Peter: Week 9 in Pictures

Peter: Week 8 in Pictures

Friday Night Lights

On Friday night Phoebe, Sophie, and I had the opportunity to hear the Young Men General President for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Timothy Farnes, his wife Sister Linsey Farnes, and Area Seventy Elder Michael Brady give a devotional for the youth. The talks were all uplifting and spiritual and I'm so glad we made the hour and a half drive to attend. When it was over, the speakers graciously invited everyone in attendance to come greet them in person and take some pictures. So we did.

Making Faces

I subbed for our ward choir director yesterday after church. While Cooper and I were in choir, Bryan counted tithing in the clerk's office and the girls were in a leadership meeting. Where, you may ask, was Topher?

He was entertaining himself in the nursery with the playdoh.

Cake Masters

We hosted the Youth activity last week. They were planning a bake-off and we have two ovens, which turned out to be pretty important since they split into two teams. We worked hard and got our house company-ready. The evening was loud and fun and chaotic. Two of the leaders brought their kids, one leader had driven his son, plus another young man and his little brother who is Topher's age. That meant instead of going to bed, Topher also got to stay up and play host. It's a good thing I haven't given away the toys our kids have outgrown, because all those kids sure had fun exploring our playroom.

First the teams mixed up their cake mixes (not from scratch, no, we didn't have that kind of time), one gluten-free and one gluten-full. When those went into the ovens, we pulled the already-baked-and-cooled cakes (using the same brand and flavor box mixes the youth had just prepared) out from the panty for them to decorate. We had frosting and sprinkles and one of the leaders brought two secret ingredients that had to be used: raspberries and mint leaves. These are their final creations:

The leaders announced a tie, so Sophie arm wrestled the other team leader and came out victorious. Cooper, who doesn't attend these activities anymore, came and helped since his friend who moved away a few months ago surprised us all by showing up to the activity. Phoebe and Sophie were on the other team. I'll give you a hint about which cake they made: Phoebe really loves Spider-man.

When we bought this house I could envision the Young Women, who I was serving in church at the time, gathering for activities around our kitchen island. I'm glad a version of this was able to come to pass.

Serve Those Around You

The service activity on Saturday was a success! This is a combination of pictures from me and Phoebe. She was much more thorough in her recording of the event than I was.

Here's the food area:

And the service area, we added another service table after this was taken:

These were the dining tables, each associated with a different holiday or pair of holidays.

Here we have Memorial/Veteran's Day:

Day of the Dead, from a few angles:

Spring Equinox:

Thanksgiving:

Valentine's Day:

Christmas:

Breast Cancer Awareness Month:

These are the wall decorations, I'm sure you can tell which holiday each one goes with:

And the service projects themselves, starting with our wall of options:

The girls added some chalk art:

And here's the activity in full swing, plus a few finished ornaments to send to families who don't have any, the first done by Phoebe, the second by one of Topher's friends:

It was well attended and a lot of service was accomplished!

Creative Distractions

On Sunday I was the first adult to primary, but not the first person. The room already held several children. We have a two-deep leadership policy, which for me means, in part, not being the only adult in the room. While I waited for another grownup to come in, I leaned against the doorway and asked who wanted to draw a picture of a temple on the chalkboard. Several hands went up and I encouraged them to go for it.

This temple has a mustache instead of an Angel Moroni. I didn't realize this until one of the kids pointed it out during singing time. I thought it was a propeller.

Topher drew the temple on the right. He said he patterned it after the Washington D.C. temple.

The kids were all pleased with their art and none of them seemed to realize it was a diversionary tactic.