Mary Poppins Convention?

No.  It's just the summer craft club.

 Every week a different mom hosts the club, providing a craft or two for the 8 participating girls.  This is one of the projects we did at our house.  They traced simple drawings on to these cute umbrellas I found at Oriental Trading Company and then they colored them in with sharpies. 

They had fun and took their time making their own one-of-a-kind umbrellas.

Here's a close -up of Cami's Pooh bear version.

And my favorite panel of all, done by one of the girls.  It cracked me up every time I looked at her umbrella.

The girls have also tie-dyed t-shirts, painted birdhouses, made truffles, made beautiful bracelets, made necklaces out of ribbons and washers, and hand painted silky butterflies, and still have four weeks to go.

In the meantime, Emma is developing new friendships and experiencing first-hand the sense of pride and accomplishment  from creating something beautiful.

It really is a beautiful thing.  

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Jesus Christ's Atonement FHE Lesson (Perfect for Easter)

We always use this lesson about Christ's atonement the week after the fun lesson about the Symbols of Easter.  While last week's lesson reminds the kids why we celebrate Easter and how to see the teachings of Christ in the fun of Easter, this lesson focuses more about helping children to truly understand the significance of the atonement in their lives.    I think that "The Parable of the Ketchup," in particular, is perfect for helping kids to understand what the atonement is (although for very young kids the story may need to be summarized to a shorter length).  The Visual of the Pits is a powerful hands-on activity for delving even deeper.  I say this almost every week, but this is one of my favorite lessons.  :)

*Check out the newly added  Atonement and the Tree of Life, which includes scriptures, videos, and quotes about the atonement. 

Click here to see my other ready-to-print lessons.  

***If you're having trouble viewing/downloading/printing these lessons, feel free to email me at wawadehut@gmail.com and I will email you the PDF files. *** 

JESUS CHRIST'S ATONEMENT FHE LESSON

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Repentance FHE Lesson

***If you're having trouble viewing/downloading/printing these lessons, feel free to email me at wawadehut@gmail.com and I will email you the PDF files. ***

For those of you who know me well, know that I love Family Home Evening and everything about it. I spent three years of my life joining every FHE lesson exchange group I could find and in the process created and collected hundreds of lessons which I have filed into a tall filing cabinet (and beyond).

All these years later, we love these lessons even more than when I first made them. I love the fun visual aids that I've used for primary lessons, sharing times, and preschool and I love that it's made teaching the gospel to my kids (and for them to teach to each other) a more fun and rewarding task than I ever could have dreamed it to be.  Not that having FHE with a busy family of varying ages is easy, but the rewards are well worth the hours of effort.

Don't ask me why, but lately I've got this inexplicable urge to digitize a few of my favorite FHE lessons to make them easier to share with others. Here's my first one. I think you can scroll through it, print it, or download it straight from here.

I highly recommend printing it off onto heavy cardstock and laminating the visual aids to increase their durability (you can borrow my laminator if you live nearby). Storing it in a gallon size Ziploc or a manila envelope makes them easier to file and store. I put each section of the lesson in its own sheet protector or baggie to help keep it organized and easier to use as you teach.

I've used this lesson on Repentance (or parts of it) for FHE lessons, sharing times, and primary lessons and the visual aids and stories in here make it one my kids most favorite and memorable lessons ever.




You'll have to let me know what you think of this idea. Would you like me to share more of my lessons? Are you likely to use them? Any requests for topics?

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How to be happier person...

I've never considered myself a naturally creative person, but over the years I've gone through many creative "phases". Sewing, recipe collecting, crocheting, cross stitching, scrapbooking, FHE lesson making, card making, blogging, etc. have all occupied many hours of my time. I'm not that great at any of them, but I have found a great sense of satisfaction as my skills have improved with practice and I love the feeling of accomplishment when I actually finish my project and have this new creation before me that didn't exist a few hours before.

I've thought a lot about why I thrive on this "extra" part of my life, and I've decided that it has to do with the fact that there aren't many other things in my life ever finish. Every day I cook, clean, do laundry, help the kids, drive people around, and pay bills, just to wake up and do it all again the next day. Don't interpret this statement as complaint, I'm merely saying that sometimes it's a little frustrating to have things undone so quickly after I've done it.

There have been many times in our married life when I'm sure that Glen thought I was some kind of sick masochist for the stress I put myself through to complete a project before a deadline (usually self-imposed deadline), but somehow at the end it's always been worth it to me...adrenaline, lack of sleep, messy house, and all!

[Like these fun cards that I popped out this week for card club--totally worth it!]

So I found it so interesting when President Uchtdorf spoke about this very thing in Women's Conference last week. I felt like he expressed this yearning inside of me better than I ever could myself...

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before...Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty—and I am not talking about the process of cleaning the rooms of your teenage children."

So I'm not crazy! I've just recognized that I'm a happier, better person/wife/mother when I have a creative outlet in my life!

So thanks for bearing with me while I hone my latest creative phase...this blog!