Being a mom and loving it!

Last night was a great "mother moment".  My 13 year old daughter asked me if she could be in charge of the family night lesson.  I said sure.  Apparently she was not happy about how the the family was dealing with the clean and dirty dishes in our house because she made a power point about doing jobs.  Then she made a chart assigning everyone a time to unload and load the dishes and help with setting the table.  I was really impressed with her inititive.  What a great girl! Another tool I have found that worked really well during the summer (when we had more time to do jobs) was a web site called "My Job Chart".  I really should be implementing this during the school year too. Parents can go in and assign jobs and a point value to go with the job and what days the kids need to do the job.  It took a bit of time to set up, but once it's done, it keeps track for you.  So if the kids do their jobs they can get a reward.  It will als...

Here are a few Ideas for Girls Camp. This is a mural an amazing artist in our ward airbrush painted.  He painted on a white sheet.  We then hung the mural between two trees.  This was such a great addition to our camp. This picture represents two ideas.  One is that we covered the tables with white butcher paper and then the girls wrote what they were grateful for during the week.  We would change the paper each day.  This was a great way to have the girls focus on the positive aspects of camp.   The second idea is the photos of the girls.  I took a picture of each girl before camp.  On the picture it says "Let His light shine through you."  I printed the photos on vellum paper and attached them to pieces of glass (from Ikea) with spray glue.  I then used a white masking tape to tape the four corners of the glass together to make a box.  Then I placed a battery operated tea light in each box.  They...

Hot Air Balloons! Before we went to camp we had the parents of each girl write a letter telling their daughter how much they love them, how they are proud of them and how they had seen their daughter Arise and Shine Forth.  We then put the letters (rolled up) in the baskets of the hot air balloons that had decorated our camp.  The girls then had time to go by themselves to read their letters. We made the Hot Air Balloons by using a mandarin orange can punched with 4 holes.  I used a tool called a crocodile.  But you could fill the cans with water, freeze the water then using a hammer and nail, hammer 4 holes around the top of the can.  Let the ice melt and then continue on with the project. We covered the cans with scrapbook paper.  Then using two long pieces of ribbon we attached the balloon to the can.  They were super cute!

We have quite a few girls in our ward that went to girls camp (56 to be precise) and I wanted them to get to know each other better.  So on the door of each cabin I put a picture of the girls eyes (laminated with a magnate stuck to the back) along with the scripture  "The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 3 Nephi 13:22" and separately I had their name.  During the week the girls tried to match them up.  At the end of the week the girls had a great reminder of camp to take home. Download the .psd (photoshop) file for this project.

Last year I was the girls camp director in our ward.  I have a few fun ideas I thought I'd post. Angry Birds! We had a blast with this activity!  Our Activity days girls made the basic forms of the birds.  They made paper mache forms over balloons.  Then during a pre-camp activities the Young Women painted the birds.  This is how a few of them turned out.  If I had it to do over again I would take small four square balls and decorate them, but the paper mache was practically free. Then we had a bunch of boxes. (Free at the grocery store) We had a lesson about how there are things in our lives that drag us down.  Things that keep us from our full potential.  We were angry at these things and we were going to knock them out of our lives!  The girls then wrote on the boxes those things they wanted to overcome. We then made a wall to knock down that had pigs, some paper mache and some #10 cans with paper around them.   We...

I got a great book for Christmas from a dear friend.  The book is called the beginning of better days by Sheri Dew and Virginia Pearce.  You can get it here .  The premise of the book is addressing the question "How important are women in the restored church of Jesus Christ?"  It includes six sermons by Joseph Smith to the women of Nauvoo.  As I read last night I was shocked to read a book that addresses some of the questions I've had my entire life about women and the Priesthood.  I have heard rumors that women once anointed and blessed others.  When ever I would question this historical question, I could never find anyone with an answer...until now.  For some reason I have separated the church into two groups, the Relief Society and the Priesthood.  In the book Sister Pearce helped me understand that the Priesthood is available to me to bless my life not only through my husband, but through my own personal virtue and faith. In the book ...

Today I'm going to tell you how I make the mundane tasks of Housekeeping a bit more enjoyable.  It's called the Mormon Channel.  I have found that if I listen to a podcast as I fold laundry, my mind becomes occupied with the inspiring words I'm listening to, rather than being annoyed at the mountain of dirty clothes my family can produce in a week.  If I'm cleaning the blinds (really one of the worst housekeeping tasks) I can be inspired by the words I hear, rather than being upset with myself for letting the blinds get beyond dirty.  So how can you transport yourself into the wonderful world of Podcasts?  I do it two ways.  One way is to download the app here and just stream the podcast right from your ipad or iphone.  Another way is to go to the itunes store, search church of jesus christ of latter-day saints click on the pocast you are interested in, then subscribe to the different podcasts.  Once you have subscribed it will show up in your it...