Our Jesus Tree

I have had this idea for a few years now and never got it up and running until this year. My kids loved it so much, I am kicking myself for not doing it sooner. I have always thought that having a Jesus themed Christmas tree would be cool. A way to help us really focus on the true meaning of Christmas. So this year we put it all together and it has been such a wonderful way to teach my children about the Savior and to have the spirit in our home. 

 I bought a 4 ft tree and semi decorated it with white lights and some ribbon. I am hoping that if we ever get a bigger house, this will be a more elegant tree. But for now, it works great. I couldn't find a star that I liked for the top of the tree, so this year it just got a big bow. 

I got ornaments that have the different names for Jesus Christ and then bought correlating pictures to go with each name. For the last couple of weeks, my kids have taken turns picking a name ornament and a picture and they got to hang them on the tree. We would discuss the name and why it was important and why Jesus has that name. 

 My kids have said multiple times this month how much they have loved doing this and that it is their new favorite tradition. It really has been a wonderful addition to our Christmas season.

Is Anyone There?

It has been so long since I posted anything on my little blog. Every now and then someone will ask if something I have done or made is on my blog and I think, "Oh yeah!" I had a cute little blog once upon a time." My life is crazier than ever, but the desire to share what I know and love has never gone away. Social media has changed so much in the last year it seems. Do people still follow blogs with instagram and snapchat around?  I don't even know. If anyone still checks my blog or would like to see any new posts, I would love a comment! I might just be inspired to start things up again just for you;)

Summer Traditions

This poor little blog of mine needs some TLC. Sorry for the long gaps between posts. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things. 

Today I wanted to share some of our favorite summer traditions. I often get many questions regarding all of our summertime fun. It may look like we do a lot and have a lot going on, but we really don't. I like to keep things fairly simple. My biggest tip of any mom is to just plan. Activities with your kids do not need to last hours. Some days 15 minutes is plenty. You have to plan and be organized to have a fun and easy summer. Here are some things that we do to help us with our summer planning.

We make a poster of things we want to do during the summer and hang it up where we will see it everyday. My kids love to check things off and it's nice to look back at the end of summer and see everything that we were able to do together. 

I like to have a summer schedule because while we want to be having a lot of fun, laundry still has to get done. Typically, I plan our activities around my cleaning and laundry schedule (which I typically do on Monday's). Then we are free to leave the house without me having that hanging over my head. Here is what works for our family schedule:

Make Something Monday

Take a Trip Tuesday

Wet and Wild Wednesday

Thinking Thursday

Fabulous Fun Friday

We try to plan our week and activities around this and it seems to work well for us.

I make a Welcome Summer banner for my kids to run through on the last day of school. We love this tradition and it takes minimal effort on my part!

Some years, the kids get surprised with some summertime treats. This year we aren't doing this because the Easter Bunny brought them tons of candy and some outside toys a month ago. Typically I get some new sidewalk chalk, bubbles, water guns, etc. Things that we will be using outside a lot. 

You may have seen this idea floating around the web the last couple of years. I cannot remember where I got this idea, but I love it. I have these 3 jars full of different things for the kids to do during the summer. What I put inside the jars changes every year as things with our family change. This year we are having a baby the beginning of August, so I had to adjust our day trips and activities for a very pregnant body. I use ideas I get off the web, ideas from my files, or things I come up with out of my own little head. I have the kids draw our activities for the upcoming week on Sunday evenings. Then they know what to look forward to and I know if I need to get supplies for a certain craft or how to plan for whatever little adventure we will be embarking on. This is probably our favorite summer tradition. 

 I got this idea from Studio 5 last summer and we had a blast doing it! I am lucky to have good readers, but we had so much fun hanging up this bookshelf and filling it with all the books my kids read last summer. It's a great motivation tool for summer reading programs. We also always pick a book or two or three to read together during the summer. Last year I read The Wizard of Oz to my kids and this year we are going to read The Little House on the Prairie Series. We have devotional every morning with scripture study and prayer, and so it is easy to throw in a chapter or two from an additional book during our devotional time. 

Those are some of the things that we do to keep our summers interesting and organized! I feel like summer is a special time to just play with my kids and I want them to grow up with fond memories of our summers together. Hopefully this gets your brain spinning from some new summer traditions in your house.

Thoughts...

I came across this scripture earlier this week and it has been on my mind a lot. We are asked to do so little and yet offered so much. How grateful I am for a kind and loving Heavenly Father who wants nothing more than our happiness and for us to return to Him. As a mother, I have a small idea of what that feels like. I hope that throughout my life, I am able to be a better daughter to Him and to constantly keep in mind what is truly important. Keeping my heart and mind focused on my Heavenly Father and Savior is what will bring me true and complete happiness.

Therefore treasure up these words in thy heart. Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love.

Doctrine and Covenants 6:20

Olive Garden Salad

I don't consider myself a food snob. Usually if it's good, I will eat it without much complaint or comparing. However, with this salad, I am a total food snob! Recently, my husband and I went to The Olive Garden and ordered their salad which has always been my favorite thing there. After taking a couple of bites we both looked at each other and agreed that my version of their salad is much better!! Their salad is not as fresh as it used to be-lets be honest, it's from a bag. Kinda disappointing. 

I got this recipe years ago from a cooking class that I attended and it has been on of my very favorites ever since. So if you are ever craving Olive Garden salad, make this instead!

Olive Garden Copycat Salad
Salad:
1 head iceburg lettuce
1 head romaine lettuce
1/2 purple onion, thinly sliced
1 can chopped olives, drained
Grated parmesan cheese, 1 cup or a handful or two
Croutons

Dressing:
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3/4 tsp italian seasoning
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 small red onion, or to taste
1 tbsp white sugar
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

For the dressing, combine ingredients in a blender and mix on high until smooth. Cover and chill at least an hour before serving.
For the salad, cut lettuce into desired bite size pieces. Combine all salad ingredients in  large bowl and serve with the dressing on the side.

Serves 6-8

Easter Countdown

I love holiday countdowns and have been doing them for years with my kids. We usually do the 2 weeks before the holiday and each day we do a different craft or make a fun treat or do some kind of activity for whatever holiday is upon us. With Easter quickly approaching, I have been preparing our countdown for this year. This first picture with the eggs on the door is our "Fun" countdown. These activities have nothing to do with anything religious. Lots of Easter egg and Easter Bunny fun. I'll share those ideas another time. 

 Now that my kids are getting older, I was feeling like we needed to not just focus on the fun this year, but really spend time focusing on the Savior and the real meaning behind Easter. I came up with this idea less than a week ago and thankfully was able to pull it together quickly. I still have things I will improve on throughout the year to really get it how I want it in the future, but for now, this will have to do.

 I made this countdown with supplies I had on hand (mostly). I had to go get some paper and the picture of Christ, but everything else I had. I used a 16x20 frame and put the paper and picture of Christ behind the glass. Then I reassembled the frame and glued magnets onto the glass and the eggs (that way the eggs can come off to open.) I used sticker numbers on the eggs. Easy peasy! It took me like 30 minutes to make. 

Inside of each egg will be a different story or event from the life of Christ, leading up to His Resurrection on Easter Sunday. This is what I need to work on compiling in a more presentable fashion before I can share it with all of you, but if you want to steal my idea, there are a million resources to use. 

Each day we will learn about a different event or story from the Saviors life, sing a song to go along with that topic, include pictures from each event, and watch one of the Bible Videos from lds.org. (Those are amazing learning and teaching tools. If you haven't checked those out, I would strongly encourage you to do so.)

For example: Day 13 is Jesus As a Child

                                             Read: Story from The Friend (the article shares a few stories of when Jesus was a child)

Song: Jesus Once Was a Little Child

Bible Video: Christ is presented at the Temple

                      Young Jesus teaches at the temple

Some stories that we will be reading I just summarized myself so the kids would understand them a little bit better. But I also found many from The Friend magazine. I just searched "Stories of Jesus" and found several that I was able to print out. I printed and gathered everything for each day (stories, pictures, songs and what videos to watch on what days ) and made an Easter binder. That way it's all in one place and organized. 

To give you an idea of what I did, here is what is inside each egg-

Day 14: Jesus Christ is born

Day 13: Jesus as a child

Day 12: Jesus Chooses His Disciples

Day 11: Jesus is baptized

 Day 10: Jesus Works Miracles

Day 9: Jesus heals the sick

Day 8: Palm Sunday-Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem

Day 7: Cleansing the Temple

Day 6: Parables and Teachings-Sermon on the Mount

Day 5: Rest in Bethany

Day 4: The Last Supper, Prayer in Gethsemane, Betrayal and Trial

Day 3: Crucifixion and Burial

Day 2: Jewish Sabbath

Day 1: Easter Sunday and Resurrection of Christ

 I am so excited to start next week! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I tried typing this with a two year old crawling all over me, so I'm sure something doesn't make sense. 

Consequences and Privileges

My husband and I feel like we are turning into the king and queen of empty threats when it comes to disciplining our kids. We are really good at threatening them with punishments, but aren't very good at following through with those threats. This was beginning to drive me crazy and I knew something had to change. We have tried different ways to enforce rewards or punishments in the past, but nothing really seemed to do the trick. Mainly because we weren't very good at following through with things and the kids would forget to "cash in" their prizes and then our system slowly faded away. 

I came up with this idea recently and have put it into practice this week. So far, it has been awesome for all of us! I wanted to make my board all cute and fancy, but mainly I just wanted it done without costing a ton-hence the lack of cuteness. 

 I made three jars. One is full of consequences for when the kids misbehave, one is full of extra chores, and the last is full of privileges. Each jar is full of different colors of paper. Yellow is the least severe, blue is a little worse and orange is the dreaded color. I did this for both consequences and privileges. With privileges, yellow is good, blue is really good and orange is amazing!! My thinking with this is when the kids have been bad or broken or rule, instead of threatening them with a punishment or just using time out, I can just say, "Go pull a blue consequence" and it's a done deal. Same with privileges. When we see good behavior or good choices being made, we can reward those immediately with the kids pulling a privilege from the jar. 

My kids are loving this system and we have seen such a difference with my 5 year old especially. She is so anxious to pull the privileges, that our mornings before school have been heavenly this week! Normally I have to remind her about a billion times of what she should be doing. I haven't had to ask her to do her chores once this week! 

 Here are some examples of what are in these jars. ( I picked things that were applicable to my kids. If you want to try this, think of things that your kids would love to have or hate to have taken away).

A yellow privilege might be: read for an extra 15 minutes at bedtime or play outside an extra 30 minutes or play an extra video game, etc

Blue could be: go on a bike ride with daddy, go get a treat from Costco, watch a fun show before bedtime, etc.

Orange: go to see a movie, go to Nickel Mania, etc.-things the kids love to go do, but is a major treat and things we don't do very often

Same idea with the consequences-

Yellow examples: Lose tv for the rest of the day, no video games that day, no reading at bedtime

Blue examples: pick an extra chore, time out for ______ minutes, no tv for 2 days, no playing outside that day, etc.

Orange examples: Pick an extra chore, and then I have lots of "mommy gets to choose", etc. 

The chores are things that my kids normally don't have to do around the house. They can either pick chores as consequences or pick them to earn some extra money. Blue ones might include washing all the light switches, or cleaning out a cupboard. The orange are  little more intense and yucky, like clean the garage or wash out the garbage can. My kids are praying they never pick the garbage can chore!

This may make me sound like a crazy, mean mom but I am trying to help reinforce good and bad behavior with my munchkins. Like I said, so far this is working great and I am no longer the queen of empty threats. It's been a good change for all of us!