Super Saturday, Gardening, Playhouse, Other Projects and More

I finally unloaded my camera so I am going to put the whole shabang on here so I can count it done! I was actually sad that I haven't taken more pictures lately because we have done a lot of great stuff, but sometimes you just can't do it all. Here we go:

Super Saturday Crafts:

We picked crafts and classes to try to go with our theme "Home can be a Heaven on Earth".

FHE BOARDS:

The oh so popular FHE boards were a hit. This was my first time doing vinyl but I found a great site that sells this all in one piece so it was super easy to put on. Here is a link if you are interested, it was a great bargain too click here . I just bought the boards at Home Depot and had them cut to size. I got the shapes at Micheals. This is only a one hour project.

I love how there is one heart just waiting for our little arrival. It makes me smile everytime I walk by it. If we ever outgrow this board, I will just put 2 hearts on a hook to pair people together for a job. We are going to use our board tonight for the first time. I also love the font on this, it is called Papyrus.

GOSPEL STANDARDS QUIET BOOK:

Quiet booksare always good so we created a couple of different ones. This first one I came up with myself. I wanted to make one for primary children so I used the My Gospel Standards and went from there. Isn't this the cutest scrapbook paper?

Each page had a sentence from the Gospel Standards and a scripture to go with it. I downloaded pictures from lds.org Gospel Art Kit that corresponded with the words and had them printed in wallet size at Costco. We also used a sponge and an ink pad to distress the edges of the words to bring it all together. These are just dollar store photo albums but the ribbon through the binding really made it cute. For the last page of the book I printed a 4x6 of the Articles of Faith since primary children are usually memorizing those. I would be happy to email you directions and references if you are interested in making one of these.


NEW ERA QUIET BOOK:

This book was super easy. I didn't come up with this one, just found the idea googling. These are the New Era posters that you can order as postcards from lds.org. If you use the front and back cover you can fit 40 posters, which is 5 of the 7 sets of 8 that are available, so I just picked the sets I liked the most.

PROGRAM TRACKING/FHE BINDER (don't miss this one!)

This is the coolest thing every that EVERY LDS mom should have. It is a tracking binder for all of the programs our church uses including Faith in God, YW, YM, and Scouting programs. Not only is it a way to keep track of all your children's progress in one binder, here is the genious part. Each program has a page of FHE ideas that your children can do with the family to pass off requirments on family night! We had a stake activity and made these so we made them again for those who hadn't had the chance to get one. This one is worth its weight in gold.

We also had a special guest speaker come from our stake to educate us on using Coupons. She has a very popular website at http://www.beingfrugalisfabulous.com/. She was really informative and had lots of stories of walking away with tons of stuff for just pennies. She showed us how she organizes it all and all the basics. Check out her site it is really neat.

Our other class was based on the Mix-A-Meal cookbook. Wow, there is so much you can do with these mixes to use your food storage and save time. We also learned about a really valuable food storage site at http://www.everydayfoodstorage.net/.

Salt Part 2:

Speaking of food storage, here is another salt picture I found on my camera. I guess i can see why this made sense to Tanner. If you have ever seen a Thomas video, there are often materials used like this to look like snow.

Gardening:

We are enjoying our little garden that we planted. There are only 7 or 8 plants, but the kids really liked this project and we love watching it grow. I can't wait for fresh vegetables!




Playhouse:

The kids have really been into this project as well, especially Dallin. Dallin worked hard every day at school for 2 weeks so that he and Daddy could build a little each night. They usually only had a few minutes before bed time. He never missed a second of the process and was very interested in every detail. Even if he couldn't help with a certain part, he never left Peter's side.

Here it is with a roof going up. Tanner is really a great construction superviser here, ha ha!

Here it is all built. We haven't decided what color to paint yet. Dallin really wanted the windows to have the latice crosses.
Dallin and Eden have taken the liberty to do a lot of wall decoration in there already. I didn't oppose it because it is really their space, so I stayed out of it. The inside is stocked with a plastic kitchen, food and table, and a couple of small throw rugs.

Since we know an electrician the house even got a light and a plug in for a radio. There are still many things we plan to do out here, but the kids are loving their house. They even slept in it one night already with Daddy. Next, I am going to get some of that chalkboard paint to put on one of the walls inside.

Other Projects:

Charts are becoming such a part of our lives, it just helps me keep the kids organized. This was a fun one we just made as we are starting to teach our kids a little bit about nutrition. We will be having a lot of Family Night lessons about it so this was to get us started. I bought the board at Walmart and the Letters at the dollar store. I just glued the ribbon on with tacky glue. The magnets are made from .75" magnets using glue stick, hot glue and floral marbles from Michaels. I googled the pictures and made a word document with the right sizes. If you are interested, email me and I will send you the picture pages.

Each child has a space where they have all the nutrition requirements for a balanced diet for a day. Whenever they eat something from a food group, they move the corresponding magnet over from the left to the space on the right. I used the USDA's charts for how many servings each person should get. The first letter of each person's name shows their designated area. The kids are really excited about eating foods for their chart and are already pretty good at figuring out food groups.

These magnets turned out cute, but really ended up being more tedious and expensive than I originally thought. Oh well, I love it now that it is done. There is bread, apple, broccoli, meat, and milk to represent each kind of food. This board is as much for me as it is the kids so that I can track how well they are eating(or how I am feeding them!)

A Take on Flannel Boards:

This is so cool! I found a website where someone had downloaded every flannel board story ever printed in The Friend Magazine and colored them in Paint. Click Here for the site. I just downloaded, printed them and laminated them. (tangent: I love having a home laminating machine! It is cheaper than running to Kinkos and I use it all the time. I have the no heat Xyron version that sells at Office Max for $50 that I love, but I noticed there is a heated one at Walmart that is quite a bit cheaper, something in the $20 range.) You can buy magnet strips for really cheap at Walmart and I just use this beat up magnet board that we had lying around to tell the stories with. It is great for telling scripture stories, the kids always beg for more.

These are just the Book of Mormon stories. I keep each story in a sandwich bag in this dollar store basket.

Fun Snack Idea:

This was something that my roommate used to eat back in my BYU days. I was trying to come up with some fun nutritous snacks for the kids and this came back to me (thanks Heather if you ever read this!) Crumble graham crackers in a little bowl and put sliced peaches on top. Drizzle with honey and oh my it is so good! It is one of my favorites now too!