We're still excited about the upcoming Pittsburgh Temple over here.
I posted last week about making an embroidery of the temple design, but I needed to make a new one that was a wee bit easier for our Activity Day girls to attempt.
As it turned out, I am not going to be doing the mid-week activities, because my husband is doing the boys' activities and we can't both be at church at the same time, so as a result, I won't be doing this particular craft with the girls, but maybe someone reading this will want to!
1. Print out a photo of the temple in the size of your choice.
2. Tape to a window and trace the outline (using a pencil) onto muslin. (For this one, instead of doing a complete sketch of the details, I just did the outline of the temple.)
3. Back the muslin with thin quilt batting and place in an embroidery frame.
This is the place where the future Pittsburgh Temple will be built.
And this Facebook page is the place where updates will be posted on construction and open house happenings: https://www.facebook.com/pittsburghpatemplenews/
The season is on the verge of changing. Can you feel it? Here in Pennsylvania, we have been in a month-long (or more) cycle of 3-4 inches of snow followed by a deep freeze about every few days, but this week it's warming up, finally, and energizing everyone.
My children (the older ones at least) have returned to in-person learning four days a week now. And I feel this season of being T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R 24/7 slipping away as quickly and quietly as it arrived. In some ways it is a relief. My son definitely needed to go back to school. In other ways, it feels a bit wistful.
Who just comes in to your life, turns everything upside-down, sits on your couch day and night with the presence of an elephant and then just leaves without saying a word?
Oh, the Pandemic will be with us for a while yet, I'm sure, but still something tells me the winds are changing. The children are leaving again and going back to their semi-normal routines. They need to go, but I will miss them.
This was supposed to be a "my favorite things" post, but I guess my children are my favorite things. And my favorite things about the quarantine time we've had together are that time stopped for a while. We had endless hours to play games together, do puzzles, listen to music together, watch movies, tickle each other, snuggle the little ones, eat all the food with no accountability whatsoever, go for walks together, laugh about life together, give talks and take the sacrament together. Of all of the things we supposedly missed during the last year, very little of what matters was missed.
And for that I am grateful.
It's funny how I could have written a very different post about the year that has passed, but while my heart filled up while looking at the good, my mind had no space left to dwell on the bad. What interesting lessons we learn...and God is the perfect teacher.
As I've mentioned, we're working our way through the Family Proclamation this month, and this week we are focusing on temples.
The Family Proclamation says, "Sacred covenants and ordinances available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally."
As I planned out our study of the Family Proclamation, I felt inspired to create a "temple experience" for my kids in our home. I hoped this would be more of a sacred learning experience for them, and I'm so pleased that it worked out well.
I unfortunately didn't stop to take very many pictures of it, so I'll just try to describe it.
Using dining room chairs, we set our living room up sort of like an endowment room--with chairs in rows for us to sit in, facing our wall-mounted TV screen.
As each child went into Dad's office for a "temple recommend" interview, the others sat in the rows of chairs and watched a slideshow that I made of pictures of our family visiting various temples There was soft hymns playing during the slideshow, and it created a nice, calm mood.
Each family member (who participated) came out of Dad's office holding an index card that both Steve and the child had signed. The little kids, Honor in particular, seemed really pleased to get their faux-recommend.
We then had each child present their recommend to me, and I welcomed them to the "temple".
The Rome temple is so beautiful! I can tell that it touched my 4-year old Vall, and it brought a wonderful spirit to our home. At one point, Val turned to me and asked if Jesus ever went there, and he kept referring to the magnificent chandeliers as "icicles"!
When the video ended, we discussed what we saw, how we felt, what we learned, and fielded questions. We talked about how everyone dresses the same in the temple and how that promotes unity. I thought it was neat that they point out that every bride gets to dress in the same beautiful bride's room. No matter your worldly status, all are equal in the temple.
We then showed one more video. This one explains and shows the temple ceremonial clothing and the temple garments worn by adult members of the church who have made sacred covenants in the temple.
I like how at the beginning of the video they mention the sacred clothing worn by religions the world over. Our sacred clothing is simply worn privately, under our clothing, but serves a similar purpose, to remind us of the promises we've made with God.
Recently, we've been taught (see Elder Bednar's talk here) that we need to teach our children more about the temple in our home. These videos really make it easier for us to know how to appropriately share what we know and love about the temple and about making and keeping sacred covenants. In the home and in the family is a beautiful setting for these discussions.
One question that was asked was what happens if someone is upset that they can't enter the temple (except during the open house)? We talked about how the Lord allows each of us to learn and grow at our own pace. We are expected to keep God's commandments before we enter his holy places and make sacred covenants. If we enter before we're ready it really wouldn't help us at all, because we wouldn't appreciate it or hold it sacred.
To end the night, we answered a few more questions about the ceremonial clothing. Scarlett said that our discussion made her more excited to go to the temple.
We talked with Autumn about her relationship with the temple. Autumn became eligible to attend the temple over a year ago, but because of the pandemic, still hasn't gone! What is neat about her story is that when it was time for her temple recommend interview back in January 2020, she showed great seriousness in preparing herself for the interview by studying President Nelson's General Conference talk where he shares just what those interview questions are. We know that more than going to the temple, our willingness to be worthy to attend the temple is what matters most to the Lord. The change in who we are is the goal, not just the act of attending His temples. I expect that when Autumn finally is able to attend the temple herself, it will be a very special experience.
To end our special night together, I reminded our family that Jesus Christ is the center of everything we do and learn in the temple.
In the temple, we learn that Christ's Atonement is the central act of all earth life and all eternity. It is the purpose of everything and brings purpose to all that we do. It brings light and hope to our lives. I also reminded then that if they ever find themselves in a position where they can't enter the temple, because of their own choices or if life just starts to get really hard, Jesus Christ is the way back to the temple. He is the way to overcome sin. He is the way to overcome every problem. Jesus Christ is the way back to our heavenly home.
It was just a wonderful experience to help our children understand the temple more. And in a time when we cannot enter the temple, for one evening, the temple entered our home.
For anyone who might not have a father in the home full-time, I encourage Mothers to conduct the temple recommend interviews. To my friend who was worried that her rowdy boys couldn't sit still, I encouraged her to take each boy aside starting with the oldest to do this activity one on one. There is definitely room to adjust this to our different family dynamics and make it work for us!
I can't say enough good stuff about the Church's Friend to Friend event that was broadcast on Saturday!
They did such a nice job of making it something they could participate in and feel a part of.
I blogged the other day about the rock creations that we made after being shown how in the broadcast.
Here are the drawings that my kids did during the show of a child praying:
As I mentioned before, now that my children have had a taste of Primary again, they realize how much they've missed it and they want more!
This week we had to stay home from church, and after doing the rock creations they wanted to do Primary all morning! So, we drew to keep the party going.
Our Primary Pictionary looked like this: There's a clown in every bunch (especially a bunch of 3-4 year olds who have never really attended Primary in their lives!) Good times.
We all enjoyed the first Friend to Friend broadcast event yesterday! If you haven't seen it yet, you can watch it at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFrBfJKng_Y
One of the things that really sparked my children's interest was when they showed us how to make their favorite scripture stories using rocks!
This Sunday, my kids wanted to give it a try. We didn't have many rocks and it's like 2 degrees outside, so they pulled out the shells that they collected in Cape Cod this fall...and they worked great!
Here are their creations. They thought of these stories by themselves.
The photo above is Val's creation. He said that it's "Jesus healing me."
Honor (age 8) made this one of Heavenly Father with children around him in the pre-existence.
This is Val (age 4) and his rendition of Nephi in his boat.
Coy (age 3) made this angel.
Honor made the creation above. It's the Brother of Jared and Christ touching the stones to make them glow.
Honor's Noah's ark.
Honor's depiction of Eve partaking of the fruit. The snake is in Honor's hand.
Now that the pump has been primed my kids was Primary back...and they want it with a vengeance! Ha! I love how the church empowers our kids to seek after their spiritual growth, even in a pandemic! And it touched my heart that they came up with this method...using rocks...something that basically any child around the world can find and use.
Continuing our "series" studying the Family Proclamation, we did a fun activity at FHE exploring this section of the Proclamation:
1. "In the
premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their
Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a
physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and
ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life."
For this activity, I quickly placed 5 different items for my family to taste in separate bowls. I used cocoa, baking soda, granulated sugar, garlic powder, and cupcake sprinkles.
Each person was either blind-folded or just closed their eyes, and we took turns tasting the items in the bowls.
We wrote down our guesses and shared them with each other after everyone had a chance to taste what was in all of the bowls.
We then took some time to discuss the activity and how it might relate to the quote above.
I asked them to try to describe how each item tasted to someone who might have never tasted anything before. We agreed that it would be next to impossible to make someone understand what the various tastes were like if they didn't ever have the opportunity to taste for themselves. And this is why God mercifully lets his children come to earth and gain experiences in mortal bodies. It's the only way to understand the world and His plan for us. It's the only way to become like him. God himself came to earth to gain a body, and that is why he understands completely what it means to feel pain, what it means to feel temptation. That is why He can so completely and authentically come to our aid.
I reminded Guy of the time that he had to get a painful but minor surgery on his toe. It was excruciating. Surely, before the procedure, he wouldn't have had nearly the same degree of compassion for another person in pain as he has now after that experience.
In fact, we learned from his doctor that while in podiatry school, he and his fellow students were required to practice giving the numbing shot to one another (which is the most painful part) so that the doctors would know the pain felt by their patients.
We wrapped up the evening with another game that I had prepared ahead of time.
I threw about 15 different household items in a bag--things like a pencil, scissors, a small toy, etc.
We each took turns feeling the items in the bag with our hands and writing down our guesses as to what was in the bag. It was a fun and easy evening together talking about this part of The Family Proclamation.
Tonight is Scarlett's first church dance. It's more like a tri-stake virtual dance instruction, but in the age of COVID, I commend the leaders for getting the kids together safely.
It was so cute that Val wanted to give her a kiss before she left. She has quite the fan club here at home, because of how sweetly she treats her little brothers.
And it's funny to hear her encouraging her insecure older brother to go to the dance as well as helping him find clothes to wear.
She is a true Cinderella, and I hope she has an amazing time at the "ball"!
This has been a fun year of dipping our toes into the world of homeschooling, and right now we're gathering Honor's favorite pieces for the evaluator to look at in the next week or so. So, I figured I'd post some of them here for us to enjoy and remember our awesome year of learning together.
One of her favorite courses of study in History was ancient Egypt, but the middle-ages were not far behind.
She was fascinated by the queens of Egypt, and she loved learning about the feudal system in Europe. We were able to visit the Cleveland Museum of Art's amazing collection of medieval armor as well as their Egyptian art collection on a field trip with her grandpa one day.
Honor liked Egypt so much that she dressed as Cleopatra for Halloween and had an Egyptian-themed 8th birthday party!
We loved visiting the Phipps Conservatory during the last year and it's nearby neighbor this beautiful statue of Christopher Columbus, which was subsequently removed after much vandalism. (It was created by a Pittsburgh artist.)
We did some fun science experiments (like this pumpkin volcano) and did some tree identification in the fall. We enjoyed such a beautiful weather!
Perfect weather, just right for digging in the pit near our house...from which she returned quite muddy!
Some of the most enjoyable moments were unplanned...
Like when we realized they were flushing the fire hydrants on our street, and since we didn't have to rush off to school, we could play in the stream of water it created.
Or when Honor took to creating anything she could think of out of cardboard and scraps...like this camera that she toted around for a week or so taking pictures of all of her friends!
Piano lessons and trips to farms during the fall to pick sunflowers and apples together as a family.
We truly had an amazing year! And it's interesting to look back at these pictures now and see how much she has grown in so short a time.
We had a great adventure learning about the American Revolution. I love this drawing she did of George Washington. We watched lots of "Liberty's Kids" in the car, and the boys now march around with pop guns talking about being "Americans". This also lead to our amazing family trip in October to tour the Boston Freedom Trail, Plymouth, and Cape Cod. And unforgettable trip!
Our Christmas & Holidays Around the World unit connected us to friends from different countries and taught us a lot about different cultures and people...and was a fun way to celebrate during December.
We learned about the human body, and now we're learning about minerals and how to write in cursive. The learning continues. And while the verdict is still out as to whether she'll continue to homeschool next year, we've certainly enjoyed our year together this year!
