Quiet Church Bag

Today was possiably the first time EVER that we did not have to take the kids out durring sacrament meeting. It. Was. AMAZING.

About a month ago, we had one of the worst sacrement meetings in a long time, and I had had enough. I looked up ideas for keeping kids quiet at church. I found some good ideas that gave me a great start. I molded it to my family and this is what I have come up with:

The Quiet Church Bag:

We have a bag designated ONLY for the quiet church bag. I have several activities and toys that I rotate each week so it's always new. Each activity is kept in it's own zip lock bag with everything you need to use it. Like coloring books and crayons all in a bag. Each week when I get the Quiet bag ready I just grab a few all inclusive zip lock bags out of the box, and we are good to go.

Up till now, each week I've added something new. Now that I have a good selection I'll add something new about every 3 or 4 weeks. This is what I have so far:
A picture book with pictures of our family, and a couple temples in that one, a board book, the friend, dry erase boards (that are magnetized) magnet numbers, magnet robot parts, kinda like build a robot. Dry erase letter books, to practice writing letters, sewing/lacing shapes with shoe laces for lacing, pipe cleaners (endless possiabilities) cool hot wheels, coloring books and crayons.

To show you the sewing thingIt's a plastic grid that I cut shapes out of. I had to cut the holes a little bigger though so the shoe laces would fit. I had 6 squares so they could make a cube, a circle and a duck shape. I'll be making more of those. They were a big hit. I think I'll do small shapes that can be put together to make something bigger, like a house or a bike or...whatever.

I found this online:
So I printed it on card stalk, cut out the pieces, put a little adhesive magnet on the back and then laminated all of it with clear contact paper. (I did it that way cause I have a Danton that would other wise pull the magnets off the back)Here is what I have learned after a couple weeks. DO NOT let the kids have toys before the sacrament. They are excited about the new toys and they want to see everything at one, and the quiet goes right out the window. Our rule is you can read the friend (or another book) till after the sacrament, THEN we will pull out the toys.

The cool stuff, like the white boards the kids each have their own. And Markers and 2 year olds in white shirts are not a good combo. I found dry erase CRAYONS. They easily mark on clothing, but they also come out just as easy. No worries.

Also, no matter how new or cool the stuff is, if your kid ONLY likes cars, trucks and motorcycles, the other stuff will only interest him SO long before all he wants is a car, truck or motor cycle. So I got some VERY cool hot wheels for Danton that STAY in the box. He gets only one each week but it's a different one.

He does however really REALLY like the picture book with family pictures. Because of that most of the pictures in there are of him. He will look at that one book for 10 or 15 mins. I'm going to do more of those.

Things I will eventually add to the box:
A prophet picture book
A temple picture book (perhaps with the temples aunts and uncles were sealed in along with their pictures)
An extended family picture book, to get to know faces of aunts and uncles and cousins that dont live here.
I spy bag (hopefully I'm doing this with my sister and my cousin so I don't have to come up with as many little things, just several of the same thing to share with them for their bags too)
A magnet bag (same concept as the I spy bag, only with metal things, and a magnet is attached to move the metal things around inside the bag)
Flannel board pictures
Felt make a monster faces (like the robots only out of felt with different facial features to choose from)
magnifying glass
crayola color wonder
Living Scripture activity books. (you can print them ALL for free on their web site. You have to have a member log in, which is free, and then you can down load and print any of their activity books, and they have one for all their movies, and they have mazes and dot to dots and other stuff too. I'll probably coordinate with FHE. If we do a scripture store I'll print up a few pages from that activity book for them to color the next week.
Magnet alphabet letters

Toys will be aloud till they are 5 or 6, then only the Friend till they are 8, and then they need to learn to sit quietly. That was some body else's rule, and I think I'll adopt it.

I hope someone else can benefit from this idea like I did.

Wedding at DC

So at the begining of the month we all headed to Washington DC for Keith and Julie's wedding. We started teh 18 hour drive Wednesday night, and got there Thursday afternoon. All the teenagers and young adults went into DC, I personally couldnt understand how they had the energy to go. Mom and Dad rented a vacation home that we all stayed in, Arissa was the only grandchild it was SO fun. So all us tired old married people stayed at the house and took naps.
Garry and Sheri got in that evening, and I tried to stay up to see Keith, but I didn't make it, I did see him in the morning.

Friday Julie went through the temple. That was so awesome to go through with my siblings, and Julies family. The DC temple is HUGE and absolutely gorgeous inside and out.
After the session both families came to the vacation house and we ordered pizza. It was fun just to sit and visit and get to know the knew inlaws.
I was STILL so tired but the plan was to tour DC that afternoon cause that was pretty much the only time we had. I could have gone to sleep, and I had NO idea how long we were going to be out, and how exhausted I would be at the end of the day.

We walked 1/2 mile to the metro and we had our first experience on the Subway. That was so fun. (but it was also nearly empty) All the guys were trying to stand with their feet in one place and not hold on to anything. It was hilarious to watch, I couldnt join in cause I had Arissa in the moby wrap.

Just after we stepped on the metro
Joseph, Mark, Me/Arissa, Marisa, Sheri, Jenessa, Hyrum, Garry, and Grandma

And the other direction
Sheri, Garry, Phillip, Hyrum, Me and Mark

First we saw the museum of Natural history.


That was cool, but looking back I wish I'd gone to the museum of American history instead, but that's what they did Wednesday. ANYWAY...
Then it was the Nanional Archives. SOOOO AWESOME. Sorry, no pictures. No cameras were aloud in the building.

But we did get some OUTSIDE the building waiting to go in. We were infront of the secrete door!

It was truly amazing to stand and look at the declaration, bill or rights, and constitution in person. They have faded a lot but it still took my breath away. Every American should be able to experience that.

Then we walked FOREVER,
almost everyone wanted to go see the White House on our way to the memorials, I was SOO tired and Arissa was awake and hungry, so Mom and Dad and Lilly stayed with me, while I sat on a bench and fed her. Then (through the convience of everyone having a cell phone) we all met up at the WWII monument.





It is HUGE! With all the war monuments there is such a reverence there. I can't really describe it, but I have a new love and deep respect for every soldier who has serve and does serve this country. ...And the Washington was right behind it... :)


Then Mark and I went to the Vietnam wall. It is simply a wall with the names of the fallen soldiers, but it is increadible how big it was. We tried to read one name on every section as we walked by.




Then we met up with everyone at the Lincoln monument. It was dark by then. 58 steps later we were at the top.

Then you turned around and you could see the washington, soo cool. Just before we headed down the steps Mark stopped us and pointed down. It was too dark to get a picture, but it was Marked where Martin Luther King Jr gave his I have a Dream speach.



I'm in the back, I couldnt jump with the baby, but you can see my leg under Marks as he is jumping....so yes, I AM in this picture :) ...oh look I'm holding up the burp cloth too!
We were SOO tired it was time to head back to the metro, but not with out a few more stops on the way, first the Korean War memorial, This one also has a wall, but it had statues of sodliers on the battle field. AMAZING.

Then one last stop at the washington monument. Both Garry and Mark really wanted to just go up and touch it. We all wanted to go inside but you had to have tickets, and we didn't. So we took some silly pictures.









Then as we were gathering everyone up to head back to the metro someone who was within ear shot of the security guard said they wished we could go up. Long story short, he let us in. !!!!! We were TOTALLY stoked.

See how stoked we are, at the bottom floor in front of the elevator?!?!

And now we are at the TOP!! --so FUN
(but I got a little dizzy when I'd look out the window and then turn around, it didn't feel like we were moving, but we were, it was weird)

Then finally back to the metro. We had a very long wait and a very crouded ride back. No balancing games this time.

Joseph was awesome and met us there with the car. One illegal turn and parking job later all 8 of us were successfully jammed into the car. That was hilarious let me tell you!

After I got home I maped it out, we walked over 6 miles that day

Saturday was the Wedding!!! YAY! YAY! YAY!


(Thank heaven for the GPS, or we would have NEVER found the temple)
I love weddings, so much joy. Keith and Julie were just BEAMING. It was funny, they packed us all in the room, and then realized that we wouldnt all fit, so they had to move the whole wedding party to the biggest room.
Grandpa Adams did the ceremony. I cried...a lot. I'm so grateful I was able to be there.

Since I pretty much relied on my siblings to take pictures and I haven't got copies of Marisa's pictures yet, I dont' have any pictures of the wedding day. :( Julie was beautiful! ...and Keith looked good too. :)

After that it was both families back to the vacation house for lunch, then a very short amount of down time and off to the reception (2 hours away) Mark and I took grandma and grandpa to the air port first, so we were a little late. And we had to leave early, but we stayed long enough for cutting the cake and watching the dancing. But we were headed home that night. (bleck I know)

Once we got too tired to stay awake we stopped at a rest stop and slept in the car for a few hours, the hardest hours of the night, and then we were off again.

Picked up the kids from Granny and Papa's house (so glad we didn't have to bring them!) Monday morning.

It was a very fast, but SUPER fun trip. And I can't wait for the next wedding in Dec!!!! We will FOR SURE get to see Marshall then!

Family Time

About a month ago we had a "Special Family Vacation Day" We thought the kids needed a vacation, but Mark dosen't have any free vacation days left at work, and we didn't really want to do a road trip with the three little ones. So we did a one day trip to St. Louis. They were so excited and asked every day if we were going.
First we went to the Museum of Transportation. They have a LOT of trains.
And they are HUGE!

They had so many different types of trains, it really was fun. Danton, Lydia, and Daddy even got to take a ride on a rail car. I missed it, and they didn't have the camera, but Mark said the driver let Danton sit in the front and he had a HUGE smile on his face. I did wave as they rode past


The cabooseThey also had LOTS of cool old cars
The picture doesn't do this one justice, it was massive.We got them each a train whistle souvenir before we left.

Then we went to the temple grounds. Our kids had never been and we wanted them to feel the sacredness of the temple as they walked around. As soon as we crested the hill and it came into view Lydia was SO excited.

We walked around for only about 10 mins. We were dressed in casual clothes, and it was stinking HOT. Arissa slept the whole time.
Lydia had to touch the temple.
The kids wanted to go touch the trees.



Then we went to lunch at a restaurant, (Hardees) And then off to the Science Center
The hop scotch made sounds when you jumped on it
Danton was a little scared of the T Rex. It moves and makes noise and he kept telling it to stop.
Then we ran into Uncle Scott and Aunt Laura...that was crazy and super fun.
in the picture from right to left Mark, Danton, Laura, Jessica, Hayley, And Lydia.

We were so tired, that we were all done by 2 or 2:30. The kids totally fell asleep on the way home.

The kids got free bowling passes from the library reading program this summer, so we took them for FHE a couple weeks later.
Arissa was a little fussy and didn't like being handed off constantly, so Daddy got pretty good at bowling with a baby.
The kids LOVED it till about the 5th frame, but they lasted till the 7th frame...then they noticed the arcade driving games behind them. So daddy and I finished out the game for them.
It's hard to see his ball cause it's yellow-ish green and just looks like the reflection of the light on the lane, but it's down on the right side of the lane. It was going REALLY slow. ...that may be why they didn't last all 10 frames...


Lydia doing her victory dance. She did one nearly every time she knocked ANYTHING down.

And these are just some pictured of Danton helping Daddy wash the truck....Lydia helped too, only she had the hose and was not only washing the truck, but she was washing Danton too. Soooo...she had to go inside.