo, and Benjamin also took some notes


* We had a great time listening to the words of our church leaders and spending time as a family!

Make It Shine

Ryan was in charge of the activity for Family Home Evening last night. The boys are in a rut of always wanting to play the Wii for the activity, so Ryan decided to do something way different than we've ever done. He taught them to shine shoes!


Despite no electronics being involved, they all seemed to really enjoy making their shoes shine!

Missionary letters

Our activity on Monday night for Family Home Evening was to make a picture or letter for Uncle Sam. Sam is on his mission, and only has a few months left. I think we've only sent him one package since he left the MTC, so I decided it was time to be a good sister and get on that!

I thought there would be weeping and wailing, since our FHE activities are usually something like playing the Wii or other games. I was shocked that all 3 boys happily cooperated! Joshua drew about 6 pictures (we only mailed 2).

Nathan made a very detailed drawing: Jack-o-lantern, Easter egg, and Mickey ears.
Benjamin drew a picture. Then he flipped the paper over and wrote a nice letter -- all his ideas. He is definitely our thoughtful boy.

"Dear Sam I hope you have a safe trip home and hope you have a good time with your frines (friends)."

Pirate Prize

Back in January, we started a warm fuzzy jar. We were really good at using this reward system for the first month or two. But then we tapered off and used it mostly on Sundays for being good at church. It took a while, but we finally filled up the jar. Our prize was to go to Pirate Island for the first time.

We had such a great time! We loved how the atmosphere looked a lot like you were in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. It was fun to have the combination of both a sit-down restaurant and also an arcade to play in -- easy way to keep the kids occupied while waiting for the food to be served :)

Ryan & Nathan raced each other

4:00 on a Saturday is a great time to go . . . hardly anyone was there. But the balloon man was there! We will definitely have to come back when the cousins come to visit this summer!

Puppet Fun

Last night for our Family Home Evening activity we made paper bag puppets. I can't remember the last time we all did a project together, since Ryan is usually at work when we get crafty. So it was a lot of fun to do this together!

The instructions were to make the puppet look like you, or anything else if you'd rather. Even though the markers were out, it seems that everyone preferred to create with construction paper and then glue it on.
Elizabeth was in bed and so she did not make one.

Joshua had a lot of fun being creative. I think it is a monster, but he kept changing what he was telling us about it!
Benjamin made one to look like him. I love the long eye lashes!
Nathan made a devil with horns and blood dripping from its fangs. Interesting choice -- I hope it was not meant to be a self-portrait! He did make a big red hat for the puppet to wear as a "disguise", although it is not in this picture.
Ryan and I made puppets to resemble ourselves.
Benjamin and Joshua did their own puppet show while the rest of us finished up our puppets.
A good time was had by all! I need to remind myself that the fun far outweighs the mess, so that we will do things like this more often!

prayer sandwich

I love that the boys actually fight over who gets to say the prayers . . . "It's my turn!", "No! It's MY turn!" Although I don't love the arguing, it is good to know that they want to pray!

Lately though, any prayer said by any of the 3 boys sounds basically the same -- word for word. So for FHE this week we had a lesson to hopefully improve their prayers. I want them to remember that they are talking to a real person and to really think about what they are saying to Him.

This is our prayer sandwich:
We talked about how all sandwiches need a top layer of bread and a bottom layer, which is like the opening and closing of a prayer. Then all sandwiches have the main ingredients (in this case, meat and cheese) and then some additional toppings like tomatoes, pickles, mustard, lettuce. Some days you want turkey, other days ham, and some days you want both. Sometimes you keep your sandwich simple, other times you add a lot of toppings.

Our prayers are the same way -- you always include the main ingredient of gratitude for specific blessings. Sometimes it is for something you got to do that day. Sometimes it is being thankful for the weather or our health or our family. Then you can include 1 or 2 or 3 toppings, which is asking Heavenly Father for something. Just like you vary your toppings, you want to be specific and not just say, "bless us to have a good day" every time.

I was so pleased when on Tuesday for breakfast Joshua was definitely more thoughtful in his prayer -- and I hadn't even reminded him before he started! Overall, I've seen an improvement in everyone's prayers this week. Now, if we can just get them to always keep their eyes closed :)

Love at Home

Last week we had our first Family Home Evening of the new year. Ryan and I decided to kick off a new year by introducing a family theme. We chose "Love at Home" so that we can focus on less hitting, more patience, and more service/kindness within our family.

I used my new scrapbook software to create a little "poster":

The scripture on it says, "Let us love one another; for love is of God." Instead of picking a new random scripture each week for FHE, we are going to keep this one all month long and recite it together so everyone can memorize it. (Can you tell I serve in the Primary and get some of my ideas from what I see in there every week? :)) Then in February we will pick a new scripture about love at home and memorize it all month long. The poster hangs on our pantry door to remind us of our family theme.

I wanted this lesson to last longer than just 1 FHE -- I want us to remember to really work on love and kindness. So I bought these cute heart place mats (thanks, Target) to use every night at dinner. In the middle of this picture you can see a jar with warm fuzzies inside. We started with 1 warm fuzzy per family member. Then when we find someone showing love, kindness, happiness, or obedience, we get to put a warm fuzzy in the jar. If someone is unkind or disobedient, they lose a warm fuzzy. Nathan, Benjamin, and Joshua are really excited to go to Pirate Island (like Chuck E Cheese) when we fill up the jar! So far this has worked pretty well for reverence in Sacrament meeting -- I've been giving them 2 warm fuzzies each if they are good!

Partridge-style Home Evening

Grandma and Grandpa Partridge prepared a very special Family Home Evening for all of the family this week. They both took a few minutes to share their testimonies with us. Since we don't get to live close and don't see them often in formal church situations, we don't get the opportunity to hear them vocalize their testimonies much. So it was very powerful for me and I'm sure also for our boys to hear how much their grandparents love the Lord!

For the activity, we each got to open one more present. What did we find? Rockband t-shirts! Even Elizabeth got a cute girly one!
So everyone put their shirt on and we played Lego Rockband in rounds. First the kids were divided into 2 "bands". Once they all had a turn, the adults also got to play -- 4 in one band, then 4 in the other. Then we mixed it up and put kids and adults together.
This is Aunt Kaley, cousin Blake, Uncle Scott, and Nathan.
What a fun game! And I love that the Lego version has a Super Easy mode. The little kids like Joshua could play and not fail out, even when they're not even looking at the screen :)

I was lucky to get this shot of Nathan. Every time he saw the camera, he would stick his hand out in front of his face and scowl! Here he is singing "Ghostbusters" -- one of his favorite!
Kaley helping Benjamin rock the drums!
A great time was had by all! Nothing like a little music to bring the Partridge family together :)