14 Fun Ways to Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day

March 7, 2015 in Family Room

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St. Patrick’s Day isn’t just for pinching your friends who forgot to wear green anymore. Now it’s the perfect excuse for a fun celebration. I love to keep things simple, so I gathered 14 simple celebrations for St. Patrick’s Day for a festive, easy holiday.

These  St. Patrick’s Day printables from Forty Eighteen are all ready for you to print and attach to your treats.

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Jane from xo, lauren & jane does something fabulous with mint chocolate chips to make a green treat that is perfect for anyone who loves mint and chocolate. (And really… who doesn’t love mint and chocolate??)

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Hoping to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? How about inside the rainbow… if that rainbow is a cookie. These Rainbow Treasure Cookies from Stuffed Suitcase scream St. Patrick’s Day!

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So colorful and so tasty, my kiddos would LOVE these! They wouldn’t even need to find the pot of gold with Rainbow Pudding Pops from Saving Cent by Cent as the tasty rainbow.

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This is perfect! I love this St. Patrick’s Day printable from Occasionally Crafty.

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If you love sprinkles and tasty surprises, these Pot of Gold Cookies from A Sparkle of Genius are the perfect treat for you. I especially love the gold center… because it’s caramel. yummo!

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Hahaha, Blushing Leprechauns. I love these great cookies from For What It’s Worth

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Cute, cute decor makes any holiday better. That’s why I love this St. Patrick’s Day Canvas Art from Shambray.

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And this great Lucky St. Patrick’s day Printable from The Happy Scraps. I just love how a great printable makes an area instantly festive.

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Learn how to make a traditional St. Patrick’s Day dinner: How to Make Corned Beef Dinner from Mirlandra’s Kitchen.

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This Lucky Leprechaun Parfait from Jessica Weible Blogs is such an adorable treat! What more can you ask of a dessert than cute on the table and absolutely delicious in your mouth!

I love the idea of spreading some luck to a friend like this Bucket of Luck from Maybe I Will. Love her list of what to put in the basket and the free printable to attach to it.

Make a great dessert with this template and directions for a St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock Cake from The Things I Love Most.

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We always have a green dinner, and this Green Deviled Eggs and Broccoli Ham Ring from Forty Eighteen is in the running this year.

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How do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?

August 2014 Visiting Teaching Printable

August 11, 2014 in Family Room

Why is it that summer visiting teaching always seems to be so tricky? Instead of loads of free time and open schedules, it is harder than ever to coordinate calendars and get those visits in.

I admit I was a pretty horrible visiting teacher this summer, but now that school is starting I’m ready to be awesome, so I got it done early this month. :)

I love that the visiting teaching messages this year are all about Jesus Christ. This month‘s focus is all about His role as Messiah.

"Jesus Christ will ever be at our side. He will fight our battles. He is our hope." I love this quote from the August visiting teaching message.



I love this quote: “[Jesus Christ] will ever be at our side. He will fight our battles. He is our hope; He is our salvation; He is the way.” -Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Life is full of hard times and challenges we have to endure, but we are never alone – no matter what! Jesus Christ is always at our side. Nothing brings me more hope than knowing my Savior is fighting my battles with me.

I delivered these notes with a little plate of cookies to my sisters this month. If you would like this note, you can download the full-size file to print out a 4×6 card by clicking the photo above or 4 quarter-sheet cards by clicking on the photo below.

"Jesus Christ will ever be at our side. He will fight our battles. He is our hope." I love this quote from the August visiting teaching message.Or you can find them on the Printables page. Happy visiting!

Teaching Primary Music: Seek the Lord Early

July 23, 2014 in Family Room

We’re getting ready to go camping, so this is going to be short and sweet.

If you’re following along with the sharing time outline, you’re probably teaching Seek the Lord Early in August. I was asked to start teaching this song to our primary kids a few weeks ago, so I put together these cute little visuals to help.

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I cut each page in half so each picture represents a phrase  and put them up on the board. As we learned it, I had the kids take down a sign or two at a time until they could sing it without any help. Senior learned the whole thing in a day, and we covered about half with junior. Of course, I’m not sure how much they actually remembered when the real chorister was back the next week…

Find the files to download at this link.

Teaching Primary Music: To Be A Pioneer

July 19, 2014 in Family Room

If you’re looking for some help with primary music time tomorrow (could this be any more last minute???) and want to teach a great pioneer song, let me be your lifesaver.

To Be A Pioneer teaches a great lesson about what it means to be a pioneer – and it’s simple enough to teach in one try! It might take a little longer to sing the two parts together, but it’s so fun and the kids love it.

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The first verse is full of “You don’t have to…” things that the old-time pioneers did. Since they’re “don’ts,” those are all shaped like stop signs.

The second verse is full of “You do have to…” things that we can do today to be pioneers. Since they’re “do’s,” those are all shaped like green lights. The picture cues for the second verse gave me a great chance to talk about Nephi’s courage, Daniels’ faith, and David’s fight with might for a cause that’s right.

Each verse ends with “To be a pioneer,” so there are 2 identical signs for that.

I thought I would only have time to teach the second part to senior, so I just wrote out the words for them. The last line is only sung the first time through, so it’s a little lighter to remind them it’s different.

I cut these out, laminated them (because I am completely addicted to my laminator), and stuck them to craft sticks. Simple to make, great to work with, and easy for the kids to help hold.

Find the files to download at this link. Happy singing!

40 Family Home Evening Ideas

May 18, 2014 in Family Room

“Family Night is always fun. We find so many things to do.”

I remember singing those words with my family on Monday nights and thinking that song was hilarious. Family Night is ALWAYS fun? With 6 kids in the house, family night was always an adventure. Maybe that’s what the song should say.

Family night’s an adventure. We hope that we will make it through!

I have been working this year to improve our Family Home Evenings. We rotate the weekly assignments, which means every kid – even the 6-year-old – takes turns teaching the lesson. Usually they look at the chart on the way from the dinner table to the family room and say, “Oh, I have the lesson!” They whip out the closest Friend magazine they can find and read us a random story.

We’re working on putting a little more thought into our lessons. We all know it’s not easy to come up with lesson ideas week after week, and it’s even harder for a kid. So in an effort to help them prepare their lessons, I made this list of themes to choose from. It’s helpful for Mr. 4018 and me, too!

Since today is the 18th, it’s time to celebrate 4018 with 40 Things! So here is a list of 40 Family Home Evening lesson themes and resources.

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40 Family Home Evening Lesson Themes and Resources

  1. Gospel Art Kit/Gospel Art Book
  2. Friend articles
  3. New Era articles
  4. Ensign articles
  5. General Conference Talks
  6. FHE manual
  7. Primary Manual
  8. Nursery Manual
  9. Gospel Principles
  10. True to the Faith
  11. Preach My Gospel
  12. For the Strength of Youth
  13. Seminary Scripture Mastery scriptures
  14. Personal Progress
  15. Duty to God
  16. Faith in God for Boys and Girls
  17. My Gospel Standards
  18. The Family: A Proclamation to the World
  19. Teaching, No Greater Call
  20. Young Women values
  21. Scout Law and Oath
  22. President Hinckley’s 10 Virtues
  23. Pres. Hinckley’s 9 “Be’s”
  24. Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching messages
  25. Scripture Stories
  26. Mormon Messages
  27. Primary Theme
  28. The Living Christ
  29. Come, Follow Me youth curriculum
  30. Priesthood/Relief Society manual
  31. Articles of Faith
  32. 10 Commandments
  33. Christlike Attributes
  34. The Savior’s Teachings/Parables/Life
  35. Prophets and Apostles
  36. Personal/Family Goals
  37. Personal/Family Challenge
  38. Holidays and Major Life Events
  39. Something you learned and want to share (life lesson, scripture study, church, seminary, etc.)
  40. Hymns/Primary Songs

Bonus: Question Box – Set aside a box where your family can leave questions. Then you can address those questions at Family Home Evening. They could be gospel related or just about life in general.

We have a bookshelf that has a few shelves dedicated to Family Home Evening resources: manuals, pictures, magazines, etc. so I printed this list, added it to a binder with some of these resources (family proclamation, Articles of Faith, list of seminary scripture mastery scriptures, YW values, Scout law and oath, My Gospel Standards, personal progress and Faith in God booklets, etc.). Now it’s easy to find and a great helpful resource for my family to use when they’re preparing a lesson.

I am so excited about my new Sunday feature. I’m teaming up with Brittany of BrittanyBullen.com to bring a little more inspiration to your Sundays with a link-up called Spiritual Sundays. “If there is anything lovely, virtuous, of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things,” so we want you to share your inspiring posts with us. The idea is have a great group of uplifting posts all in one place. Here’s a little more about it.

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Hi and Welcome to Spiritual Sundays! Our goal is to get as many faith-promoting blog posts together in one place as we can so we always have something uplifting to read on Sundays. This linkup is open to people of all faiths, but we reserve the right to move your content if it is any way offensive.

 

If you haven’t participated in a linkup before, here’s how to do it politely:

1. Follow each host at least one of the accounts below (the more you follow, the more we want to follow back!)

Brittany  

Brittany at brittanybullen.com
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, You Tube, Bloglovin, Instagram

Melanie  

Melanie at fortyeighteen.com
Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, Twitter, Bloglovin, Newsletter

2. Submit as many appropriate links as you want below. (It doesn’t have to be Sunday when you submit your links.)

3. Visit at least the person before you on the list so we make sure everyone gets some love! It’s always nice to get comments that let the author know where you came from, too. Just a #SpiritualSundays after your comment would do the trick.

Thanks for stopping by and happy posting!


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