Category Archives: Uncategorized

The sound of my own voice.

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cassette

Remember when you were little and you used to play with the Record button on your cassette tape player? We even had one with a microphone that I would instinctively hold so close to my mouth that I always sounded like a drive-thru window worker. Didn’t your voice always sound weird? I remember thinking I didn’t sound like me at all. Funny how that works.

Well, today I got the privilege of hearing my own voice in a podcast. Same weird feeling as those cassette tapes long ago. Last week I spoke with Nick Galiete at The Good Word about my book, Covenant Motherhood. I was nervous and didn’t know what to expect, but luckily he was nice to me and didn’t ask me questions that made me look like an idiot … I think.

The whole interview is about 17 minutes long and I did get the chance to share some of my own experiences and my testimony about motherhood.

>>Click here to hear the interview.<<

To be entered in a giveaway and win a copy of Covenant Motherhood (that you can keep or give away for Mother’s Day), listen to the interview and answer this question in the comments here on the blog:  Why did I start blogging?  I’ll turn on comment moderation so I can edit out your answers before I post your comment publicly. I’ll announce the winner Monday morning. 🙂

So now I can add radio star to my resume. Sort of. Right up there with “meanest mom ever” (I get that one a lot.) Thanks, Nick. Enjoy the interview, friends.

33 General Conference Activities for Children

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33 General Conference Activities for Children

General conference is a fantastic opportunity to sit at the feet of living prophets and hear the word of the Lord. By preparing early, we can create a culture of family attention and participation. Here is a collection of activities you can use to help engage your children in the general conference experience. Each of the pictures links you to the original site and post where I found the idea. Click through to those sites to learn about each activity.

Before you get too carried away, keep this in mind: Just pick a few activities that seem like a good fit for your own children and family. If you try to do too much, you will stress yourself out and then find yourself highly disappointed and annoyed when it doesn’t go like you planned it all out in your mind during your sleepless preparations. In the end, conference is supposed to be a reverent learning experience and not a three-ring circus, so work hard to create a healthy balance.

1. Countdown to conference FHE Activity.

countdown

2. Prepare by Asking Questions

questions

3. Conference Countdown “Calendar”

calendar

4.  Apostle Flash CardsApostleFlashCards

5. General Conference Trivia Gamegc trivia6. Ideas for preparing children spiritually for Conferenceprepare

7.  Watchmen on the Tower FHEwatchmen

8. Study The 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophetfundamentals

9. Basket and Bags that children do during each speakerbasket

10. Another Baggie ideabaggies

11. GC Infographicinfographic

12. Conference journalsconfjournals

13. Listening for Key wordsFamilies Tag

14. Draw pictures/notes from each talk and hang by picture on wallart wall

15. GC paper dolls (with word bubbles to add quotes)paperdoll3

16. Living Prophet Memory GameElder Andersen

17. Toddler ideas like magnetic letter matchingmagnetABC

18. Questionnaires for each sessionquestionnaires

19. General Authority “Go Fish”Go Fish 1

20. Preschool Activities including Word Huntwordhunt

21. Build a TempleBuild A Temple

22. Question Wallquestion wall

23. Lego templelegotemple

24. General Conference traingctrain

25. Fantasy General Conference Bracketsbrackers

26. Guessing the Statistics (and other ideas for each session)Church statistical report

27. Word Search/Puzzle Activities for various agesGeneral-Conference-Activity

28. General Conference Wall using Gospel Art Kitgcwall

29. GC Notes WorksheetGenConfNotes

30. GC Bingobingo

31. GC Bracelets (and other activity ideas)beads

32. The Ultimate Guide to Conference with Kidsgeneral-conference-with-kids-feature-image

33. Sugardoodle.net: The motherload of packets and printables for conferencepackets

AND ONE TWO TO GROW ON:

How to prepare YOURSELF for General Conferencet_van-gogh-woman-praying

And a Dieter F. Uchtdorf talk: “General Conference—No Ordinary Blessing” Great ideas about preparing spiritually.dieter-f-uchtdorf-large

God bless you as you prepare for and participate in General Conference. I know God lives, that his Church has been restored, and that as we act upon the things we learn in conference, we will be blessed with power and protection and treasures of knowledge.

FOOD for thought

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I have a new favorite food, and it’s strangely outside my normal categories of chocolate, potatoes, and soups (I know. I’m like an icon of health.). So this is it:

kneaders
The Veggie Avocado sandwich at Kneaders Bakery. On Paesano bread, minus the onions, add cucumber. Yum! (That picture is on the wrong kind of bread, but conveniently seems to be accompanied by a potato-ish soup.)

I know, it seems like I should be kidding because it’s almost too healthy for me, but it is so tasty and it totally eliminates any drive-thru window guilt. And if I order it with a Blueberry No. 5 smoothie, double yum. So, you’re welcome. (Do you have a favorite “healthy” fast food option?)

2. Speaking of healthy, as a nice take-away gift for speaking at RootsTech, the Story@Home people gave me a box of 10 Utah truffles. Ten. On Saturday. Now there are none. I have nothing to say about that except that it’s a good thing I like myself or I might actually hate myself right now.

3. The infamous (3 Amigos reference) Middle-aged Mormon Man interviewed me on his blog today and asked me questions about my book, Covenant Motherhood, and other important things like Taco Bell and soda. You should go check it out because the poor man could really use the traffic (I’m teasing him).

4. I’m curious. Have any of you read my book yet? Did you like it? And what did you eat while you read it? (Just trying to keep everything on topic here.) If you did like it, would you maybe go write a review on Amazon, Goodreads, Deseret Book, and/or Seagull Book? I’ve heard that good reviews can make a big difference if people add it to their shopping cart or not. If you didn’t like my book, please disregard this part of the post and just go back to thinking about sandwiches and chocolate. Thankyouverymuch.

A call for photos… please?

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I’m speaking at RootsTech this Saturday. Go learn about RootsTech here: http://rootstech.org

I need some photos for my power point presentation. Will you send me 1) a beautiful family photo that is glowing and lovely (you know what kind I mean), and 2) a photo of what “real life” looks like in your family (doesn’t have to be everyone all together)?  Update: I now have plenty for my presentation, and dozens to spare. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who sent them. Whoever says blog friends are not real friends is missing out on one of the finer things in life.

If you send them, I’m assuming you’re giving me permission to use them in my workshop, but I won’t use them for anything other than that, ever.

I promise it would help me a lot. Email the photos to dd.stephanie[at]gmail[dot]com (….replace the words in brackets with the actual symbols… just trying to avoid robot scammers…)

Pretty please?
Thank you!!

It’s Launch Day!!

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booklaunch

Today is the “official” launch day for Covenant Motherhood.  The launch party will be tonight at Seagull Book in American Fork. Click here for details. All are welcome.

Two exciting things going on in Internet world today that make the book launch feel like a real celebration:

1.  LDS Women Facebook page is highlighting three quotes from “Covenant Motherhood” today and giving away a copy of the book. They are also connected with FamilyShare.com (a division of the LDS Church’s media arm) which is an awesome site with a wealth of family-friendly resources. Go check out the giveaway and register over at FamilyShare today.

2. Bonnie over at Real Intent put up a review of Covenant Motherhood today and said some really nice things about the book. If you’re looking for an opinion other than mine (what?? you think I’m biased?), go check out what she has to say.

Happy Launch Day, everyone. To infinity and beyond!….