The Happenings of the Week

This week has been pretty good. This is what I accomplished off my list. First, Family Home Evening went great, the kids LOVED it. Kyra had the scripture in Primary this week, Genesis 1:23 (I think) and so I thought we would do FHE, about the meaning of her scripture. We talked about how God created the earth. Then I printed off little pictures of the 7 days of creation, and glued them to popscicle sticks. Then when I read what happened on each day, they had to decide which picture represented that day. Kyra INSISTED that she wanted to memorize her scripture as well, so I made this little picture story to help her. That girl has an unreal memory, and had the scripture memorized the next day. She did EXCELLENT, saying her scripture in primary. It was so cute. Here she is after church, telling me her scripture.

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Other things accomplished this week..reading to the kids each day, updating the blog, taking stuff to DI, and #42 we won't talk about, we will just cry about. I was able to keep the front room clean, tried a new recipe (learned how to make mexican rice from scratch!), cleaned out the garage, and we watched one of our movies that was still shrink wrapped (Stranger than Fiction...a great movie, NOTHING like a typical Will Ferrel movie.) I was also able to complete about 35 of the birthday cards for RS. Here are my 4 favorite designsso far. I have about 40 left. I was also able to do really well with my food storage supply the last couple weeks. By using coupons and hitting the sales, I was able to get everything in this picture for $1 and item. Everythign in this picture for FREE! Does anyone need mustard???Then in this picture I was able to get the juice, the shampoo, deoderant, the lotion, and the hand soap for free. Then Fry's was having a great sale on the rest. So it was all together about $200 worth of groceries, but after coupons, and such it was just over $60. Coupon clipping is finally getting to be fun!Lastly we were able to go to the Desert Museum yesterday. It was so much fun!!! We had a coupon, from the Tucson discount book thing, so it cost our entire family about $13 for admission. Last time we went, it was early summer, Kyra was only about 6 months old, and it was not so great. But the weather was BEAUTIFUL, about 70, and they really have so many things for the kiddos to do. It was great. Here are the kiddos in front of the butterfly flowers. They had one section, with huge rocks, in which they dug tunnels through, and then placed glass just on the other side of the tunnel. So you could see the different animals as they made the way through the tunnels. They had this cute little tunnel for the kids to climb through, and they could pretend to be animals. They also had an abandoned mine, with a rock pit outside the door, where the kids could dig through and find treasure (different colored minerals). Kyle LOVED this section. Our favorite animal exhibts were the hummingbirds, and the mountin lion.

Kyra was also brave, and petted a snake!

Grandpa treated everyone to some soft serve ice cream! Yummy. Here is grandpa and Kyra about to dig in. And Kyle in heaven. We had to call and tease Aunt Renna, that we were eating ice cream, in short sleeves, in the shade, because the 70 degree weather was a little warm. (Aunt Renna lives in Wyoming, where it was 9 degrees and was snowing yesterday. I'm sure she will be calling us, and teasing us in August.

One of the coolest things they had for the kiddos was mineral collection. They gave each kid an egg carton, and a map, which showed where different stations were, where they could go and collect a mineral. At each station the kids got a rock, learned about the rock and then were able to do some activity. For instance for 2 of the rocks (I can't remember which ones) they ground the mineral, and mixed it with water, and it created different colored paint, which the kids could then use to paint a picture. At another station, where one of the minerals formed in certain geometri crystal looking shapes, they had pieces of paper with the geometic shapes of the minerals drawn on them, the kids could then color them, cut them out and tape them together into the shape of the mineral. Another exhibit, had the mineral magnetite. And the kids got to use a magnet, and see which one of the minerals stuck to the magnet, and was thus magnitite. Here is Kyle's finished mineral collection.

We really had a great time! I would strongly suggest the Desert Museum, if your kiddos aren't babies any more, and if it isn't summer, because everything it outside, and there is some hiking.

It was a good week! I feel accomplished, and I think it really helped to have my goals visible to me on a daily basis, so I could keep track of the stuff I wanted to get done. This week I really want to organize my photos on my computer. I have a million files, with alot of duplicates, and some are labeled by date, some by theme. Does anyone have any suggestions? Do I seperate them by kid, date, activity? What do you do?

P.S for those who are familar with our ward. Bishop Clark got released today, and Corey Smith was called as the new bishop, with Bro. Allen first counselor, and Bro. Omer, second counseler.