Our FHE Thoughts and Ideas...

I have to say that the most successful Family Home Evening is not always the most thought out or the most prepared.... All though it helps to do so! I believe it is more about the time you spend together as a family and feeling the spirit that the evening brings. While children are young they seem to require so much... but a simple lesson is suffice enough to make an impact for their age and the rest of the time should be spent together as a family. When you start having children of different ages your lessons start warping into a mix of different comprehension levels. The most important thing is that they feel the spirit... at any age! Kids will squirm, they will interrupt, they will have their rants.... but they will also know that they are loved and that they are part of a family unit and that is something too many children go without these days.

There is a great little book called "52 Weeks of Family Night" by Tamara Baggett and it has great little lessons in it. For the wee ones you could use the book for weekly topics and shorten the lesson even more!

We have had activities big and small according to our schedules. We've decorated cookies many of times, made cards for someone who was sick, toured the Krispie Kreme (where you could see them make the doughnuts) and then tasted a free doughnut! We've had living room dances, bubble nights, dress up nights, visited grandparents, walked temple grounds, walked in the park, a run in the McDonalds play area, swimming, BBQ with friends, service project (like having them pull weeds for mommy!! It actually turned out to be fun!) We've watched home movies, made sock and brown bag puppets, we've taken explorer walks where we have to discover things around us and ask way too many questions.... (That was fun!) We have gone to a pet store to play with the puppies, made gingerbread houses, made decorations for the upcomming holiday, driven around to see the holiday lights and lots and lots more.

Ok, the reason I went on so much is to hopefully get my point across.... Just be together and make it count. Have fun! Kids are ever changing and going through multiple phases from total defiance to mommys little angel... but I believe that if you keep FHE going, your family will truly be blessed. I myself am still working on having it EVERY SINGLE WEEK and in trying to keep it on the same nights... as well as learning to create an atmosphere that is inviting to the spirit! I know we will get it down someday and you will, too! And yes, I am soooo looking for new ideas so keep them comming!

FHE at the Park

I'm not really good at the FHE Lessons, but one thing that we do as a family is go to the park. It doesn't always happen on Monday's, just on the days that feel like spring. Aspen loves to be outside and this gets Dusty and myself away from the computers and television and we get to spend fun family time going down slides that are way too small for us (one of these times there will be a post about how the fire dept. was called to get out us out of one of the enclosed slides). As long as we keep away from the teenagers it's a great FHE.

Family Home Evening Failure...??

I know that the blog says to add fun family things INCLUDING family home evening ideas(preferably that go over well), but I thought I'd share why I really thought to start this blog...
After recieving a phone call on monday, from my friend Brooks, I was inspired to do family home evening that night. So I got out my book and found a lesson that I thought my 2 year old might understand. It was on Prayer. this is how it went...
Me: "ok guys it's time for family home evening"
Matt: "I thought we were going to go get your glasses?"
Me: "I thought that we could have FHE instead tonight"
*my wonderful husband MUTED the TV, yes we really don't want any distractions.*
Me: "We are going to talk about prayer."
Madie:"But I'm skating."
*as she pushes the tin lunchbox arround the floor with her foot.*
Me: "Madie do you know who we are praying to when we pray?"
Madie:"Jesus"
Matt: "Yeah, sort of, we pray to our Heavenly Father and Jesus."
Me:" How do we start to say a prayer?"
Matt:"Dear..."
Me:"Dear...who, madie?"
Madie: "um.. I'm busy"
* as she continues to push her tin lunch box.*
Me: "Dear Heavenly Father. and after we do that we tell Him thank you for all that we are thankful for like our homes and our families"
Madie:"And glue!"
Me:"yeah we can be thankful for glue, so we can do fun art projects together. And then wen we are all done telling Him thanks for all that we are greatful for we can ask Him for special blessings like what? What can we ask Heavenly Father for?
Matt:" Maybe we can ask Him to help us to have a good nights sleep. Madie what can you ask Heavenly Father to help you with?...Madie, name one thing that you can ask Heavenly Father for..."
Me: Madie I'm going to take that lunch box away."
Madie:"It's not a lunch box, it's my skate, I'm skating!!"
Me:"Maybe we could ask Heavenly Father for Patience and to help us to be kind!"
Matt:"Yeah, like she'll understand that!"
Me: "I would ask for patience! not her. this is frusterating! And then we say amen! the end! FHE is over.
*matt knows I'm over reacting and dosent say anything...prob trying to keep from laughing at how upset I got. *
*I left the room, thinking, "that was a huge success, why do I even bother?"*
A few minutes later madie and Daddy come into the room...
Matt:" Madie tell mom how you say a prayer,... get out your paper.."
Madie*as she opens up some ramdom paper she found on the floor*
"Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for family and glue, please bless that we can sleep and bless mommy that she wont be flustlated (frusterated) (I looked at matt and smiled). Amen.
Me:"Good job Madie!! That was a GREAT prayer! ....See matt she's smarter than you think, she prob. understood what patience meant too. :)

Eventhough I thought that this FHE was a pointless mess, Madie still picked up what was being taught, even if she did pick up on a few "other" things :)
And that my friends Is why I started this blog, so I could have lots of different ideas of things to do with my family. My husband dosen't want to do lessons all the time, he wants to do fun activities together.
....So bring on the FUN!!