Primary scriptures

I am so excited. After waiting over a year for this, part 2 of the Primary Scriptures set has finally arrived! Produced by some amazing people in the US, this new child friendly Book of Mormon set was released in line with Come Follow Me in 2020, but being that the 2nd book was taking so long, they moved ahead with part 3 first, to make sure it was released in time for people to use as they studied Come Follow Me. 

As it has with so many other things, the covid-19 pandemic delays interfered with production and printing amongst other things and it was delayed again and again until it finally arrived in the US at the beginning of this year and was imported to Australia by an LDS store in QLD earlier this month. My friend and I were very very excited as the two of us have been waiting to complete our collection this entire time and they are finally here! I can't wait to get the kids reading them! ❤

primary sports carnival

ever since covid hit and shut everything down we've struggled to be able to organise primary activities for our kids. we were called as a new primary presidency the week before church was closed down, butttt now that we are able to have church again we organised an activity to get our kids together... outside! we decided on a sports carnival so that we could be outside and appropriately "social distance" whilst doing so.

we had a bunch of kids turn up and had an awesome cheer squad of family members!

first up, we divided the kids into 3 tribes, the nephites (in yellow), the lamanites (in red) and the jaredites (blue) and handed out headbands for them to wear.

 then, we ran age group races on the grass strip by our chapel...

before coming back for team games, which were all modified to suit our day-

-egg and spoon races (with giant spoons and plastic counting eggs)

-flag race (run to each one of the cones and tap as you pass)

-three legged race

-hula hoop circle

-bean bag throw

we kept track of each of the winners throughout the day and allocated points to each of the teams for the individual and team events, to allow us to come to the final winner scores:

nephites in 1st place

lamanites in 2nd place

and jaredites in 3rd pace

we had bishop award the winning tribe with prizes and had our activity days leaders award our choices for the champion girl and boy for the day, we'd been to kmart and picked out a pile of things for them to choose from and they loved it!

we ended the day with a bbq, juice boxes and cupcakes, before racing to pack everything up because the rain was coming in... it was a great day and i'm hoping we manage to sort another one soon!

our little primary carnival gang. ❤

 

christmas sunday

i love christmas sunday. i love that the entire meeting is focused on the birth of the saviour - because that is what christmas is all about. we combined with the other ward that meets at our chapel for today and it was full of beautiful words and hymns. 

the best part was being asked to conduct the final hymn, which was a beautifully full arrangement, played as a duet between two pianos of:

Joy to the world

Joy to the world, the Lord is come;

Let earth receive her King!

Let ev’ry heart prepare him room,

And Saints and angels sing,

And Saints and angels sing,

And Saints, and Saints and angels sing.

Rejoice! Rejoice when Jesus reigns,

And Saints their songs employ,

While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

No more will sin and sorrow grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He’ll come and make the blessings flow

Far as the curse was found,

Far as the curse was found,

Far as, far as the curse was found.

Rejoice! Rejoice in the Most High,

While Israel spreads abroad

Like stars that glitter in the sky,

And ever worship God,

And ever worship God,

And ever, and ever worship God.

it was sung with so much emotion and it was amazing to be a part of it. i am so grateful to know that the saviour came into the world all those years ago. we are so blessed to know of the truth and be able to be here today to celebrate his birth.

selfie sunday

i realised last week that we don't really have any full family photos since alex was born. really this has happened because i am the one who normally takes them, so i'm rarely in them. but today i am. selfie! i love this so much. a pic of our little squad all together and smiling, loving life and each other. i love my little family, seriously so blessed. ♥

sundays with three kids...

sundays are a little harder now, with three kids in tow, including one super cute newborn. maddie is amazing and super helpful. but sometimes baby is unsettled and that makes things a little harder. today i think i spent most of the day in the mothers room... but i was there and that's what matters the most - that i am doing the best i can. 

plus, church outfits make for wonderful photo opportunities! one of the huge reasons i especially love sundays... how cute are these kids? this is the first one i have of all of them in their church clothes and i am well and truly dying at the cuteness. ♥ baby alex was adorable today in little overalls that used to belong to joseph, along with his first bow tie, which happened to be josephs too! i'm well and truly getting good use out of his clothes this time around.

seriously? who couldn't love this little face! 

i think i can safely say we are all a little obsessed with baby alex.

happy sunday! ♥

matchy match! (34 weeks )

here we are... 6 weeks to go and still feeling good. madeline got dressed for church this morning and insisted she was wearing her "skirt that matches your dress mum" and that i needed to wear mine too. i happily obliged and it absolutely made her day... i just wish it was that easy to make her happy all the time!!

maddie is going to be such a good big sister... she is super excited about her baby brother arriving soon and i know she will help so much. maybe this having a 7 year old and a baby thing won't be so bad after all! fingers crossed!

cousins in primary

church in northam is so much fun, especially when it's just you and your cousins! madeline and joseph had a ball with jonas and felix this morning.

madeline was her bossy little self, but the boys seem to be okay with it and just go along with whatever she says. it's so funny to watch them.

i only wish they could stay longer!

jesus wants me for a sunbeam

this year is going to be one with a lot of firsts... joseph is off to kindy this year at the end of this month - and yesterday was his first day of big kid primary. he is officially done with nursery and proudly went off to wait outside primary with his little bestie kaiden.

i was lucky enough to get this snap to file away as well, by going into their sunbeam class... none of us mums have any plans to relocate any time soon, so hopefully we can show our kids this photo in 10 years time and have a laugh about it. way too cute! ♥

another baby mcilwaine blessing

my beautiful friend alexandra and her husband mike blessed baby number 3 today. what a joy it is to have close friends in the gospel and to share things like this with them

baby michael william (the third) arrived just two weeks ago and he is such a cutie! fits in perfectly to their little family... all so genetically blessed. it's so easy to take photos of them.

proud big sisters myra and evie

and three generations of michael williams in one shot. ♥

alex and her baby boy

so blessed to have this girl in my life!

looking just as young and in love as they did when they got married. i love you guys! ♥

sundays and cheesecake

it was our turn to clean the chapel yesterday... and afterwards i was so proud of our efforts, that i had to take this quick snap of the building while the trees were looking so pretty.

and today, as per usual my kids were looking so damn cute, that i had to get the camera out again... like i need an excuse though. haha. church with kids is always an adventure...

we had friends over for dinner after church and i wanted to make something nice for dessert, so i tried this cheesecake recipe that i've had for ages, but never made!

lemon jelly cheesecake (but this version is mango lemon haha)

100g digestive biscuit crumbs (you could use any plain biscuits - i did)
50g melted butter
1 box lemon jelly (i used mango jelly, hence the mango lemon)
200ml boiling water
1 small lemon (rind and juice)
300g cream cheese (softened)
150ml whipping cream

stir biscuit crumbs into melted butter and press into base of a 20cm spring form tin. refrigerate until needed. dissolve jelly into boiling water, add the lemon rind and juice and cool to the point of setting. whisk jelly into the cream cheese. whip cream until it just holds its shape and fold into the cream cheese mixture. pour over the crumb base and chill for 3 hours minimum until set. can be decorated with fruit to serve.

it was delicious! and as an added bonus, i had everything in the fridge and pantry already. woo! i'll definitely be busting this one out again ♥

easy fhe ideas

family home evening is an evening that we as members of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints set aside to spend as a family. it's a time when we can instruct during a gospel centred lesson, sing a song, have family scripture study, have family prayer and enjoy a game and treat. in theory. let's be honest, it's hard. and it's especially hard to keep the attention of a 3 year old and an almost 6 year old. so i have been desperately trying to think of easy lessons to keep their attention!

our evening normally goes like this:

opening prayer

opening song

(simple primary song, favourites include i am a child of god, jesus wants me for a sunbeam, give said the little stream, follow the prophet, i love to see the temple...)

good news bad news

(we stole this idea from our friends family. you go through the room, from youngest to oldest and say one good thing that happened during the week and one bad thing. it's pretty hilarious!)

lesson

scripture

(from our kids illustrated version of the standard works)

closing song

family prayer

but i have finally been able to think up some good ideas for easy kid friendly lessons, all based on my gospel library pictures. i have them in a plastic box, but you can order them in a spiral bound flip book online here. a very good investment!

simple lesson 1:

the first vision.

i showed madeline and joseph various pictures of joseph smith and asked who is this? i then showed the picture of him reading the bible and read them james 1:5 and told them about he wondered which church he should join and how he asked his heavenly father after reading that passage. next picture the first vision, where i read the first vision and told them about how he saw heavenly father and jesus christ. it was a great little lesson and i actually managed to keep their attention the whole time. win!

simple lesson 2: 

prophets speak to our heavenly father

this one was even easier! i found pictures of prophets throughout time. eg. adam, noah, samuel, nephi, moroni, joseph smith... and ended with thomas s monson. i asked the kids who each one was, and i was well impressed with madeline who knew all except for one or two and joseph who knew a lot of them too! i asked the kids what all of them have in common and we decided it was that they were all prophets. i then told them that each of them speak to heavenly father and that is how we can hear his voice and know what he wants us to do. i also mentioned general conference and that's why we need to listen carefully while the speakers speak! simple, easy, effective. 

simple lesson 3:

the brother of jared needed to light his boats

we told the story of the brother of jared (found in ether 3) and how he needed to light his boats to sail across the sea. we have a fountain in our backyard full of round river stones, so i had my husband go and find some stones of similar sizes and bring them in. i told the children about how sometimes we will take our problems to our heavenly father and he won't necessarily give us the answer... he'll ask us to work it out for ourselves and come back to him, so we need to always think for ourselves! i took the stones to the door of the loungeroom and had my husband reach around the door to touch them so they would glow and then threw some glow sticks in with them! he then stepped out from behind the door so they could see him, the same as the brother of jared had the faith to see the lord. bonus points for family participation haha.

these are just three easy ideas i've come up with the last few weeks... there has to be hundreds! but fhe with kids will never be easy, just hang in there! ♥

primary presentation 2016

another year, another primary presentation - and we are so proud of our girl who got up there today brave as anything, said her part and sang smiling away. a lovely change from the girl that didn't want to do it at all yesterday! we loved watching her and the other children in our primary as they spoke of their love for the scriptures.

maddie's part was "we really love lehi's wife sariah. she was a loving wife and when heavenly father told them they had to leave their home and travel into the wilderness, she was obedient."

we love our girl ♥

and this monkey too, who decided today was a good time to climb a tree. we have really been blessed with gorgeous children. 

northam branch

sunday found the kids and i gracing northam branch with our presence for the first time in a long time, while daddy was hard at work. i loved watching them sit with their nanna, smiling as grandad blessed the sacrament and taking it all in. i love church with family and i loved being back at my home branch... even more with my kids. they may be small, but they are big in spirit and after all these years, it still feels like home ♥