Our nighttime routine isn’t hard to get through with Tate. For the most part, he is happy and willing to clean up, change his diaper, get PJs on, brush teeth and read stories. However, the minute we finish that last picture book and say, “Okay, time to read scriptures!” is the minute Tate is no longer happy and no longer willing.

To be honest, I can’t really blame him. I’m all about teaching our kids to sit quietly and listen for a period of time. I used to be a teacher and this is something that children need to learn to do in order to survive in school. But Tate is two. And sometimes I can’t even focus on what I’m reading in the scriptures and I’m a grown woman. I know he isn’t getting much out of sitting and listening while we read, but we do it every night anyway to at least establish the habit.

I have been thinking for a long time how I can make scripture study something that is actually meaningful for him. Instead of him dreading family study, I want him to be happy. Some day I want it to be a part of the evening that he actually looks forward to. Sitting and listening to us read is not going to make that happen, at least not for now while he is unable to read and understand things for himself.

I combined a variety of resources and came up with a plan that compliments Book of Mormon Stories. Basically what I want to do is study a single chapter over the course of several days. Repetition is vital in gospel learning and is essential when teaching young children. Rather than just read the chapter over and over again, I want to incorporate a variety of teaching methods that are not only fun, but also meet pre-K standards. Skill building and gospel learning all in one? Yes please.

I will explain my plan piece by piece. It’s not fancy or genius. I’m sure there are much better methods out there, but this is what I feel will engage my toddler and actually teach him the scripture stories that I know and love. I don’t want scripture study to be a battle anymore. I’m hoping this will solve that!

Chapter 1: How We Got the Book of Mormon

This beginning chunk lays out a few activities that will be incorporated in the mini study sessions. I love the primary songs and can never find the time to teach them, so I figured this would be a perfect opportunity. Feel free to teach the songs in whatever fun ways you can think of – incorporate instruments, movement, rhythm and beat, etc. For this song, I chose to teach through hand actions.

Also, one of my goals with Tate’s pre-K learning is to give him the chance to practice writing skills every day. Coloring, painting, play-doh, etc. will help him work on his fine motor skills, which is why I will be including them.

Song: This Is My Beloved Son, p. 76, verse 3

Joseph saw two glorious beings (hold up two fingers)

Shining brighter than the sun (close hands and open quickly, like a light turning on)

God again presented Jesus: (sign “Jesus” by touching middle finger of one hand to opposite palm, repeat with other finger/palm)

“This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (hold hand out like presenting something, then hold hand to ear)

Activity Verse:

Joseph knelt among the trees, (hold arms up like trees)

And said a special prayer. (fold arms)

He saw the Father and the Son (look up, shading eyes with hand)

And listened to Them there. (cup hand around ear)

Art/Craft: Finger puppets and coloring page

Number one represents day one. I would write “day” in front of each number, but depending on how your study time goes, one day could actually stretch out to be two or three days. My plan is for each day to consist of 5-10 minutes of scripture study, but take as long as you need to study the chapter with whatever works for your child.

1. Preview the chapter with a picture walk. Look at each picture one at a time and talk about what you see. Ask child what they think is going on in each one. Name each person in the pictures and help child practice saying their names. Preview the song by listening to it at least one time. Ask the child to listen for words, phrases, names, etc. that they saw in the pictures. Point to the pictures as you hear them in the song.

2. Read through the chapter from the Book of Mormon Stories manual. Ask your child questions about what you read and take time to look at the pictures. Take as many days as needed to read the whole chapter.  End each day by listening to/singing the song.

3.  Have your child color the coloring page quietly while you read sections of the story from the actual scriptures. (Prep: Find the passages you feel are most important to share and highlight them beforehand for an easier read.) If needed, summarize between passages to make up for any disconnect. Take as many days as needed to read through the passages. (For older toddlers, give them the opportunity to read a verse or two by repeating after you in small phrases.) End each day by listening to/singing the song.

Passages/Sections I highlighted:

JSH 1:10 – “I often said…I know it?”

11 – “I was one day reading…be given him.”

13 – “I came to the… ‘ask of God,’”

14 – “I retired to… hundred and twenty.”

15 – “finding myself…sudden destruction.”

16 – “But exerting…myself to destruction.”; “I saw a pillar… fell upon me.”

17 – whole verse

18 – “I asked the… sects was right”

19 – “I was answered… all wrong”

25 – “I had actually… could not deny it.”

29 – “on the evening… Almighty God.”

30 – whole verse

32 – “Not only… like lightning.”

33 – “He called me… Moroni”

34 – whole verse

44 – whole verse

45 – “He commenced…lease variation.”; “Having related…done before.”

46 – “But what was my surprise…would try to tempt me”

47 – “After this third… just experienced”

48 – “I shortly after… go home.”; “my strength… on the ground.”

49 – “I looked up…I had received.”

50 – “I obeyed… were deposited;”

52 – “Having removed… by the messenger.”

53 – whole verse

54 – whole verse

59 – “On the twenty-second… them up to me”

4. Teach the activity verse and do it a couple times. Try to see if your child can do it on his/her own. Then, while they color the finger puppets, read a few of your favorite verses from the scripture passages. Cut/tape finger puppets to prepare for following day.

5. Watch the scripture story video for this chapter. Have your child put finger puppets on fingers during the appropriate parts of the story.

6. Have children retell the story by singing the song, using the finger puppets, or doing the activity verse. (Celebrate their efforts, especially if they are able to do it all on their own!) Ask what their favorite part of the story was. Tell your favorite part and then read another favorite verse from scripture passages. Bear your testimony about what this chapter means to you (personal application). End by singing the song together.

I have only done the first chapter but plan on doing all 54 chapters in the book. If other moms are interested, I will make sure to include as much detail as possible, like I did in this post. But it would helpful for me to know beforehand if I'm writing for others or just for myself (much less detail if it's just for me!). 

Please comment or Facebook me to let me know if this is something you feel will benefit your family. Even if I can help just one other mom, it would be worth it! 

Our Big Move: Part 2

I’ve decided I’m pretty horrible at this blogging thing. Nevertheless, I am back. For the third time. 

Before I post about things we have been up to recently I have to write about our drive from Idaho to Connecticut. It was long. 2,334 miles to be exact. I’m 97% positive that if Jordan’s parents didn’t come out to help us make the drive that I would’ve driven myself off a cliff. I would’ve had to do that before we got to the Midwest though. Definitely no cliffs around there.

There really isn’t much to report, except for the part where we drove through 70 mph winds. There we were, put-putting along with our snail of a moving truck (thank you Scott and Karen for driving that beast!) when all of the sudden we hit some seriously crazy winds. It wasn’t too concerning until we saw a semi-truck tipped over on the side of the freeway. Then another. And another. We ended up passing seven trucks, literally blown over on their sides.

Then one semi tipped over from the other side of the freeway, blocking our lane of traffic. We had to sit there in the crazy winds for what seemed like forever. As we waited and hoped for things to get moving, we suddenly saw a white, rectangular thing fly in front of our window and then up into the sky. It was our license plate. NBD.

We ended up having to do a little off-roading to get out of that mess. Eventually we hit a rest stop and took a bathroom break. When Jordan opened the car door to leave, I was positive it was going to blow right off. He had to cover his entire face with his hood to not get demolished by all the dirt flying around and as he walked you could see he actually had to make an effort to keep his balance. I decided to stay in the car. No dirt mouth for me.

When we hit Omaha, my faith in Nebraska was restored. However, Jordan and I vowed to never drive through that state ever again. Sorry, Nebraska. It wasn’t you, it was me. And by that, I mean it was you.

The highlight of our trip was a little detour we took to Nauvoo, IL. We were able to walk around the temple and all throughout the settlement. We also visited Carthage Jail. It was an amazing and humbling experience to visit a place that holds so much history. We traveled through time that day and I felt my testimony strengthen as I stood on those grounds. I was especially touched when we visited Joseph Smith’s grave. As I thought of the man that he was and all that he sacrificed to follow God, I was overcome with a feeling of love and appreciation for him. He was willing to give up everything to follow what he knew to be true, including his life.

The faith of the early Saints amazes me. I will never have to give up as much as they did to follow the prophet. I will never have to face the persecution they endured. They experienced trials that I don’t think I could ever handle but I am eternally grateful for their examples and sacrifice.

I had so many complaints throughout our long journey: the length of the drive, the nasty fast food we ate, the weather we hit along the way, etc. As I stood in Nauvoo I couldn’t help but compare the journey I had made with the journey the Saints made to Salt Lake so many years ago. They walked. They pulled handcarts and carried their young children. They experienced weather conditions so severe that it cost many their lives. Women birthed children along the way and many had to bury them. The trials they endured were endless but because of them, the church is what it is today. I am forever grateful for their perseverance and faith.

After we got to Connecticut I would joke and say I never wanted to go on a road trip ever again. Well, a few months later we made plans to drive to Oklahoma for Christmas with a toddler and what would be a brand-new baby. You know what? The trip was great. Here’s to a positive attitude and more road trips to come!

Our Big Move: Part 1

Remember how we moved across the country from Idaho to Connecticut? Yeah.. about that...

For the past few years Jordan has applied to PA school without success. The first year of applying we really had no idea what we were doing and applied even before he graduated although he had hardly any hours of experience. On top of that I basically told Jordan he could only apply to a few schools that were within the boundaries of places I'd be okay to live in (aka close to family). Regardless of his somewhat weak application and limited options, he was still invited to two interviews. Even though he wasn't accepted we felt hopeful since he made it that far having applied to only four schools with such little experience. The second year we'd get in for sure (or so we thought).

The second time around Jordan had more health care experience, had recently accepted a job at the hospital as a CNA and applied to a few more schools. I still set limits because I wanted to stay close-ish to family, but I thought expanding my boundaries a little more would help. (Anywhere on or near the east coast was still a big NO.) He got a couple of interviews, but he still didn't make it. This was a huge let down and we did some serious thinking and praying about whether or not to give it a third try.

We decided to give it one last go and to give it our all. Jordan went back to BYU-I to take a couple classes that would make his application stand out a little more academically and he also began shadowing a PA at the hospital. When it came time for applications, we applied to as many schools as we could. If the school was in good standing and Jordan met the requirements, we applied. Next thing you know Jordan was getting so many interviews he had to be selective about which to accept.

The first school he got into was Salus University in Pennsylvania. He actually received an email of acceptance while he was in his interview at UC Davis. I was the first to see the email and I was so happy I cried. It was seriously painful to have to wait till Jordan was done to tell him but you can imagine how relieved and excited he was when finally hearing the news. Once he was accepted to one school, it was a lot easier to turn down other interviews to schools he had no desire of going to in the first place.

During October and November of last year, Jordan flew all over the place to attend five interviews. He got into two (Salus University and UC Davis), wait-listed on two (Emory University in Georgia and Quinnipiac University in Connecticut) and rejected to one (Nova University in Florida). Between Salus and UC Davis we decided on UC Davis and started making plans to move in June.

You can imagine how I felt about moving to California and living an hour from Jordan's parents and six hours from my own. I was looking at apartments every day, trying to figure out where would be the best place to live. Jordan and I started to get in contact with people who could give us a better idea of the area and things really felt like they were falling into place. Even though the school was acting a little sketchy and we had little information about the program, we couldn't wait to move. Living close to family was all I ever wanted - things were finally working out how I thought they always should.

Then one morning while I was at work Jordan text me saying he got into Quinnipiac off the wait list. I was really excited for him because out of all the schools this one was at the top of his list. He had a great experience at his interview and LOVED the area. Although it was exciting and something to be proud of we both started off with the attitude of, "Cool, but we aren't actually considering it." Then the more we talked the more our attitudes changed to, "Well, we won't tell them 'no' just yet."

The days went on and we received tons and tons of information about Quinnipiac and everyone Jordan came in contact with was extremely professional. On the other hand, we still hadn't received any emails from UC Davis and everyone we talked to was rude and/or unprofessional and gave us zero answers to the many questions we had. We decided we had some serious thinking to do.

The fact that moving to Connecticut was suddenly a real option came as a shock to me, considering it was the last place I'd ever thought we would move to out of all the schools he applied to. I knew why we were considering it, but it was still hard to accept. Right around the time we decided it was a serious option I found out I was pregnant - surprise! Of course I was so excited to welcome another little one into our family, but a move and a pregnancy/new baby (both potentially across the country) was a lot to take in. I was a little emotional to say the least.

We started balancing out the pros and cons and thinking about what was most important. It was really hard to compare the two because we felt so uninformed about the PA program at Davis. UC Davis has a great reputation and their med program is #4 in the country. We knew the name alone would serve Jordan well if we chose to go there. However, their PA program is ranked #84. Quinnipiac is ranked #11. This discrepancy between the two proved to be accurate every day that passed and we began to think that maybe the name of a school isn't what is most important. Is it better to graduate from somewhere with a well-known name or graduate better prepared to take care of the medical needs of others? After A LOT of praying, research, wise input and counsel from others and crying (on my part) we decided that attending Quinnipiac was the best choice, even if it was the harder one.

Throughout the past few years I have learned a lot. I think the one lesson that stands out most is that Heavenly Father has a plan for me. It might not always be what I want or what I think is best but the fact is He knows what is best. He knows the whole picture and how things will end. It's my responsibility to pray and seek to know what His plan is for me and make the necessary changes in my life to follow that plan, no matter how hard it may seem. I'm grateful to be in Connecticut and am excited for the adventures to come!

Aloha!

So when I was thinking of where to start on this whole “catching up” process I forgot that we went to Hawaii BEFORE Easter. It’s all a blur now. Oahu was amazing and I hope we can go again some day. I loved the atmosphere there: the beautiful beaches, the culture, the scenery, everything! I have a Disney CD that I listen to with Tate sometimes and there is a Lilo and Stitch song on there that makes me want to cry every time it comes on. Oh Hawaii, I love you.

I was nervous to be away from Tate for a week considering we have been inseparable since he came into existence. I think the longest we have been apart besides Hawaii is one night - not even a full 24 hours. He is with me constantly and even when I worked as a tutor I brought him with me! Anyway, before we left I went to go say goodbye, bracing myself for an emotional melt down (from us both). I gave him a hug, said I loved him and was leaving but would be coming back soon and asked if I could have a kiss. Want to know what my sweet child did in return? He slapped me. Right in the face.

Honestly, it was kind of perfect. It made it a lot easier for me to leave! Obviously I wasn't mad at him or anything but imagine if he had reacted in any other way. What if he started crying and tried to follow us outside and I could hear him screaming as I got into the car? I would've been a wreck. I'm grateful for that little bit of sassiness because it got me on my way to Hawaii tear-free, although I still felt a little emotional inside.

The flight was fine (Tate was definitely on my mind all throughout) and we arrived in Honolulu in the evening. By the time we got to our little cottage it was pitch black. I couldn't appreciate the cuteness of it till morning.

The picture doesn't do it justice - the cottage was DARLING. I absolutely loved North Shore and would definitely stay here again if we ever go back. I love the laid back, surf-town feel and definitely enjoyed this much more than our second rental in Waikiki. 

As for the rest of our trip, I'll let the pictures do the talking. 

We took a trip to the Dole Pineapple Plantation as suggested by my dad. I would probably not recommend it to other couples (maybe it's cooler to kids?) but it was interesting to see how pineapples grow!

Gorgeous North Shore. I love the personality up there - so different from anywhere else on the island!

We were able to go to the temple during our trip - it's so pretty (of course)! I love the temple.

Hanauma Bay - my favorite part of the entire trip. Snorkeling was unreal. Jordan and I cruised around for hours and saw all sorts of ocean life - sea turtles included.

Although it was a little stormy the day we went, Lanikai Beach in Kailua was by far my favorite beach on the island. In my opinion it was WAY better than Waikiki. If we ever go back, we will not be staying near Waikiki again - we will definitely stay in Kailua.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hawaii was amazing. I'm so glad we were able to go, especially before all this moving across the country/grad school craziness got started (more on that later). Visiting Hawaii really made me realize how beautiful the Earth is and how much more of it I want to see! I'd love to travel more some day but for now I'll be sticking to the east coast.