Easter--the spiritual traditions

We want our children to know what Easter is REALLY celebrating, so we have spiritual lessons throughout the month so that the entire month is about the Savior, but we only bring out the 'bunny and eggs and candy' stuff about two weeks before Easter. Easter day is reserved for family, food, and faith-- no egg hunt for us on Sunday, if we can avoid it; we try to make that a Saturday event. Some of our spiritual traditions include: 

colorful magnets (I took the coloring pages available for free from LDS.org and colored them by hand, covered in clear contact paper (the poor-woman's version of laminating), then glued to magnet sheets and cut out--carefully!) and and a map of Jerusalem (from the 2012 April Friend magazine) taped together and contact papered:

testimony eggs filled with symbolic items from our Savior's last week. The link isn't our exact set (which was a gift to us), but it gives the idea. There are lots of these on the web, so browse and find one you like. Our set actually has 15 eggs rather than the usual 12 because it includes 3 after the Resurrection up to the Ascension.:

a Passover dinner that allows us an opportunity to talk about the symbolism of the Old Testament meal and how it testifies of Christ as Savior (we don't actually own any Sedar plates, but we have all the foods on a regular plate)

Resurrection (marshmallow) rolls with 4 easy symbols of Christ's burial and resurrection

Easter-eve resurrection meringue cookies with more than 10 slightly-more-complicated symbols of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection. 

There are others I'd like to add to our traditions, but we'll have to add new ones each year as our children grow more mature. Preparing the various things does, after all, take time. The great thing is, once you've got a good thing goin, you can just keep repeating it year after year!

My 4-yr-old, the Author

I couldn't NOT document Gwen's latest intellectual development: story-crafting. The pics are just recent random photos of her, unrelated to the authoring moments.

 Gwen is periodically sent home with assignments from preschool that are really more for me than her, I imagine in the effort to get parents involved with the child's education. One such assignment was to choose a stuffed animal, have her make up a story about it while I wrote it down, and turn in her "story". Here is her creation, with my lack of punctuation intentional to indicate when she didn't slow down to breathe:

 "My pheasant is named Amy. *which she made up on the spot, btw, because she has NEVER called her pheasant Amy and usually says all her animals are named Gwen* One day Amy went to see her Mommy, Gwen. And after that she went to the woods and got lost. And then she went back to find her little baby pheasants. She had three little babies. One was named Sarah...and Percy and Bill. I have another story about when they were on the bus crying because they didn't get a drink. Their mommy got a drink for them and fed them then they went back home and then they went somewhere. Tomorrow we can do another story about my kitty."  

Cute. I love that babies and mommy's dominate the plot. I'm going to assume you are familiar with Owl Babies and caught her plagiarism--or literary allusion, if you are the generous type. :) The part at the end where she didn't pause reminds me of Kid History. :)

So her writing gets better. This next composition is awesome. Quite unexpectedly (it is a long story), my parents were here from midnight last night til 1:30 today. My dad took some time to play with Gwen this morning and she wrote another story. For this one, she included illustrations and page turns, which I've indicated by each new line:

"One day, on a boat, going to America. 
"Then in the morning, a nasty storm was coming by. 
"And the storm got bigger...and BIGGER...
"The rain was coming nearer and nearer.
"And the river got wild and wild.
"People fell from the boat, to mean shark's home.
"Sharks were eating people to their guts.
"Sharks got sick from eating the people.
"Their mommy and daddy gave them medicine."

and that is the end!

When I turned the page and read "eating people to their guts" I just couldn't stop laughing! How does she even KNOW about stuff like that? and I love how there is no tidy plot wrap up, the sharks just get medicine. Nuf said. Kids are so funny!

Cupcakes with Young Women

I'm not in teaching in Young Women anymore, which was a challenging adjustment for me because I loved it soooooo much and I really miss these amazing gals. So when I was asked to teach the YW some cake decorating skills for a Wed night activity, I was more than happy to hang out with these awesome ladies (thank you Eric for being willing to fly solo at bedtime so I could do this)! 

Check out some of the talent--like the above fondant cupcake designed by Sarah V.!

Those aren't my hands, that is Nicole B. mastering flowers and leaves!

 

 Becca S. liked the eggs in the grass the best!

 Hailey B. designed a lovely flower cupcake

 These are either Ashley J or Karianne D's adorable creations... not sure to whom the credit belongs, but they sure are cute!

 Orawan W. was focused and precise. Her first time decorating cupcakes!

 Gina F. wanted her 'lawn' to be the perfect length...if only my grass were this green and luscious!

The whole crowd, showing off our edible creations! So much fun and ya'll did a great job! Beautiful!

Good Eats-- Pie!

Let's just say it was a challenge to exercise restraint this week! I couldn't tell you which one I loved  more...

the Pi Day blueberry-cherry with perfect crust: 

 or the Mediterranean sweet ricotta orange tart with pistachios and honey: 

Both were AWESOME! And the scale will back up that statement :).

 Which one would YOU choose?
(I'll include the recipes at a later date, but right now the photos alone will have to tantalize you!)

Lucky Charm!

Dublin takes St. Patty's Day seriously, so we decided to get in on some of the green action! Can you believe we've lived in Columbus for 5 years and never been to the parade? The gals and I remedied that Saturday. Eric had a hospital shift, so we met up with some friends and had a great time!

 green bagels. Free. Fresh from the bakery. Still warm. They were wonderful!

 D with bagel

 B with silly face and M with bagel

 Gwen said these big floats were her favorite part of the parade, besides the candy. I loved the Irish dancers. Caroline liked the dogs and horses. None of my photos of those things turned out. Everything was blurry, or my camera focused on the heads of the people in front of me instead of the parade. Just use your imagination. :)

 The kiddos patiently waiting... this was just before Caroline lost it. After that, she was only content to sit upon my shoulders. 

 And after 45 minutes, I was feelin it! :)

I have to say I was really proud of Gwen's attitude. There was another little girl, not with our group, that bawled the entire time because she wasn't getting enough candy. I felt sorry for her at first, but then even when she GOT something, she'd bawl because she only got one. Gwen, bless her little heart, was THRILLED to show me each and every cheap bubble gum or tootsie roll she got (and she only got 5 total!) as though it was Leprechaun gold! I was happy to see her being positive and genuinely grateful. Her bucket was full and that made mine full too. :) 

We had a great time, the weather was cold but not bitter, it didn't rain on us, and we got great parking. All in all, it was a fabulous way to spend St. Patty's Eve! 

Today we collected Rolos from our successful Leprechaun trap, ate green pancakes and green eggs for breakfast, snacked on green grapes, wore lots of green to church, and enjoyed cabbage, potatoes, and meatloaf for dinner. (why meatloaf, you ask? I know, not exactly Irish... but we had corned beef last year and it was just a little too fatty for my taste. Eric loved it, so I'm sure it is in our future, but not this year). We had a great time! Happy Saint Patrick's Day to you!

Projects and Elk

I've been working on a lot of things, many of which I can't post about because they are Christmas presents and I don't want anybody to get wind ahead of time. But a few little updates are in order.

I got the idea from pinterest and was excited to have a visual reminder for birthdays for our large family. I have yet to successfully remember a niece or nephew birthday and would like to amend that neglect. I used a nice 1x8 piece of wood, had Eric saw off 8 inches of extra, and painted "family birthdays" on it. The colors match the blue/green/neutral colors of our living room. Hammered on alligator tooth hanger to the back. Then Eric drilled holes in all those wonderful disks. I painted them and added birthdays. Eric screwed in 12 eyelet screws, turned wire into a coil and cut individual jump rings. I put the thing together. Eric hung it on the wall.  Total cost was about 10 dollars (but it would have cost twice that much if I'd purchased all the supplies I needed at once, rather than spreading it out over monthly coupons). A nice joint-effort project! and now I can remember all those important days, as well as easily update as the family (on both sides) expands. 

Because I'm absolutely positive that my mom doesn't read my blog, I can post a picture of this project and not worry that she'll preemptively find out her Christmas present! This one for my parents is slightly different than ours, sporting a color for each family (rather than by gender) and hearts for anniversaries. She said she liked blue and purple, so I went with it. 

Another significant addition to our family... We have a couple of new critters in our home, courtesy of my FIL who shipped them out to us. This elk is super heavy and sat in our garage for a week until our good friends were over for dinner and Eric asked if he wouldn't mind helping to hang it. It took some careful finagling and maneuvering, but we managed to get him up on the wall high enough that I didn't bump him when I walk past while still avoiding puncturing the ceiling with those tines. It was kind of miraculous!

Caroline loved him from the moment he came out of the crate. She wasn't frightened at all, but just wanted to smother him with kisses and hugs and even tried to ride on his back (but she couldn't get her leg over him). She greets him every morning with her version of an elk call and wants to be lifted up to give him kisses. 

We made some fun things for Valentine's Day, most of which I didn't even document. But here are some fun projects. 

and our Valentines this year were owls because my girls both love them. It was perfect. We made these for Family Home Evening to mail to family.  

I will try to post more often because I feel disconnected when I take off too long. But with my new church responsibilities and the massive task of a thesis dominating my 'spare' time, I can't promise regular updates. I know that is going to hurt my already dwindling readership, but it is what it is. :)

there you have it, a brief update!

Merry Christmas!

 

Merry Christmas from the Allan family!

Christmas this year is very low-key. Usually we travel and that makes the first 2 1/2 weeks of December crammed with school, gifts, letters, and travel prep. But this year I finished most things in those first 2 1/2 weeks and have been leisurely taking on 'extra' activities like baking and crafts with the kids that aren't on a 'must-be-completed-by-X' schedule.  It has been truly enjoyable rather than stressful. Perhaps that is why I have accepted the blog hiatus without stress. Not that I don't care to update you on all of our festivities, but I am content to spend this sacred and precious time with my little girlies and my super-busy hubby. I can't imagine that blogging will pick up dramatically in January because school starts up again and there is so much I'd like to do when I'm not studying. If you are extremely disappointed that I might only blog once or twice a month, sorry. I suppose I might change my mind if exciting things start happening. But right now I'm going to ride this 'lack-of-guilt-and-stress' wave to its crest and feel absolutely wonderful about NOT needing to do things. I'm just going to enjoy living. :) So see you sometime after Christmas. :)