The highly anticipated Lego Set

Have I mentioned that my kids are Doctor Who fans? Henry has been talking and talking about the Doctor Who lego set for months. It came out in January, but he has known about it for months and months. He was very disappointed it came out after Christmas but since we had a "NO LEGO CHRISTMAS" this year it wouldn't have showed up under the tree anyway. 

 Last night I surprised him with the set. He had been very upset. He found out his best friend is moving in a month. He was very upset and I felt like he needed some cheering up. The Doctor Who Lego set had been in my closet for a few weeks waiting for the right moment to come out. I was going to save it for Easter or some other special day but felt like the right time to bring this one out.  It was already 9:00 at night but he got right to work building.

 Molly just liked to play with the mini figures. She kept changing up the parts and making The Doctor have the Weeping Angels wings and hair or have Clara have one of the Doctor's hair.

 Ian was busy building Daleks.

 Henry was very meticulous about following the directions. He didn't want anything built wrong.

 Oh look the TARDIS!

 It opens up!

 And it connects to the TARDIS console.

This is a great LEGO set and my kids are thrilled with it. 

Henry said "This has been the best and the worst day".  He is still upset about his friend moving nothing will make that blow hurt less but he is happy to finally have the Lego set he has been dreaming and talking about for ages.

Our Last Blue and Gold cake

Henry is a Webelo cub scout this year so we made yet another cake for the annual Blue and Gold banquet. The theme for the evening was "One in a Minion" but Henry decided his cake needed to be a Kirby cake.

 Our Yellow frosting ended up looking more yellow orange but Henry liked that. He was very particular about the pink that he needed for Kirby.

 Kirby ended up looking rather cute! Henry is a great cake decorator.

 Here is my well decorated cub scout! He received two more pins that night. He is getting close to having his Webelos rank done and is already well on the way to finishing his Arrow of Light. It is nice being his Webelos Den Leader. Fun to get to hang out with these silly 10 year old boys.

 Part of the fun of the Blue and Gold is seeing what the scouts bring for dessert. Each scout brings a cake.

 There were many Minion themed cakes.

 And a bunch of Blue and Gold themed cakes.

So by the end of Summer Henry will leave Cub Scouts and head into the world of Boy Scouts. We won't have a Cub in the house anymore. This could be the last Blue and Gold Banquet we attend. 

Fancy Dance

 The Young Men and Young Woman in our ward held a "Fancy Dance" on Feb. 13th. It was used as a fund raiser for activities they want to do. Since we have two kids now attending these activities we felt like we had to show up and participate.  The youth did a great job decorating the gym and even picked some fun music for us old folks to dance to. How often do we get to go dancing? It has been many years! I think most of the adults in the ward were a bit skeptical. Many of us aren't all that excited to dance like we did back in our younger days. But I think most everyone that attended enjoyed the evening more than anticipated. There was a lot of sitting around the tables chatting but there was also quite a bit of dancing.

The youth sold tickets to the dance and then also had an auction of baked goods. It was a fun evening and the youth ended up with enough to have a great youth conference this Summer.

The young woman who took the pictures was trying to be creative by taking them all at an angle I guess.  

I think the youth are talking about doing this again next year. It went well this year! 

Personal Progress - Divine Nature #7

 Today Sophie was very excited to tell her Young Womans leader that she finished her Choice and Accountability project.  She then ran up to me after our church meetings to show me her new ribbon which they gave her during the Young Woman's opening exercises. She now has 5 of the values completed and only 3 more to complete. She is well on her way to attaining her Medallion.

I have been slowly working though the Personal Progress program also but am not nearly as far along and haven't claimed any ribbons even for the values I have finished.   I have only finished 3 of the values and need to get to work so that Sophie won't leave me too far behind.

Since January we have had early morning church. 9:00 a.m. church is my favorite time slot to have church scheduled. Having our meetings in the morning means we get up and head to church and are home in time for lunch and a "restful" afternoon.  I have have been using my afternoons the last few months to work on one of the value experiences each week. I had posted my experiences here on my blog in the past but have not been good about doing much of any blogging in awhile. I am hoping to do better and return to posting my thoughts here when it says to "write in your journal."

So today I picked an experience from the Value Divine Nature.  Our lesson today in Relief Society was about Peace and the Peace that comes from the Savoir. So when I went in search of today's experience to work on this one jumped out.

It asked me to find a definition for the word Peacemaker.
This isn't one of the words in the Bible dictionary so I had to look in the Topical Guide. "Peacemaker" just sent me to "Peace" and that gave me "see also Comfort, Contentment, Order, Peace of God, Silence". Those are pretty good words that describe peace. Peace is where we feel comfortable and are content with life. We usually feel more at peace when there is order and silence.  A Peacemaker would be a person who is able to promote those things. Someone is is already peaceful and can then cultivate it in others.

I have grown to really love the Proverbs. "when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him (Prov. 16 : 7)." So when a person is already living a life that pleases the Lord they will treat others even those that are difficult to get along with in such a way that there is still peace.

In Romans 14: 19 "Let us therefore follow after things which make for peace and things where with one may edify another."  A peacemaker then is a person who wants good things for others. Is not looking for ways they have been wronged (which is what causes a lot of unrest at our house).  This means peacemaking is an unselfish act. It is someone we should be because it helps others (we get benifits too of course!)

Moroni tells us in 7: 3-4 that the Peaceable followers of Christ...have obtained hope that they may enter into the rest of the Lord and Peaceably walk with the children of men. Again peacemakers are those who already know and follow Jesus Christ. When they live the gospel they can be at peace with all those around them.

Psalm 34 lists a whole bunch of attributes of those that follow Christ:  His praise continually in my mouth, humble, delivered from fears, lightened, not ashamed, saved from troubles, angels protect, trusteth, not want, desireth life, loveth, keep tongue from evil, lips speak no gile, pursue peace.

In Mosiah, King Benjamin tells the people that when they follow Christ they "will not have a mind to injure one another but to live peaceably and to render to every man according to his due."

So in order to be a peacemaker we need to follow Christ and not be so self focused. Our hearts should be looking outward. We will see others as not as foes or rivals but as fellow followers. We will be encouraging and not quick to jump to attack others or even defend ourselves. I personally see peacemakers as people who are very patient.  Patient with the frailties of others around them.

I have to remind my kids often that "they didn't mean to do" ________. When seeking or pursuing peace we don't quickly assume people are trying to offend. The "golden rule" really does work. If we treat others with love and kindness it does come back to us. They will be nice back to us and there is Peace.

So what do I need to do better to be a Peacemaker in my home? Too many things to list here.  But for the next two weeks (that is the time frame this Value experience asks of me) I am going to focus on not raising my voice and responding, even to ugly attitudes, with a calm bearing.  This is a challenge! My house seems to be filled with kids who are always finding ways to annoy and then retaliate when their sibling gets upset. I end up jumping in to resolve disputes and all too often end up raising my voice to get their yelling to stop. Less effective, I know!

I shall be trying to be a better peacemaker rather than just a referee.

Physical Education

I have wanted my kids to take a PE class for some time but they always seemed to be scheduled at the same time we had other classes. But starting in January they changed the day of the week to a day and time we could attend. I quickly signed all four kids up for the class.

The class is done at a local park. Each month they are going to learn and play a different sport or game. January's sport was Basketball and February is Dodgeball.  My kids were a little skeptical about the class at first.

There are quite a few younger kids in the class but out of the 20 or so kids in the class there is another 14 year old girl that attends and that made Sophie happy. Ian was a little sad that he is the oldest boy. Henry is just happy to be out doing something. Molly is happy to be included in something. She is almost always too small or too young to do most things.

I am happy that they are getting to play some of the sports I remember learning and playing for p.e. or at recess when I went to school.

In addition to this new class which the kids have enjoyed the past few weeks, I signed Sophie up for a Fitness class through Williamsburg Academy.  Originally I thought it would count as the Health class the Charter school we belong to required for High School. But it is more of a P.E. class so they won't count it. But Sophie is doing it anyway and it has been good for all of us. It is a self paced class but each week she has to complete and report on an assigned activity.  I had had all of us do these weekly assigned activities. Henry loves this! He can never get enough outdoors, active activities. Ian is a bit more work but if I do it too then he is happy to also do it. Molly is just happy go lucky and goes with the flow of whatever we drag her to do. We mapped out a mile course near our house and we have had to run/walk that mile course three times this week trying to get it faster each time. None of us being runners we are not very fast and walk most of it but still can make it the mile in about 10 min, even Molly! but sometimes she is allowed to go on her scooter. Henry did it once on his roller blades just for a change of pace.

All this exercise made Henry decide he needed to go to park to play Tennis one afternoon.

 They do little more than hit the balls back and forth. They don't play a game and rarely get a volley. I asked Henry if he was tired of just chasing the ball. He said "yeah but it is a good tired". He just really loves to be out running around.

 Molly was the official ball retriever. She had her scooter out so she could zip around the courts and pick up the stray balls. She would then toss them to the boys so they could continue to try to hit balls to each other.

Oh and the boys are both playing basketball with the Boys and Girls club. A season at the B & G club is way cheeper than a season at the local rec. club.  They boys were on different teams which meant we were having to juggle two practices during the week and  two games every Saturday for the last few months.

 I kinda talked the boys into playing. Neither one was overly thrilled about doing it. They had never played basketball before. But I thought it would be good for them to at least play that game and know the rules.

 Ian attended 11 year old scouts last year and when they were done doing what ever scouts do they would often go shoot hoops in the gym. Ian would come and sit in the foyer with me while we waited for Sophie's activity to finish. He didn't know how to play hoops so wasn't comfortable hanging around in the gym with the bigger boys. My thought was that after a season of playing basketball he would be more likely to join in with the others after mutual activities.

Sophie is thinking of playing basketball again this spring. It would start in a few weeks. Which means our basketball schedule won't be much different even when the boy's season ends next week.

All this Physical activity is good for us. We are not the most athletic family. We are not going to win any awards and be any sort of "all stars" but getting away from screens and out of the house doing something active has been really good for us!

Sorry all these pictures in this post are so horrible. I really need to remember to bring the actual camera. I end up using my phone to snap quick pictures. It documents the event but it really doesn't do a great job!