Lady Cady

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Drawn In – Our favorite Come Follow Me Resource!

It’s time to jump into a new year of Come Follow Me scripture study. Can you believe it? Where did 2021 go?! As a mom of four and former Primary President, I know this is an area that can bring many blessings but can also be a big struggle to implement. Especially with kids! (Trust me, with my four kids, I’m right there with you). As a family, we have tried several different approaches to our family study through the last several years. Between my husband and I, we’ve been through many callings that have kept us crazy busy too – Bishopric 1st councilor, early morning Seminary teacher, and now Bishop for my husband and Primary 1st Councilor, Primary President and now Nursery Leader for me. (Okay nursery leader isn’t so busy but every Sunday I kind of become Single Mom by default. 🙂 ) After much trial and error, we discovered that Sunday evenings is Our Time. This is the one day we’re home and it just works best for us. I know that it’s different for everyone and that’s okay!! What matters is that we’re studying the scriptures as a family, right?

The second half of successful Come Follow Me study we’ve discovered is finding something that works, that keeps all the kids engaged, that teaches us, and is easy for us parents! I hear stories about amazing but elaborate things families do for their family Come Follow Me and at first, I felt a bit of Failure Syndrome creeping in to eat me up, but eventually I got over it. I love to keep things simple, it works, end of story.

I was called to be the Primary President in 2019, that first year of Come Follow Me, when we studied the New Testament. I began looking for different resources out there that families were using and passing them on to the Parents in our ward in an email each week. At the end of 2019, one of our favorite authors, David Bowman, announced he was going to start doing videos for Come Follow Me starting in 2020 too. We were excited! We signed up right away and have loved every single one! They have been a huge blessing to our family. David does an amazing job of teaching the concepts for each lesson and making them fun and engaging for all ages. He does it in a way that helps my kids get what the lesson is trying to teach them, often better than my husband and I teaching the lesson from the manual. There have been so many episodes my kids have asked to watch over and over on their own. When my daughter is asked to give a talk for Primary, she now will watch the video for the week and is able to write much of her talk on her own. My husband has even admitted to looking up a video or two for ideas on how to teach a particular concept/story to the youth. We usually go through the lesson in the manual as a family and then watch the video when we’re done. Sometimes though we do have those weeks where we just watch the videos and call it good… Life is real Ya’ll. I am especially grateful for this option as we plunge into the Old Testament!

David has a lot of great books for kids and teens as well as beautiful artwork. He did a thing for a while called “Teancum’s Warriors”. He stopped doing this for now to focus on his Drawn In videos so somehow, I need to figure out how to get my youngest two kids included in the group someday. 🙂 The package included a cute picture he drew of each kid and an assigned number of which one of Teancum’s Warriors they were. They also got a beautiful picture of Christ of their choosing and a fun headband. My kids are #26 and #27. My daughter has her picture hanging on the wall surrounded by some of her favorite scriptures.

We have loved David’s books as well. (Not pictured below – Dude, Don’t be Lemuel simply because it’s lost somewhere in a teenage bedroom….) We read the Who’s Your Hero series over and over when my oldest two were younger. We still occasionally say “Natural man – scram” when someone is needing a reminder to behave better.

If you are interested in finding out more, (which I recommend!) you can go here. You will find samples of videos, what’s included in your subscription, pricing options, etc. This is one Come Follow Me resource you won’t regret adding in each week!

General Conference Study Journals! :)

General Conference is this weekend! I know everyone sits at different places on the scale of how much they enjoy Conference weekend but I for one love Conference and Conference weekend! In full disclosure, I typically miss about half of what is said in any given session – not because I have other places to be but because I have these four other younger people I share a house with that all have varying needs and seem to think I’m the answer to those needs… (But I’m totally okay with that because I know this phase of life will be gone before I know it and I will miss it.) Because of this though, I’ve really come to love these little General Conference Addresses – Journal Editions that Deseret Book has been releasing the last few years!

These journals make it so easy to go back and study the talks. Something this busy mama is so grateful for. (And, if I wake up early enough before everyone else, I can take a few minutes and study uninterrupted!) They are a great size to shove in my backpack if I want to take them with me somewhere else, like somewhere I need to sit and wait for my kids… They are about $8 each, which isn’t bad. Usually sometime around General Conference, Deseret Book will email out a coupon code. That’s my particular favorite time to order a copy. Or preorder actually.

I have my own color coding system I use when studying any of the Journal Editions of scripture or General Conference talks. It makes it nice to look back at a talk and quickly find a quote I liked. I use a green colored pencil for all things that are good/I should be doing/want to do. A yellow colored pencil for any warnings. A red colored pencil for anything that is a “Don’t do this!” type of thing. And a blue colored pencil for anything that I find really interesting. I love there is plenty of room on the sides to write down my own thoughts as I study too. Sometimes I write a lot of notes. Sometimes only a few. Sometimes none. And that’s okay! Sometimes I highlight almost everything. Sometimes a few things. Sometimes barely anything. Really, it’s a personal thing so whatever works for you!

General Conference is such a special time. We are so incredibly lucky to have a Prophet and Apostles, Alive and Well, to teach us and guide us and help us navigate Life. How little that blessing has been on the earth. How few of God’s Children have had that blessing. Why do we waste that blessing? We need it more then ever as we get closer and closer to the Second Coming. And the world around us gets crazier and crazier. If you are already a post-General Conference-studier, good for you!! If you aren’t, why not start now! You won’t regret it.

Frostbeard Candles – My Favorite Bookish Candles!

I love books and I love candles so when I discovered Frostbeard candles I was so excited! Two of my great loves in one place! They have so many great bookish scents too! One of my faves is Old Books (pictured above). It’s featured in the permanent collection. They also have seasonal options and monthly options you can purchase individually or through a subscription. If you like candles with book related scents, the subscription is totally the way to go. How great is that to get a little package in the mail once a month with a surprise bookish scent! It’s kind of the stuff dreams are made of. Also the best day to check the mail.

So if you are a book lover and a candle lover, come jump on the bandwagon with me! Start with a scent that catches your fancy and soon your house will smell dreamy too. 🙂

A History Book – For Toddlers!

I recently came across this book. It’s called The Tuttle Toddler’s ABC’s of the American Revolution and it’s a history/ABC book for Toddlers! I love learning about the history of our country during the American Revolution. It’s one of my absolute favorite time periods to study and so I was excited for this find to begin teaching my two Littles all about it as well! Bonus – they are also learning the letters of the Alphabet. I love effective multitasking…

But back to the book. I’ve become a bit wary of many “History” books anymore, as so much is changed or interpreted and told as “history” rather than the truth of how things really happened. This book though is great! My older two kids, who actually know a lot about this time in history already, often sit and listen when we’re reading them too. They like to add in details that aren’t mentioned. It is a board book after all. 🙂 I love that I’m laying a strong foundation for my kids education. That’s something that’s important to me.

There are two other books in the series as well – The Tuttle Toddler’s ABC’s of Liberty and The Tuttle Toddler’s ABC’s of Economics. I’m sure you can take a guess at what each of them are about. They are great too! So if you are looking for some fun board books for your kids that teach about history, economics, and liberty, be sure and check these books out!

Book Recommendation – The Golden Hawks of Genghis Khan

I read a lot of books to my kids. I started keeping track once and I was surprised at how many we had read! Books at the library. Chapter books. Picture books. Lots of reading! I hope through it all they are learning to love books as much as I do. Even though my oldest kids have been readers for a while now, I still like to read chapter books to them too (when they’ll let me.) Sometimes the books we read are so-so. Sometimes that are not great. And sometimes we really love them! Recently I read The Golden Hawks of Genghis Khan to my daughter. Before we began, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It turned out to be one of those books that totally surprise you. It was one of those books that quickly sucked us in and we were so hooked! Every time we would read, she’d beg me to “read just one more chapter!” Sometimes we had time to but sometimes we didn’t.

Life after all.

There were a few times I secretly wanted to read ahead on my own but I didn’t. We finally got through it and we both agreed we loved it! So if you are looking for a good book, one your older elementary school aged kids might be interested in as a read-a-loud, be sure and give The Golden Hawks of Genghis Khan a try!