Loving the Kitty!

My kids are having so much fun with their new pet.

 She likes to cuddle at times but mostly likes to play. The boys figured out that she loves to play with Nerf gun bullets. She tosses, chases and pounces on them.

Sophie also made a feather on a string toy that Peezy likes to chase around and jump for. She is a playful little kitten.

Molly is still figuring out how to hold and carry Peezy. One morning she came running in with blood on her face saying that the cat scratched her. I guess she will learn quickly how to take care of the kitty.

We had a little scare yesterday. The kids were outside jumping on the trampoline and kept coming in and out of the house for different things. I went upstairs to make a phone call and when I came down about 15 minutes later I saw the door wide open and no kids out on the tramp and no kitty in sight.  I went upstairs and found the kids in their rooms doing different things but no cat. We made a quick search of the house and couldn't find the cat. We assumed the worst and thought Peezy's curiousity took her out into the yard. We couldn't see her anywhere. Sophie was in tears and there was great weeping and wailing coming from all as we thought our kitty of a few days was now gone.  

Luckily after a prayer, a lot of calming down, and another more thorough search of the house we found her snuggled up in my bedroom. She must have followed me in when I went to make my phone call. Thank goodness for that! I hope the kids have learned their lesson and will be more dilligent about keeping the door closed in the future.

Gingerbread

The kids wanted to make Gingerbread Houses. I made a batch of gingerbread and told them they could make one house. We cut out the pieces, made some frosting and glued them together.

 There was plenty of fun candies to add to the house.

 Everyone had ideas of how to use the differnt candies. I don't know if many gummy bears actually made it onto the house. The kids particularly loved those!

 Here is the finished product.

It lasted just long enough for their Dad to see it when he came home from work. Then the kids (with help from me) picked off all the candies. Dark Chocolate M&M's are really good! Once the candies were gone the house looked rather forlorn and then fell down. It made its way to the garbage bin. The gingerbread was too hard to eat. It had been sitting around for 3 days before we finally got around to making the house.  Hopefully that fulfilled the desire for a gingerbread house this year.

A new member of the family.

For years and years Sophie has wanted a pet. She LOVES cats and has been dreaming of having one for as long as I can remember. We used to tell her that we couldn't have a cat because our landlord doesn't allow cats. We made the promise that "when we had a house of our own we would be able to have a pet. So now we have a house, Sophie decided it was time to get a cat. We went to an animal rescue and picked out a kitten. Sophie was so excited to bring that kitten home.

She certainly gets lots of attention. She is such a novelty in our house that everyone watches her every move and Molly can't leave the poor kitty alone.

I tried to tell them that she would be happier to cuddle with them if they just lay still on the couch or something. Sure enough, once they settled in for a movie the cat jumped up on the couch and cuddled in to Henry.

 It is a good thing she is a playful kitty.  The kids really liked playing games with her.

It will be interesting to see how things settle in with a cat in the house. She seems to like to be where the people are and doesn't hide (unless she has just had enough of Molly's love). That could be a distraction but hopefully once the novelty of having a cat wears off she won't be quite so much of a distraction.

So another early Christmas gift arrived early! Sophie's dream came true. We have a pet!

Impromptu

Can you tell where this picture was taken? 

Maybe this is a better shot.

 We happened to be "in town" last week and had an hour or so of free time so we called some friends and meet up at the Mystery House. We didn't actually take a tour (can you believe they wanted over $30 a person to go through the house? I think it was only $13 the last time I went through 13 years ago.) but they let us walk around the gardens. The shorts and t-shirts can tell you what kind of a day we were having in California for Thanksgiving. It was a fun way to while away an hour with friends.

Agency - Choice & Accountablility #3

I was recently given the opportunity to teach Sunday School to the 12-13 year olds at church. The lessons for the month of November were about Spiritual and Temporal self-reliance.  I got to teach lessons about finding answers to questions, making choices, and setting goals. As the teacher, I had to prepare to teach by reading the suggested scriptures and read or listen to the conference talks. It is true that the teacher always learns the most.  It has been great to review the topic of agency with my class and see how they get to apply it in their young lives.

I have also been struggling to teach Molly to be accountable and to choose to obey. She is only 4 but she can learn that their are consequences to her choices.  She loves to throw tantrums at the store when she wants something and doesn't want to hear me say "no" or "wait".  She is learning, hopefully, that when she acts calmly and accepts my answers to her requests she will be better off than when she demands something and then throws a tantrum when it doesn't go her way.  We end up walking out of stores to go sit in the car, quite often, until she can be calm and we can return to our errand. This is quite an uphill battle with Molly.

It is true that we have agency. We can behave in what ever way we wish. We just don't get to choose the consequences.  It is a blessing to be able to make choices. It was Satan's plan to force us to obey. We wouldn't have been able to make decisions on our own and therefore would never have learned what is right because we were never allowed to choose and see what came of those desisions. Agency is what allows us to grow and progress.  By having the freedom to make our own choices we control our own destiny or our own outcome.  Sure life isn't smooth sailing even for those that seem to do everything right. By having agency, even when there are struggles and difficulties in our lives, we get to make choices, we get to pick how we will react and proceed. It is all part of why we are here. We are being taught and tested to see if we can follow God even when there are many choices before us.

I love the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 82:10. I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say you have no promise. When I am obiedient and follow the laws given to us from the Lord then I get the promised blessings. I will have the spirit in my life to guide me, comfort me, and teach me. I will be happier when I choose good because I will be surrounded by virtuous, lovely and honorable people and things.  I will be able to avoid a lot of hardships by making good choices

I look at the faces of my Sunday school class. They look so young and yet they have so many important decisions ahead of them. So many choices they make everyday, even at so young an age, will affect the direction their life goes in future. I am really enjoying my new calling as Sunday School teacher. I love the new Come Follow Me program. I am only acquainted with the Sunday School portion and have only this one month of experience with it but I can already see that it is very inspired and needed. The young people today are faced with so many more temptations than I remember dealing with at their age. Maybe I lived a sheltered life in a small town but it just seems more important to teach and guide them to make good choices than ever before. We live in a world where everyone whats the good life and to what ever they want but don't want to accept the repsonsibility of those choices.  It is important to understand the concept of Agency and to realize that we are accountable for our choices.

Christmas Came Early

Doesn't the boxes and wrappings remind you of Christmas morning?  Well, Christmas came a little early for our kids this year. 

I ordered the kids Christmas gift two days ago. It was supposed to take two weeks to come. But three large boxes were delivered yesterday so of course we couldn't wait to open them up and dig out what was inside.

For two hours we worked on our project and now the kids have a trampoline. They wanted a rectangle shaped tramp not a round one. Evidently rectangle ones give you a better bounce.

 There is room enough for flips.  That was why Henry really wanted a trampoline. He needed to practice his gymnastic stunts.

I see hours of backyard fun ahead! 

But now what are they going to open on Christmas morning?

The Tech Museum

My kids are always asking me when I would take them to the Tech Museum again. We had a family membership years ago, before Molly was born and went a few times during that year. So my kids were really excited when I told them our co-op would be going as one of our field trips. 

 There were quite a few new exhibits and many of the same ones. Even though the kids haven't been for years they could tell me exactly which things were new and which things had only been moved around.

 The other kids wandered around the museum with their friends doing the different activities. I hung out with Molly. She especially enjoyed and stayed at the spots where she was able to move things around or make something happen just by touching it.

 Every once in awhile I would run into Sophie and her friends while following Molly around.

 The boys really enjoyed the space exhibit where they got to move the jet pack and try to lazer the lights.

 I think I watched Molly ride the Earthquake simulator at least 20 times. Somehow I never did take a picture of her on there. That was her favorite spot in the museum. 

It was a fun field trip. My feet were so tired by the end of the 3 hours we spent here. We are still heading into the city every Friday because Ian has Lego League and co-op but we will soon be stopping these weekly trips. We certainly have loved our homeschool co-op and will have to try to find a new one a little nearer to our new home.