Busy Manda

So I know there's a bunch that I should have posted about that I haven't but it's been pretty busy around here. With two different play group schedules it seems like I'm often hosting at least one or helping with another. Not that I'm complaining- when I think that in a few short years they'll both be in school I start to panic. No, I am enjoying the busy. I did want to brag though because now that we're settled my creativity and craftiness has kicked back in. So here are my two most recent projects.

We'll be heading to Idaho for the Thanksgiving holiday. With not much keeping us around here (Tj was suppose to be gone for 2 weeks for training but will still be crazy busy with work) we decided to stay for an extended visit. Thus, I would be flying out with the boys by myself and I would be flying home with the boys by myself. Add in other miscellaneous driving trips while we're there and I decided I need a way to keep the boys busy. When one of my friends mentioned "match box car roll ups" inspiration hit. I'm sure many of you have seen the CRAYON ROLLS and basically it's the same idea with cars (and Star Wars figurines in our case) that then are rolled and tossed in the bag. Easy to find and tote around. GENIUS! And even better the tutorial I used had a draw string type closure which is SO handy since the boys don't know how to tie yet.

I did a cars one and a Star Wars one figuring it would keep them TWICE as busy as they can share. Hopefully there will not be TOO many arguments over who gets which car and who gets to be Yoda. But I'm fairly certain that disagreements are inevitable.


My next project I can't take credit for either. I was at our stake's Relief Society Conference a couple months back and one of the classes was about teaching the gospel at home to our children. The teacher had mentioned that one year at Christmas she had gathered up a bunch of pictures of Christ and put them on red and green card stock, laminated them and then used them to talk to her children every day in December leading up to Christmas. I thought this was a PHENOMENAL idea. As I mentioned before we're going to be in Idaho for much of December and so I needed to get it all ready before we left. So after starting it last week, I finally finished today. When I was preparing to do this I really felt like NOW is the time to start meaningful traditions with the boys. They are just starting to get the whole "Santa-brings-presents-reindeer-fly-snowmen-dance-around" and so before they get so wrapped up in the fun and fluff of Christmas I want to start traditions that will ingrain in them the true purpose of the season. I used the new Gospel Art Book (the one that is spiral bound) and tore the pictures out cut the white frame off and mounted them on card stock. On the back I put the corresponding scriptures for each picture and a song. This year I feel like repetition is SO important and so my goal is to start our morning with each picture/scripture/song and then before bed doing the same thing. I used pictures from throughout the Saviors life and not all the songs were Christmas songs but I hope that eventually they'll not only appreciate the season and life of Christ but also try and implement his teachings into their own lives. That's a bit much to ask of 3 and 4 year olds though. But again, I want to start a tradition NOW that we can build and expand upon as they grow and develop. I really feel good about this project and hope that it goes as well in practice as it is in theory. (I also have the information that I put on the back of each picture including which picture I used in electronic format if anyone is interested.)


So there's my brag. I still need to put up some random pictures that I found on the camera of the boys. And we just had family pictures done so look for a sneak peak of those coming soon.