April 2012

April was a good month. I felt like I was getting more into my groove and pregnancy was treating me well. Kelsey and I started getting up at 6AM in order for she and I to have breakfast, have a 20 minute piano lesson and read scriptures for 30 minutes together in the morning. I have LOVED this routine. Mylee and Lanaea even began to join us near the end of the month when they got used to the time. I have been super impressed at Kelsey's dilligence. She sets her alarm every day and gets up when it goes off and is excited to start her day. She has been such an example to me and has helped motivate me to be better. The 30 minutes we spend together in the morning reading scriptures is our family scripture study, but it also is part of a challenge Blake and I have given Kelsey to read the entire Book of Mormon before she turns 8 and is baptized. With this challenge I got thinking that I wanted her to get more out of the scriptures when we read together so I created a Book of Mormon reading program for kids. I went through the entire Book of Mormon and picked out principles and meaningful stories and found pictures that corresponded with those principles and stories. With those pictures I created glue-ins for Kelsey to color and glue in her own scriptures as we read. It's been really fun for her to find out what glue-in comes next and it's helped us pick out important teachings in the Book of Mormon. As she flips back in her Book of Mormon on what she has already read she better remembers the stories we have read and the principles she has been taught because of the glue-ins in her scriptures. I also created a bookmark with all the chapters in the Book of Mormon. Every chapter that Kelsey reads, she gets a sticker. This has been extremely motivating for her. On the back of the bookmark is a reading schedule to carry us out throughout this year until her 8th birthday. I have been so proud of this project and hope to share it soon with others on my teaching blog: letteringtoletter.blogspot.com. With the baby coming soon though, we'll see when I get that up and running again.  We have helped Mylee to participate by using a tip from Elder Cook from general conference. Every chapter we have special finger signals for her to read certain words. This has been fun for all of us. I still read in the children's Book of Mormon reader with her though on our own time. 

 We celebrated Easter this year by first sending some goldfish "carrot" treats to school for snack. The kids got a kick out of it and I don't know a child that doesn't like goldfish crackers.

 We also made our traditional resurrection rolls (regular dinner rolls with marshmallows inside). The marshmallows represent the Savior and the cooking time represents the time the Savior was in his tomb and was then resurrected. The kids get so thrilled when the marshmallows are gone after they are cooked. This has been a fun way to teach our girls about the resurrection.

We couldn't have Easter without coloring some easter eggs. We changed things up a little bit and let the girls use paint to decorate their eggs instead of dye. It worked out great and I'm glad I didn't have to deal with the bigger mess easter egg dye creates.

 The Easter bunny visited us Saturday with a basket for all our girls. It was a big hit. They then went and found the eggs the Easter bunny hid.

 Kelsey's first recital at Family Home Evening. Every Family Home Evening Kelsey gets to show us the new songs she has learned on the piano from the week. This has been fun for all of us and has helped motivate her to conquer some more challenging songs. I found a great website laytonmusic.com that has simplified primary songs. Kelsey has already learned to play a handful of them.

 This month Blake also built Lanaea a new bed. A friend graciously gave me an extra crib mattress she had so that got Blake motivated to get her new bed made. It has worked out perfectly!! She loves her new bed. It slides perfectly underneath the bunkbeds. The first night she slept in it Blake and I lost her. We found her sleeping some random place in her room. As time has gone by, she has learned to fall asleep on her bed and stay there.

 April also brought with it lots of rain--yea!! we have needed it soooo bad here in Texas!!. This particular night we had golf-ball sized hail. I had never seen such big hail in person before.

 We also got our garden planted, which is now producing abundantly for us. We planed tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, and cucumbers.

 I started preschool up with Mylee again--which also brought with it another project that I am still working on. I have been creating a preschool curriculum that I can re-use with each of my kids. It's been a lot of fun and work. I'll have to share more on this project at a later date.

In Texas summer arrives around April, so we enjoyed getting our bikes out again and enjoying the weather.