we've only practiced this at school

Today was quite the adventure at church.  Derek and I spoke in Sacrament - so glad to have my talk over!  I have a serious aversion to giving talks, it freaks me out.

After Sacrament we moved on to Primary where it was business as usual until the last hour. About 10 minutes or so into Senior Primary strobe lights start flashing and the fire alarm (the very high pitched fire alarm) starts going off.  My first thought honestly was fire drills are only practiced at school and I had a small moment of panic - what are we supposed to do?!

We poked our head into the hall to hear a member of our Bishopric directing us to get out of the building so that is what we proceeded to do.  The kids and teachers were amazing.  We got the kids out to the parking lot and we didn't lose one kid - that was my big worry.  My guess is within 5 or 10 minutes we were back in the building - the alarm had stopped (talk about an annoying noise - I still have a headache from it) but the strobes kept going until the fire department showed up.  Its always fun for Primary teachers to be stuck in little classrooms teaching a class full of kids with a strobe light going off.  

The kids all thought it was a great adventure today - I did too, I was only wishing that the alarm had gone off during my talk - now that would have been a tender mercy!

primary birthday gifts

I have shared this birthday idea with a few folks that I thought would be interested - others who might need an idea for primary, young womens, etc.  There has been a lot of great response so I thought I'd share a quick how to on what our primary presidency did.

The theme this year in primary is "My Eternal Family" we wanted a birthday gift for the kids that would be a reminder of the theme as well as inexpensive so we don't break the budget.  We decided on scripture tag pulls that were personalized saying...the Baker (each child's family name) is forever done in the primary colors...red, yellow and blue.

We made the tags using Shrinky Dinks.  We found them at Michael's - 6 sheets for $10.  We could fit 6 graphics on a sheet.  The graphic was a simple square (3x3 - I believe) done up on Adobe Illustrator.  You want to keep the design simple because when it shrinks you may lose some detail.

After the computer work was done we ran the shrinky dink sheets through the printer - there are different kinds of shrinky dinks so if you are doing this make sure to get the sheets that go through the printer.  Once printed we used a 2 1/2 in circle punch to cut out the circles and a regular hole punch for the top.  Then it's time to bake - follow the directions on the shrinky dink package.
3 - 5 minutes later you have small, round tags that have thickened into a pretty thick plastic that wont bend.  You may notice the difference in color...when the tags shrink the colors get more vibrant so you need to print your graphics a bit lighter then the color you are actually going for (this info is in the directions)

After they cooled we sprayed them with a gloss sealer (also found at Michael's) and then attached them to cell phone cords.  You can buy the cords at Michael's for $3 for 6 or buy online at a much better price.  We got ours at D&I Beads for $1.25 for 12.  Here is the link. Shipping was quick (even in December)
We are happy with how they turned out and we hope the kids will like them.  I have mine on my scriptures and love the visual reminder of the theme.

This was a mock up of the packaging - the final packaging looks better.  We just did another graphic on Adobe Illustrator but you could use any program.  It says Happy Birthday love your Primary leaders.  In the top left hand corner it says scripture pull.  We printed it on card stock and used a xyron machine to cover the back of the tag in adhesive.  They we simply folded over the top of little jewelry bags that a member of the presidency already had.
I think we ended up spending a little less then 40 cents a gift - which we think is pretty good for a personalized gift.

If you have any questions let me know - I'm happy to help!

out of the frying pan into the fire...

or is it the other way around?  

Today I was sustained in church as the Primary President.  I thought I'd escaped any demanding callings (for the rest of my life) because of Prop 8 but that seems to not be the case.  The verdict is still out whether I am going from frying pan to fire or fire to frying pan - my guess, Prop 8 (fire) to Primary (frying pan)

I have amazing women serving with me in the Presidency and 112 great kids that we get to help grow in the gospel.  I'm excited!