Cindi - so glad to hear that your sharing time went well. Mine was CHAOS!! and that's an understatement! Almost everyone was at church which means there were almost too many people for the building. There were too many people in the halls, couldn't get by, kids wouldn't go to their classes, kids were upset, etc. etc. My first counselor wasn't there (normally she's VERY dependable) so I had to do sharing time for junior primary which is normal but then had to coordinate a teacher for her class. It didn't work out because I found two teachers (one english, one spanish) but most of the kids in the class were french speaking so I dropped senior sharing time on my chorister and taught the junior primary kids in their class. Oh, Marion, I did the 'if you can hear me touch your nose' thing with junior primary because they were particularly distracted and talkative. They never did hear me! I go back and forth in my mind, should I just stop talking because none of the children are listening to me or should I just continue my lesson and ignore them all!? Oh well, some weeks are better than others. Hang in there.
Jocelyn

I just wanted to let you all know how primary went this week...

I was in charge of sharing time (all together little and big) and music time (always). We started out singing Head, sholders, knees and toes...actually in spanish it´s, Head, face, sholders, toes...anyway, we sang that normal, fast and slow. They enjoyed that (they weren´t tired but I sure was after that!). Then I started sharing time. Before anything I handed out a sticker (it was fast Sunday so I didn´t want to take candy)to the three kids that were being reverent and made a BIG deal about it, you know, " Here you go (gave them a sticker), thank you for being so reverent." They started calming down and they were quiet. Then I started asking questions and they were blurting things out so I only called on the kids that raised their hands. And when I called on them I gave them a sticker for raising their hands (and made a big deal about it again). Within 5 minutes I had them all quiet and everyone was raising their hand to participate! They had to tell me things we learned about at church and after I asked them songs we could sing that had to do with the answers they had given (that were written on the chalkboard). They all had songs they knew and wanted to sing. All in all it was a success! Thank goodness for STICKERS. I do have to admit that closing time was better, but NOT as reverent as sharing time...but I wasn´t in charge of it so oh well!!!
Well, thanks for all your good advice. I hope it works this well next week too!!! love you all.

By the way, Guillaume is in all three of those pictures, so keep searching!
Here's a few of Alienor and Perceval playing playdoh.
Jocelyn

Wednesday we had beautiful weather and spent the day in the backyard. Here are a few pictures of Guillaume in the cherry tree behind our house. See if you can find him!
Hope you are all doing well.
Jocelyn

Last Thursday we had 10 yards of compost delivered to the front of the house. I had the painful pleasure of bringing it to the back. Brandi helped shovel into the wheelbarrel and I wheeled it back to dump. It took ALLLLL day. I even had to hire 2 of the youth to come finish it off the last hour. As you see below, Brandi and I worked on the vegetable garden boxes. The girls like to ride back to the pile from the backyard. Yeehaw!!! We are laying the SOD on Saturday, anyone want to help?

I wheeled the dirt to the backyard and Brandi Raked, then I tilled with the roto-tiller. It was a very long day. Natalie was helping by shoveling the "dirt" into the wheelbarrel, although I wouldn't recommend the one for you one taste for me, brownie mix it is not.....

Natalie was helping with the mortar for the vegetable garden boxes.

The other day Nathan got after me for just viewing this blogg and not adding any pics!
So as a result these are my were doing breakfast shots. Hope yoy enjoy a couple of bleary eyed old folk and a missionary.
Marie is back to work and still feeling poorly but it is better to get paid feeling yukky than not

Thanks for all of your advice. I have printed them all out and I´m going to plan this weeks primary using some of the ideas.... I´ll let you know what happens.
I was the YW Pres. until about a month ago. Now I´m the 1st counselor in the Primary. I´ve never been in primary... always a sunday school teacher or YW, but I´m really enjoying it. Mom is giving me LOTS of GREAT ideas. The idea I´ve come up with for helping the kids be better is putting a little bit of dramamin (spelling) in the sacrament water... only for the kids of course the adults already sleep through church!!! In primary at church I can´t yell or whistle like I used to with the youth...although I´ve come REALLY close to doing it.
David was released about three months ago from being the YM President and now he´s the Elders Quorm President. He enjoys it, but has a hard time with the fact that he and the missionaries are the ONLY ones that do their home teaching... but that´s pretty much universal.

love you all. Oh Jeff, I don´t have a Reed Noble or else your idea would be GREAT! hugs.

Fun to all be on the computer at the same time! In the time it took me to make the last post, Marion and Jeff posted as well! Fun.
Jocelyn

Cindi,

When Toddy Hutchins, myself, Curtis DOuglas Bryan Kirk etc were young...they would send reed noble in to our classroom and he would sit on us and make funny sounds..but when we were out of control he would use his belt to tie toddy hutchins (the smallest one of the bunch) up and hang hi so he was dangling on the back side of the door...so just bring some rope, loop it around the kids belts and throw the rope over the door, close the door and make thi kids sit there hanging by their belt as an example...it was funny...but it always seemed to get us to coopereate once we saw toddy squirming in pain up there.

For some reason I thought you were in YW, Cindi. As for keeping children reverent in Primary, Europe is a-whole-nother ball game. Orem, Utah it is NOT! I've discussed it with several Europeans and they seem to think that the culture in America makes it more possible for the children to be reverent. Plus the fact that they think most members come from families that came across the plains so 'mormonism' is in their blood. I try not to be too rude to them to their face, but I have decided that I wholely disagree. We are in the same church. We share the same gospel, have the same classes, run all the programs the same (well, almost!), should be having relatively the same FHE, scripture study, prayer, etc. There may be cultural differences, yes, but children in my primary should be able to be just as reverant as children in Orem. Are they? NO! But I still have it as a goal. But to take some of the blame off myself, I try to realize that half of our kids are not learning the gospel at home, are rarely expected to behave, do not have strong parents that are actually parenting, etc. So I try to teach them the best I can at church. Why don't you move up here, we could REALLY use you! For the little kids, I've tried to be much more animated and include them IN the sharing time by coordinating the lesson around some physical activity like Ring a round the Rosies or something like that. Oh, it also helps to have a man in primary. We just had a good family move in last fall and he is the stake clerk but volutarily serves as primary chorister as well. I'd be lost now without him because I used to have to do everything myself. Just having him there makes the children more respectful, especially the older kids (boys) so it has been nice.

So I am Primary president, which includes being the secretary, Faith in God leader, (doing sharing time every sunday because my counselors are jr. primary teacher and nursery leader) etc. and I also do the monthly branch newsletter w/calendar. Patrice was recently released as branch mission leader (BIG calling in our branch) to be called as Elders Quorum president. He has one counselor (newly reactivated) and a strong high priest leader. He also kind of serves as branch mission leader until they can find someone to fill that calling.

What are your callings? How do you like your ward? Just be thankful you all speak the same language! - minus you of course Marion (meaning they have a different language in NJ!)

Have a great day. The sun is actually shining here today and we spent all morning outside. It's supposed to be nice this week but crappy this weekend again. Oh, well.
Jocelyn

It is hard to believe that so many of us are serving in Primary at the same time. Reverence is so hard. Our primary is smaller than yours Cindi, but we have enough children who shout out and cause a raucous to make up for the difference. We have a small stuffed animal (I think its a beeny baby) that we hide every week. We call it the reverence elephant. We ask if anyone has seen the reverence elephant and we only call on someone who is being quiet. We also start each primary with a reverence song to set the tone. In my last ward we assigned someone each week to be the reverence monitor. That person stood at the front of the room with their arms folded as a reminder to everyone that they need to be reverent. I always do a little game if no one is listening. I quietly say, "If you can hear me touch your ear" or "If you can hear me touch your mouth." The touching your mouth one usually works because they have to put their hand over their mouth to touch it. Our music leader does a clapping game to get the kids to listen. She claps and then snaps her fingers and the kids have to repeat what she does. She mixes it up. Its like the game simon. Clap, snap, clap, that kind of thing. All these things usually get the kids attention and brings the noise down to a dull roar that is tolerable. As a last resort tell them you are going to have their parents come to sit with them during Primary. I don't know too many kids who care to live through the embarrasment of having to sit with their parents when no one else is. Hope all this helps.

Have a great day everyone.

Hey, why is Spain out of the picture? In the north of Spain they speak enough french (or at least it´s mixed in to whatever they do speak) that you would do well there!! Ok, so I´m just trying to get some family a little closer to me. Let me just say, I know exactly how you feel. Spanish people are a bit more open and the wheather here is way better than where you are, but it´s still hard to find "good friends". Lately my life is work, and primary. The rest of the Primary presidency and the other members all think I´m crazy. Every week I go to church with something new to decorate the primary room with or a new activity to do for singing time or something to help keep the kids reverent.
Hey, since I know there are a lot of great moms and Primary leaders that read this page I´m going to ask for some advice...
What can I do to help the kids in primary be more reverent???? We have about 25 kids in primary and it´s impossible to get them to behave! I´ve tried having those that are good participate, sitting with their classes, giving them a sticker if they´re good. Mom told me to give them an M&M if they are good. The problem with that is NONE of them are good so I never get a chance to give them the M&M´s. Anyway, some good ideas would be VERY appreciated!! Love you all.
keep smiling

I received a frantic call from Mom this evening because she wanted to find out when we were moving! Sorry to have caused such a commotion!
It's just that the last couple of months - particularly since I got into this homeschooling thing - I've realized how much I feel like my life is on hold here. I enjoy being here, or at least I enjoy the experience of living here. We LOVE serving in our branch. YOu just can't beat the diversity of languages, cultures, nationalities, etc. (You CAN beat the weather; it's rather dreary.) But I often find myself saying, "If I were in the US, I could be _____." On my bad days, the list of things that I put in that blank is rather long! Yesterday was a great day but I came home wondering how I'll ever make friends with people here. It just seems to be a different world here. Most of the time I'm fine because my world is basically my home, homelife, homeschool, and church callings. My efforts to socialize are usually among church members/inactives/investigators. Maybe that's the problem too. Everything is an effort for me here. Not a lot is in my comfort zone (except Primary now). I like that in a way, but sometimes it's tiring. I'm just painting a negative picture because I've been thinking about it a lot lately. So for fun I threw out that question about where we should move to next. I didn't consider how you'd all respond, just thought you'd share your ideas like, "we always thought it would be interesting to live in ______." So if you could move, where would you move to? Yes, dangling preposition and all.
On a patriotic note... There's lots of negative in the US and things that I don't agree with but there is a lot of freedom as well. I appreciate the overall open-mindedness of Americans. (For example I met an American lady in my village in Germany and we ended up walking home together and I invited her in for a minute. We talked maybe half an hour and like she said, we knew more about each other than most Germans do after knowing someone for 5 years!) I have a testimony that the gospel could never have been restored here in Europe. The traditions and cultures get in the way. There's too much history here and people are not very open.
Anyway, I just thought I'd clarify a bit about our next move, in the semi-distant future! Like Patrice reminded me tonight, he has to have a job wherever we go. Darn, that complicates things a bit!
OK, just rambling and procrastinating going to sleep.
Have a great day.
Jocelyn

Well, we wouldn't be moving any time soon. But our 7-10 years has definitely been scaled back to 5 max! Even Patrice has been talking about it! He envisions the Pacific Northwest. I suggested Raleigh NC or northern VA. Of course there's always So Cal or Utah Valley. Although I love Utah, I don't see us returning there. We've already done Germany and Luxembourg and France is out of the picture. I don't think we'd head to Spain or Portugal but Belgium or Italy are options. Vancouver BC even came up. But if we are trying to escape the weather, I don't see the NW as being much different from here. We are just to close to the Ardennes which has it's own particular climate. Oh, I said the Bible belt was pretty much out of the question, except for a visit.
So, any suggestions?! Patrice even said NJ and I said we could go rent my dad's house in Toms River! That would be scary though. I've never thought of going back there to live. I told Patrice the ward there is worse than the branch here!!
Well, gotta go help the kids get in bed so I can also.
Have a great day.
Jocelyn

Jocelyn,

Are you really thinking of moving? Is this something you guys have been thinking about for a while or something new? I hear America is nice if you are looking for suggestions.

Happy May Day. Here May 1 is labor day so it's a holiday and no one works. We spent the afternoon with one of the two Luxembourgish families that we are friends with. (The term 'friends' being used rather loosely) Ronny and Maggie Wies (veese) with kids Max 12 and twins Lisa and Julia 8. We went up north to Echternach where there's a little lake. We took a walk around it which was about a mile long. All the while the kids kicked the soccer ball around and threw a baseball back and forth as we walked. It was Max's first time to use a baseball and mitt! The soccer ball inevitably ended up in the lake. Luckily we waited and it finally floated across to where we could reach it. We saw the usual ducks and geese but we also found a whole ton of tadpoles which was fun for Guillaume because we just learned about the life cycle of a frog. At the end of the walk there was a playground area and the kids played until the rain finally came to stay. It's not a great picture of the kids but I thought the whole structure was interesting. It is actually a swing that spins. Considering the Wies kids can be a little rambunctious, all went well and everyone was well behaved - no episodes.
Well that was today in a nutshell.
Guillaume would like to share that he has a loose tooth. It started the other day and he is working on it so hard it should fall out any day now!
Patrice and I are planning our next move. Any suggestions on where to live?! Luxembourg weather is not the greatest and cold climate can make for a cold culture and cold people. I might also go as far as saying a small country makes for small minds. That's a little mean though!! (but relatively true)
HOpe you have a great week.
Jocelyn

Andy-
Just kidding! But did you notice that your hat matches your walls? You're so color coordinated!
Jocelyn

OOOPS! I thought the vibrant red color was one of the very hideous colors painted by the previous rentors! My mistake!!!!
Jocelyn