"Wan Watch"

Another week comes and goes. It's amazing how much easier it is to transition into school years. I remember when I first started at Higley, each day felt like an eternity, each Friday felt unreachable, and Christmas felt light years beyond my grasp. A friend of my mom's told me that when she first started teaching, she just tried to hold on through October, then Christmas, then all of a sudden 5 years had gone by. That's how I feel this past year and now this one is FLYING by. Some highlights of my week were quartet auditions, solo auditions in the middle school, and starting choreography in taste. I'm so proud of my little choreographer, Allie Horst. She's assigned as a T.A. in my class, but I really have her as an assistant coach/choreographer in the class. They started dancing "This Will Be" (Natalie Cole) and it's gonna be great! I love how on board they all are with it. Quartets are going to be awesome this year. Not much change from last, so next year will be a big change for both quartets. I had a better turnout this year to tryout: about 14 for girls, and 8 for boys (which beats the four that tried out last year.) My middle school choir is AWESOME! Seriously, there are some incredible voices in there. I had solo auditions for the first song we've been learning: Lady Gaga's Just Dance! (They love it!) There are 36 kids in there and I honestly believe 30 of them tried out for the solo. 20 of them are useable, so it's gonna be tough to decide who gets solos in there this year. I also spent some time in my office this weekend and it is GLORIOUSLY organized. I can't believe it took me over a year to throw away papers and junk that was left from the previous teacher. (No offense Dee.) It's just nice to have a "Mr. Keith" office now. Now I'm going to start having my T.A.'s make inspirational posters for the walls. If any of you have any ideas, or remember sayings from Dr. Lunt days, feel free to post and share. I want those walls to scream positivity!:)

Jaxon can be SO cute or SO devilish. Sounds like a three year old. Ari found him the other morning standing at his bedroom door holding Snow White saying "Wan watch." He just kept saying it over and over till she came to the door and let him out. The mornings have been cute for him, because if he wakes up early, he heads over to his lamp, turns it on, and starts looking at books or DIsney VHS cases. We think it monopolizes his time for hours. I think when he looks at the VHS cases he watches the movies in his mind. He'll stare at them forever. His devilish side has been coming out in destroying things this week. He keeps breaking window blinds, ripping up posters or pictures that were on his wall, or ripping up the lamp shade of his lamp in his room. It's SO frustrating!! It's his way of getting back at us when he's in time out, or getting attention when he feels he's being ignored. Sacrament meeting was particularly challenging today. He was ALL OVER the place. He had two time out trips and still wouldn't settle down. Although, when we were out in the hall, he folded his arms and pointed at a picture of Jesus above us and said, "Jesus." That was heart warming. It's like having Jekyll and Hyde for a son!! We love him to pieces.

Kodee is a SCREAMIN' machine. My goodness that boy has a set of lungs. He's not even sad or crying or anything, his babbling is a squeely scream that goes on and on. He's still not crawling (and well past 10 months now. . .) Amazingly enough he gets around. How, we have no idea. One second he's on the other side of the room, the next he's gone about 15 feet across the room. It's almost like a superpower, because we've never really witnessed how he does it. He just scoots around on his bum, but it's fast, and he never does it when someone's watching. I'm telling you, this kid has powers from beyond what with his deafening, earth-shattering scream and magical transportation abilities.

Ari started her institute class this week. I'm so excited for her. The teacher is BYU affiliated so it feels just like a BYU Institute class here in the Gila Valley for her. We're also teaching the Doctrine and Covenants to our sunday school class right now, so it's wonderful that she'll be able to expound on it with what she learns at institute. This girl is AMAZING. She pours over her lessons for the primary class, and comes up with great ideas. For instance, today we were in charge of sharing time for the primary. The theme is "Temple Blessings for the Family" so she came up with a Candyland concept for the primary kids. We put a big picture of the temple on a chalkboard in the middle of the room, with a heart that says, "Sealed in the temple." Then we put three paths of 15 colored construction papers heading to the picture. (Because there were three classes.) It looked just like a Candyland board. She then explained to each of the classes that they represented a family and were trying to prepare and make it to the temple to be sealed. Based on reverence, a child was chosen to be a life-sized game piece on the path, and then they drew slips of paper out of a temple tin we made. In the tin were good things and bad things that would either help them or lead them astray from the temple. We covered the tin in pictures of this temple clip art we found on sugardoodle.net

The kids loved seeing if they were going to head forward or backward on the path. Here are the "deeds" and "incidents" we had in the tin that they drew from.

Positive Deeds:
You helped your brother get ready for church- go forward one step

You did the dishes without being asked- go forward two steps

You helped your sister with her homework- go forward one step

You cleaned your room without being asked- go forward one step

You made cookies for your neighbor- go forward one step

You gave a talk in primary- go forward two steps

You changed you baby brothers diaper- go forward three steps

You helped your dad mow the lawn- go forward one step

You bore your testimony in sacrament meeting- go forward two steps

You shared the Book of Mormon with a friend at school- go forward three steps

You sang a primary song for your grandma- go forward one step

You wrote in your journal- go forward one step

Negative Incidents:
You told a friend’s secret- go back one step

You yelled at your sister- go back one step

You lied about finishing your homework- go back two steps

You stole candy from a store- go back three steps

You snuck over to your friends instead of doing your chores- go back two steps

You went to bed without saying your prayers- go back one step

You watched a movie your parents told you not to- go back one step

You forgot to read your scriptures all week- go back one step

You ignored your brother when he needed your help- go back one step

You broke a neighbors window playing baseball, and didn’t tell anybody- go back two steps

You made fun of someone at school- go back two steps

You broke your friends toy on purpose- go back two steps

Primary Song Questions:
Complete this phrase: I love to see the temple, _ ________ _____ _____ ______.
Go forward two steps if correct,
Go backward one step if wrong
(From I Love To See The Temple)

Complete this phrase: The temple is a house of God where ___ _____ ______ ____________. Go forward two steps if correct, go backward one step if wrong. (From I Love To See The Temple)

Complete this phrase: I’ll prepare myself ___ __ _____ ________. Go forward one step if correct, go back one step if wrong. (From I Love To See The Temple)

Complete this phrase: I want to share my life with them ____ ______ ____________. Go forward one step if correct. Go back one step if wrong. (From Families Can Be Together Forever)

Complete this phrase: __ ______ ___ ___ _____ with my own family. Go forward one step if correct. Go back one step if wrong. (From Families Can Be Together Forever)

The only revisions we would have made to this are more steps forward on some of the positive deeds, and less negative incidents so they can make their way along the path a little quicker.

Each time a child had the opportunity to be on the path, the person who drew from the tin got to take their place on the path. In this way it involved all of them. It was great interaction and they all wanted to play it again. If you have a sharing time or primary lesson you need to plan soon, go ahead and try this. It was so much fun, and the kids felt the spirit. Like I said I'm married to a genius.

We enjoyed going to the Miss Graham County pageant this Saturday. I helped two of the girls get ready for their talent and we're obviously close to the Innes' so it was inevitable that we would be there cheering on Leisel as well. They did a great job. . .what a tough thing to prepare for. I was especially proud of Jess. She had a rough experience in preparing for the pageant and went through with it anyway and held her head up high! That takes true heart and determination so we were very impressed with her ability to "go on with the show." Jess ended up getting Third Runner Up- which is really awesome! She gets a good chunk of scholarship money which is always helpful. The ending result was quite an upset though. I really thought Leisel had it in the bag, but she ended up being first runner up. (Which is still really cool cause she gets a ton of scholarship money, but doesn't have any of the responsibilities or commitments that Miss Graham County has. The winner was a girl nobody knew from around here because she was from Mesa.

Tomorrow starts my first day of teaching "College Credit Voice Lessons." Bring it on Babay!