SCRABBLE TILE CHARM BRACELETS

A friend of mine wanted to see the bracelets I helped my daughters make this summer. They have 8 charms, one for each value in the Young Women's program. We took the color of the value and found a flower to match. Then we typed the value to the picture and created the scrabble tile charms. The girls really like their bracelets.My bracelet is a tribute to my favorite books. I have a quote from the book on one side and the title and author on the back.We love wearing our jewelry and get great comments on them all the time. :-)

CHRISTMAS PROJECTS AND NATIVITIES

This year we are MAKING all of our Christmas presents for each other. It has been really fun to help the kids and guide them in their talents, etc. :-) Key Lime Pie is creating unique jewelry while Kotten Kandy is sewing some gifts for our family. It is fun to see them "anxiously engaged in a good cause."
I also thought I would share one of my loves! I collect nativities. I have over 130 of them. I took a picture of a few of my favorites: My candy cane nativity - :-) Scott got me this one a few years ago.
My Native American nativity - a gift from my wonderful husband.
My snowman nativity - isn't it cute?
Grandma T made this nativity. It was always on display on her dining room table. Now it's on my coffee table.
Mom DeGooyer gave me this nativity from Jerusalem.
I love my cherished teddies nativity. It's a bit crowded in the picture... but it is so sweet!
My mom made this nativity for me. Isn't she talented?
Another sweet nativity from my great husband.

This is the nativity that I got when I was 12 years old. I fell in love with it at a craft fair, and my mother traded for it! :-) I LOVE IT!

I love Christmas! I love the TRUE meaning of Christmas! I hope we all have a Merry Christmas!

REFLECTIONS, PIES, FRESCOS AND O LIVRO DE MORMON

Home schooling is GREAT! My daughters love it. I'm enjoying it. And I think we are learning a lot together. The week has flown by and I feel good about what we've accomplished. There are a few things that I am really excited about:


1. We started using reflection journals this week. It's an idea my mother gave me. She used it with her classes and I felt it would be beneficial to my own daughters. Every day my daughters reflect in their notebooks about the day and can write anything they like to me. I reply every night. I usually try to write something uplifting of spiritual back to them. They like it. And I like it. When I was at BYU Education Week, Merrilee Boyack had suggested writing your testimony and writing love notes to your daughters. Our reflection journals give me an opportunity to do that! And the girls love them!


2. Thursday night was our first Portuguese class. Scott loved sharing his knowledge with Key Lime Pie and Kotten Kandy... and they picked it up FAST! They are constantly saying "Como se diz?" (How do you say?) And they can count to 13 already!


3. The Book of Mormon "class" (O Livro De Mormon in Portuguese) is my favorite! The girls and I read one to two chapters per day. We take notes on what as inspirational, what we had questions on, and what touched our hearts. We share our notes and thoughts when we are finished. I am impressed with my daughter's understanding of the gospel.


4. Friday was an unusual, but super fun, day! We spent the entire day with my friend, Amy and her children. Amy taught my daughters how to make pear pies! They were DELICIOUS! And she also taught the kids about frescoes. I didn't even know what a fresco was. It is paintings on plaster. The earliest known examples of frescos were done in Crete and Ancient Egypt. So all six kids poured plaster, allowed it to "set up" and created their own masterpieces with water color paint. The water color paint really soaked into the plaster making an extremely pale painting, but it was fun and beautiful. Unfortunately, my pictures didn't turn out of the frescos. But the pie tasted as good as it looked! Wish ya'll could have tried it too!