Passover Feast

 We almost missed our Passover Feast this year due to Spring Break and Conference, but we just had it late.

I'm sure the sippy cups are very authentic Jewish:)  They had to do something to keep the grape juice from staining their robes.

Introducing...Peppermint

 We decided to try a new tradition this year and invited one of Santa's elves to join our house during the month of December.  Following some other creative bloggers, we kicked the season off with a North Pole breakfast of egg nog or peppermint pancakes, hot chocolate, and powdered donuts.

 We read the book that our Elf brought with her.  The name the kids decided on was Peppermint.  They were warned that Elves like to play pranks and have fun while they are visiting, but only Mom or Dad could pick them up and return them to their original resting shelf every day after the kids found her.  They had to be extra good so Peppermint would report only good news back to Santa. 

 Elf Kisses

 Brighton did his own hair today

 Boston sat patiently in his chair during our festivities.  Not quite a month old.

 Morning #1, we found Peppermint on the dining table with our Scrabble set.

 The kids looked and looked for her this morning, only to find her in the freezer making a snowman!  I guess she misses the North Pole.

 She put the moves on Woody, and we found them on a double date with Barbie and Buzz Lightyear.

General Conference weekend 2012

 Something wonderful and amazing has happened at our house.  It was the initial goal of all the preparation and effort we put in to General Conference weekend, but I expected a LONG term investment payout, not to be seen for years.  My kids LOVE, no ADORE General Conference.  Since we started doing our Conference bags, store, breakfast, etc., they have enjoyed it, but this year I started fielding questions a month beforehand about when the big weekend was coming.  You'd think it was coming Christmas, with the excitement that was building for this 2 day event!  And most of it came from the little ones.  Brighton, especially.  Even Savannah told me her friends moaned about having to listen to one talk, and she said she "got" to listen to the whole thing.  It was a MAJOR mama paycheck to hear my children reminisce and tell me about their favorite parts of General Conference.  Brighton told me his favorite speaker is President Uchtdorf, and he listened intently for any reference to planes.  He also told me he knew listening to the Prophet was the right thing to do.  Just when I think my children are little hellions, I am reminded by just how special and strong and amazing this generation of kids really are.  At Brighton's age, I think I could tell you who the Prophet was, but not any GA's.  Sometimes they astound me.  I will forever be grateful to all the creative women who shared their ideas with me to make this event something to look forward to and enjoy together as a family.

 We especially enjoyed the play doh bag that was a part of Pres. Uchtdorf's talk.  It was fun to see what everyone came up with to represent a part of his talk.  The little ones mainly played with theirs,

 but Irelynd really put some thought into hers.  I wish I could remember exactly how she put it, but this was a representation of the not-so-good ways we spend our time.  See the frowny face below?  That's how we feel when we don't do good things.

 Savannah's was some kind of a clock, too.

 Aunt Michelle sent us a Halloween box with candy necklace kits in it.  Perfect for a Conference bag!

Back to School dinner

 We did our back to school dinner again this year, just scaled down a bit.  The kids enjoyed it though.

Groundhog Day

 Ok, celebrating this holiday makes me seem a little nuts, but I saw this cute family tradition on Secrets of a Super Mommy and wanted to implement it.  Depending on whether the groundhog sees his shadow or not, we eat with white or green utinsels, etc.  In this case, Phil saw his shadow, so there are 6 more weeks of winter, hence the white stuff.  Also, we ate on the "ground", and, I promise I didn't plan it, but we had Potatoes and Ham:  potatoes come from the ground, and ham comes from the hog!  The kids were excited to add another new tradition that was something out of the ordinary.

For dessert, we had pudding cups with this scary-looking little guy popping out.  Hey, that's the best I could do on short time!

General Conference 2011

 We LOVE conference in our house.  Ok, well at least Savannah and I do.  Hopefully after this year, I converted a few more.  We had a RS meeting to share ideas of keeping kids occupied during the sessions, and I got some GREAT ideas, in addition to what I picked up on Pinterest.  Love Pinterest.  But that's another story.  I had a great breakfast planned for Saturday morning, to kick off the 2-day event.  Alas, all we got to eat of it was these fruit shish-ka-bobs.  Funny story:  I found a copy-cat Cinnabon recipe (on Pinterest, of course!), and was so excited to try it.  Made them, put them in the oven, and then BAM!  Scott checked on them in the oven, and all I remember seeing is dough hanging everywhere.  It was such a cinnamon roll carnage that I couldn't process what had happened.  The glass casserole dish it was in exploded, sending glass all through both pans of rolls I had made.  Luckily, we had a very small pan left still to cook, so we were able to all get a small taste of them, and they were GOOD!  Savannah was almost devastated (she loves Conference Cinnamon rolls), but I told her it'd be a conference we'd never forget, and that was worth the loss of the cinnamon rolls.  We just enjoyed them all the more the next morning.

I made conference packets for everyone to do and color.  These were a flop though, but I loved the bright colors.

 We made our usual Conference Tent, and talked about King Benjamin.  Brighton put it together for us this year, a fact he was VERY proud of.  I had to fix it when he wasn't looking.  Shhhhh...

The favorite thing was our conference store, new this year.  The kids were told they could earn Conference Bucks during conference by listening quietly, sitting through a session, filling our their packets, etc.  Then during the break between sessions, we opened our "store" and they could use their dollars to puchase stuff.  We had dollar toys and food.  The pop went fast, as well as the toys.  I had 3 levels of items: 4, 2, and 1 tickets.

Can you tell which item Savannah went for first?!

 Another new idea this year were conference bags.  I put a picture of each of the 15 apostles/First Presidency on a bag, and put an activity or a treat in the bag.  When that GA spoke, we did/ate that activity/treat.  One of the ones that worked well was water colors.  I had everybody paint a picture with watercolor paints of something the speaker talked about in their talk.  I was pleasantly surprised at what everyone came up with.  We painted Pres. Uchdorf's talk, and we had to guess what everybody's picture was after the talk was over.  Irelynd painted the earth, and Heavenly Father in the lower right corner, sending his love to Earth.  The way she put it was precious.  Brighton painted...ok, I'm not sure.  I painted an airplane, of course, and Brighton wanted to keep my picture.  

Keaton and Waverly were happy with their store choices, too.  These mermaids lasted all day, and half the next.  That's a long life for a dollar store toy!

We also put stickers on a map for each new temple that was announced.  We were shocked about the new Provo temple.  That will be so awesome!  Everyone wanted to put the sticker on for it.

I got a new hairdo too!

After the first session, Scott built this bigger, more permanent tent that we can reuse every Conference.  Off PInterest, too, I might add.  Yes, he's addicted too.  It was a fun weekend!

Back to School dinner

 Ok, so I shamelessly copied, again, a fun blog post I saw on Pinterest.  I love blogland!  We had a fun FHE back to school dinner with the kids on the first day of school and celebrated another beginning, while they shared the details of their days.  I love moments like these, and hope they will remember them.

 We did our cupcake tradition again, in lighting the candle and making a wish/goal for the coming school year.  I think my kids are pyromaniacs because they all insisted in lighting their own and blowing them out multiple times.

Back to School fairy

 This year, the Back to School fairy visited us and brought some fun school supplies.  Lest one think Savannah is the favored child, due to the size of her bag, it's not every day one starts Jr High, and supplies are bigger.  The 3 little ones got supplies for Mommy Preschool.

 They were so excited to get their own glue, scissors and crayons.

Irelynd's favorite item was her smelly pencil.