PROMSI

Remember how our Valentine's date got canceled due to inclement weather? That's okay if you don't, but that happened. Anyway, I was in charge of planning us a valentine's date this year and I was having a hard time finding  the right activity for us until a I got an email from OMSI (our science museum here in Oregon) announcing this Promsi event. Basically it is an activity for adults, where  you can pretend its Prom and dress up and there are all sorts of events throughout the museum. There were laser shows in the planetarium, the newlywed game going on somewhere, there were aerial dancers, different science demonstrations, lots of dancing and music, some minute to win it games, lots of vendors giving out samples and of course we got to enjoy the whole museum, which included a new Pixar exhibit that wasn't open when the event was originally scheduled and it was a pretty fascinating exhibit. (I get to go back with Miles for a field trip soon!) Anyway, Max and I went to Prom together twice in high school so it was kind of fun to do a prom themed event. We loved it!

Anyway, I'm totally getting ahead of myself. We ended up getting a babysitter for 5 hours so we started our date with going out to dinner at a Thai restaurant which was amazing. Dating is the best, and we had a great babysitter that we felt comfortable feeding our children and putting them to bed and our boys were thrilled to have her. I was worried about Edwin because he's a little clingy but as soon as Carissa came over, Edwin acted excited to see her, then I remember that she is one of his nursery teachers at church, ha, I totally forgot about that. Anywho...back to our date...

OMSI!

 

Getting ready for the Beyonce laser show. HAHA!

It was equally fun and hilarious!

We got our photo taken, awkward pose and all. I'm going to see if I can pull up our old prom photos real quick...

Okay, without pulling out the hard drive I got this low quality copy of our second prom, when it was Max's s senior year and he was Prom king and I was already graduated and a bus driver and I went to his Prom and there were people that rode my bus there, weird, but amazing!

Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and our time together. We loved the Pixar exhibit. 

We enjoyed some dancing but also realized we didn't really know how to dance. ha! And back to more science...

Anyway, it was a perfect date for us. A break from the kids is always great and reliving our teenage days is sometimes fun!

Come Follow Me

This year we have been using a home religious study in addition to our regular church attendance. This curriculum is called "Come Follow Me For Individuals and Families" and this year it is focused on the New Testament. This has been an incredible opportunity to help my boys (and Max and myself) become more familiar with our Savior Jesus Christ. We have been able to have some great discussions in our home and my children are becoming more familiar with bible stories. I mostly just wanted to document some of the activities we have been doing that have helped us learn so I can remember what has worked and what didn't.

The first week we talked about the parable of the ten virgin and being prepared to meet Christ by keeping our oil lamps filled. We pulled out our old Oil lamp so my children could actually see what an oil lamp is, We talked about what we should be doing to get drops of oil in our lamps. We set up a jar with a picture of an oil lamp and  decided to add beads when we do things that bring us closer to Christ. We added beads each night for things like saying our prayers, going to church, reading scriptures, doing acts of kindness etc. It took a couple months but it filled quicker than we realized. On the day the jar was almost full, Charlie was up early reading the scriptures and praying. 

It was full, and got knocked over (and broke) just as we were leaving for our prize.

Our prize was to go on an outing and walk around the temple and the visitor center. And then go out for ice cream. The temple walk was amazing, there was lightly falling snow and the boys were all happy!

The boys always love the visitor center as well so that was a fun time!

And boy were they excited to pick out their own ice cream with their gift cards from Grandpa Rob.

And as I'm writing this I realized that I didn't take many photos of our activities so I'm trying to remember them. Here we built a temple and Jesus as a young boy.

Some other activities include discussing Jesus' baptism, and Charlie's upcoming baptism. Max and I were able to share about our baptism days and it was an uplifting and mature discussion that turned out better than expected. Then to get them moving, because most of our lessons need some sort of science experiment, the kids launched tissues in the air with straws to represent the Holy Ghost descending like a dove.

We've had lots of variations of Don't Eat Pete using Scriptures, apostle pictures, etc.

Also, I'm glad I'm doing this now, because I really have forgotten a lot but I feel like we've had so many good discussion and my kids have been asking great questions. Okay, I'm going through the manual now to help me remember...

We've spoken of the miracles Jesus performed and played a matching game to remember them.

We had an object lesson on the wise man and the foolish man.

Discussed parents receiving revelation to protect their children.

We've had some awesome lessons on resisting temptation. We gave each of the kids an m&m and told them they could eat it right away, or they could wait 10 minutes and they may get a bigger prize instead. My kids all did surprisingly well, even Edwin. They ask to be tempted all the time now. Haha, He had discussion on how this applies to real life.

Discussed living water, discussed the necessity of water.

Discussed prayer and challenged the kids to think of some things to pray about before starting their prayer and to pray for someone they had never prayed for.

Charlie created a lesson where he made everyone a paper airplane and we had to get the paper airplane to Jesus ( a chair he set up in the living room) and once we got the airplane on the chair, we had to say someone we were going to pray for. Then Miles decided he wanted to sit on Jesus' lap (in the chair) and told us how Jesus blessed the children.

Oftentimes I feel like I should be doing more, when I take the time to study, my mind races with ideas that will help my boys, but oh so often our evenings and weekends are filled with activities and busyness. But even with the little effort we've put in, our boys have come to learn so much more and our Gospel discussions in our home have increased about 500% So really, I know this is an inspired program and we're grateful for the spirit it has brought into our home.

Another snow day!

 Well, my boys were thrilled that we had another snow day! Charlie and Miles had been making snowflakes in hopes that we would get another dumping.

Max got to work from home and I was really enjoying the fact that my older boys could figure out all their snow gear on their own and Edwin could walk out in the snow. I always try to appreciate different stages with my kids and this stage was enjoyable because they could all play outside and I didn't have to worry about holding a baby that couldn't walk. I was able to play with them. It was great and not as daunting as snow outings in the past. And people that live in incredibly snowy places are probably laughing about this. Anyway, Charlie got right to work with the snow-ball-making.

 It is pretty magical when the large snowflakes are falling!

We walked down to the church near our house to find some good sledding hills. 

Another revelation about the goodness of life is when my big boys were pulling the sled to the church then got to the cement and lifted the sled as not to drag it. I liked their teamwork and their thoughtfulness in not ruining the sled. Just a little moment, but something I want to remember.

And then somehow the snowball fight commenced and it was decided but someone other than me that Edwin and I were on a team and Charlie and Miles were on a team. I'm pretty sure my team lost, Sorry Edwin.

Then these boys worked as a team to go up and down the hill. 

 Edwin was perfectly content sitting on the sled the whole time. The funny part was that he had no emotion or evidence of joy while he was sledding but he did get pretty mad when it was time for him to get off.

My monkey Miles

 

Zero emotion from this kid...so weird.  

And there they are together. The sledding hill really wasn't that great so I couldn't push them very far.  

And just like me, Miles is the first to quit his enthusiasm about snow.  

So we hiked back to our house.
 

And you know, cant forget to photograph those chickens in the snow.

It was a good day in the snow, and hopefully the last, until next winter.

Family Time

A couple weeks ago my younger brother came into town from California so we made an event out of it and took some pictures. Sadly, Elizabeth and the kids didn't make it up, but there will be more photos next time when we are all together. 

And we're a bunch of weirdos so we brought out the chickens

My not-so-little brothers and my mom.

See how I have all these brothers and sons?...I need all my hen girls to balance it out!
Between all of us, we have about 21 birds, James has 9 chickens, we have 9 chickens (Although, a neighbor's dog chased one away last night and we have yet to find her) and my mom has 3 pet birds, so I guess we are the crazy bird people.

Anyway, we had a dinner party at my house. Edwin became obsessed with Dan and would order him to sit down near him. Even as I'm writing this, Edwin walked by and starting pointing and saying "Dan Dan!" 

And it was a fun activity with my mom and brothers and a little weird that we're all adults now. Also, whenever my boys and little brothers are in the same room I interchange their names like crazy!