New Goals & Plans for Palmyra - Week #1

We intend on memorizing one scripture or quote a week throughout this process. This week we decided on a popular classic - John 3:16-17

Everyday we would recite it and to help with the memorization we used the following image that just has the first letters of each word as our hints.

Hymn of the week- Teach Me To Walk In The Light
Every night we sang this song as part of our nightly scripture study. The hope is that by following this repetition we will also be able to memorized multiple versus of songs and not just the first verse of popular songs.

Highlighted Person of the Week: Simon Peter
We opted for Simon Peter not just because he was an apostle but he was person Christ appoint as the president of the church during his time. Brian was able to find interesting facts and resources regarding Simon Peter that he shared during our Family Home Evening.

Moving Forward

We have flopped on our weekly family night so here us moving forward.

Brian and I are going to try to do a new form of personal and couple scripture study. We took a canning jar and some scrapbook paper and made a big long list of study topics. We went through the topical guide for gospel topics.  This week the topic is "blood" - Not sure how that made the list but I'll try to update key points.

Lesson #2: Temples

Tonight we talked about temples for our FHE. We sang "I Love To See the Temple" out of the children's songbook to start it off and did a pretty shotty job since Brian and I could only remember half the lyrics.  There was that moment when we both looked at each other realizing we were both at a loss when it came to the same point in the song. Then we did the awkward humming because even though we couldn't produce the right words we remembered the tune. Oliver just looked at us with one eyebrow raised slightly humming along in a soft babbling buzz.

Then out came the duplo legos and our family temple building began.

There may have been some regular and insistent remodels during the process. In the end there must have been a terrible tornado because the remains of our beautiful House of the Lord was demolished in toddler fashion.

We closed singing "I Am a Child of God" with the added promise we will be working on our primary hymns this week.

1: Prayer

Day one success. Well in the fact that we did it. I may or may not have forgotten to give Brian a heads up on the time limit or the knowledge that this blog is happening. Perhaps we need a couples lesson on communication.

For the break down of events. I said prayer, we sang "I am a Child of God", then I shared a quote by Russell M. Nelson, and we talked about why we pray, when we pray and how we pray. Oli ran around most of the time but at least we gated him into the room so hopeful some of it stuck. When we talked about the "why" we asked how we show love and did a few triple whammies. Triple whammies are three way kisses, something my brother and I grew up doing with our parents.

We ended singing motor-boat and running around in circles. Oliver couldn't stop with the encore of "more" motor-boat. The entire lesson took a total of 7 minutes, but we did it.

Change of Plans

I've decided to use this book as my source for lessons. Lets be honest - whatever makes it easier at this point makes it doable.

January 1st 2014

So it begins a new year of resolutions and noncommittal commitments. What are mine you might wonder. Simple. Do better, be better, try harder, and for the love of everything laugh more. I'm not going to try to define every area I need to improve on, let's just take a rough estimate and say I can improve in every area. Starting with making my children into good timber. This comes from a poem, entitled Good Timber by Douglas Malloch, I was given in high school by Pamela Dove, my field hockey coach and at the time my best friends mom.

Good Timber

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,

We find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with the stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

Of many winds and much of strife.

This is the common law of life.

I started reading a book last year called The Parenting Breakthrough: Real-Life Plan to Teach Kids to Work, Save Money, and Be Truly Independent by Merrilee Browne Boyack. I love it. I am a type triple A momma. I need to know what I can do to help the future be what I want it to be. I am the Queen of List and the Duchess of Mental Notes. I want my kids to have a happy childhood and one filled with work and learning. I want these memories to permeate their adulthood. This year for part of my own personal betterment I am attempting to be a better mom. Giving my littles (2 years and 5 months) a chance to do more on their own. After seeking advise from some great friends I've discovered I'm too intense and my expectations need to be much lower, closer to what they can actually accomplish. For starters I'm going to focus on family home evening (FHE). I don't need to plan an entire night full of activities and have everything from who, what, when and where mapped out. The entire lesson won't be more than 10 minutes and honestly I am going to shoot for 5, and I'm not going to feel guilty about it at all. Right now that is all our family can handle.

Though I want my children to be the good timber described in the poem above I need to care for the seeds planted. This year is the year we laugh more.