Natalie's Birthday (including Castle pinata)

Natalie wanted a "Super Why" themed birthday party again this year, but with the specific focus being the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk". We decided it would be the most fun just to focus on the adventure of getting to the castle in the clouds (not the whole angry giant and stolen goods aspects of the story!). To that end, we painted a bunch of oatmeal canisters green to be our "beanstalk" and we also made a castle pinata. Poking around the web, I came up with some ideas on how to make it a pull-string pinata so it would be reusable (and safe to do inside!).

I made a mini-album on FaceBook showing/describing how I made the pinata, hopefully this link will take you there:

Castle Pull-String Pinata

We played several games with the kids:
"Catch the Cows" (blind man's bluff with everyone on their knees moo-ing);
"Magic Bean" Bingo;
"Cloud Hop" (jumping across the living room from shape to shape, each time across one "cloud" disappearing --- kind of like a non-competetive cake-walk);
and "Don't Wake the Guard Dog" (which is like red-light-green-light).

After each game we added some pieces to the beanstalk. Here are Natalie and most of her guests (one was being too shy for the group shot) in front of the cabinet where we built the beanstalk up to the castle...


With no sticks involved, Daddy (Matt) was quite willing to hold the pinata for us:


After the games and pinata, we moved on to presents and then cake. Having spent quite a lot of time on the pinata, I was fortunate to persuade Natalie that a simple cake would be fine... I'd seen little plastic "Super Why" cake topper character on the web, but we made our own by printing out the characters onto cardstock and mounting them on handles from plastic forks. Yummy chocolate cake (of course!), a few Cool Whip "clouds", and there ya go:


After cake & ice cream, we just let the kids play with Natalie's new stuff until their parents collected them...

It's A Boy!

Well, the verdict is in --- Higglet #5 is most definitely a boy. The ultrasound left no doubt --- in fact we had to be careful which pictures to send in for show-and-tell...

Here's the latest preview:

Needless to say, Mike is particularly delighted -- he is already talking about how he and "brother" will share a room and such... Natalie's excited, too, and Emily's only regret is that this means we can't name the baby "Lily." (Esther, of course, remains completely clueless about the upcoming changes in family dynamics....)

Well, see you in another 20 weeks little guy!

Quick Note to Primary "Followers"

Over the summer/fall, I posted a few of my ideas/plans for LDS Primary "Sharing Time" activities. I've been released as a counselor now, though. I'll still get to stay in Primary - co-teaching the CTR 8 class, starting in January - but will not be doing Sharing Time anymore...

My thanks to those who left kind comments --- and especially to those who shared their own ideas! Hope you all keep having great Primary experiences!

In Case You Haven't Heard Our News...

If I haven't run into you in a while and/or otherwise neglected to mention it, we are expecting another "Higglet" in the Spring --- in the vicinity of May 25th, most likely.

Yes, this makes 5. And yes, we are delighted! The kids are excited, too, but took the actual announcement rather coolly --- they had been saying they wanted us to have a baby, so in their minds, it was just a matter of time... :-)

The kids all think we should have a boy this time but I have kindly informed them that:
A)Heavenly Father gets to decide and
B)It will be a while before we know... and, last but not least,
C)Baby girls are fun, too --- just look at Esther (who is now two and prone to screaming if the older kids infringe on her personal space but still loves to run up and give them "loves" when they come home from school)

They take these reminders/cautions in stride and then reiterate, "yeah, but we Want a Boy!"
(If they do get a boy, I suppose we know who to send our next Christmas Wish Lists to!)

Here's a little preview:(Higglet #5 at 12 weeks)

So, that's it --- real "news" for a change :-)

Primary Sharing Time - 4th Week of August, 2010

My turn for Sharing Time again :-)

This week's theme: Miracles come to those who have faith

Once again, the official Sharing Time Outline is pretty clear and full of ideas/suggestions. I will pretty much be following that:

First, start of with D&C 63:9: “But, behold, faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe.” (Explain that the word signs in this scripture can also mean miracles.) Points to mention:
- miracles are not always dramatic events
- we must first have faith, and then we will recognize miracles
- even though we have faith, we will still experience sorrow, pain, and suffering, but God is aware of our needs and will care for us.

For the next part, the outline uses the story of Moses and Pharaoh and the plagues to illustrate the point that witnessing miracles does not make someone a believer. (It is suggested you can have the kids do actions along with the story to go along with the afflictions --- croaking, buzzing, scratching, moaning... but I figure I'll play that by ear depending on how wound up the kids are that day...) I figure I'll wrap it up by reading or having an older child read:

Exodus 11:10 And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.

As an additional "bad example", I may mention Laman and Lemuel... I mean, how many times did those goobers see angels and yet they still did not believe... (Like Pharaoh, they only ever relented out of fear, not out of faith or any desire to repent.)

Contrast this story with an example where faith produced a miracle The Outline suggests Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, Daniel and the lions, the brother of Jared, or Nephi and Lehi in prison. I'm going with the story of the brother of Jared. I'll show the kids where the story is locates (Ether chapters 1-3) and give a little background --- it was the time of the tower of Babel, the Jaredites were spared the confusion of languages and told to build barges to sail to the Promised Land, etc. (I didn't come across any good "Jaredite barge" pictures so I'll probably just draw on the chalkboard). I'll explain the dilemna about light in the boats and I have some little glass "gems" to show what the stones the brother of Jared made might have looked like... I also happen to have a little LED "dome" light to set next to them as an example of a tiny light being sufficient in an emergency...

In the "Encourage Application" section of the Sharing Time Outline, it suggests asking a couple families to come in and relate stories of faith and miracles in their lives. I haven't been in town for the last two weeks to line anything up, but our Bishop may come in... If he's not available, or gets held up with other things, I'll fill in with a story of my own or with a couple more scripture stories. (Probably Daniel & the Lions' Den for the Junior Primary, maybe Nephi & Lehi in prison for the Senior Primary).

So, hopefully this will do!

P.S.

My preview shows my fonts on this post are acting weird and I can't seem to figure out why or fix it... Ah, well --- Sorry!