{feeling the Love}

This past Monday our Family Night was all about love. We began the night by making heart sugar cookies.

Kaidee and Cole helped me roll out the dough.

Paisley loved frosting her cookie. She kept asking for more frosting. Notice her tongue this must be a very strong gene in our family.

Popsicle sticks work so well for her tiny hands.

Then she figured out it tasted good, and that was it.

No more frosting she was all about eating.

The final result. The kids had fun decorating and I think they did a pretty good job.

For our lesson/activity I had cut out 49 hearts enough for each person in the family to write something about each one of their family members. I didn't do a set for Paisley. I told the kids that they had to write why they loved each family member. I explained that this wasn't a race and that they needed to think about the reasons. I didn't want them to say things like "i love Cole because he is nice." I then told them that we were going to display them all over the house so that everyone could read why they are loved throughout the next few weeks. I must say it turned out better than I imagined. The kids did so well. Even Cole had some great reasons why he loved his family. Here are a few in our kitchen.

I took a close up of a few of them for you to see. I got this idea at 71 toes. This would also make a great fhe on Valentine's Day.

Last Night's FHE

Last night for family Home Evening my Dad, Mom, Sydney and her boyfriend Josh came over for a BBQ and a puzzle game. The object of the game was to see how fast we could put seven children's puzzles together. First we were able to look at the puzzles and then we dumped all the pieces together in the middle of the floor and mixed them together. Then on the count of three we started.

Here are the 7 puzzles.

Chloe working hard on one of her puzzles.

The first group that went was Josh, Sydney, Chloe and Kaidee. I think that their time was 3:15.

Kaidee trying to put her Goofy puzzle together.

This was the girls group be beat the boys by one whole minute.

We had to help Darian with his puzzle.

The boys took over four minutes to complete all seven puzzles.

Chase working hard.

Day One

Family night was a success. I got the kids involved and put them in charge of things. Chase is in charge of family prayer when Garrett is not here and Garrett is in charge on the days that he is here. Chloe is in charge of scripture study and Kaidee is in charge of family home evening. They are responsible for making sure that we do these things like the prophets have asked us to do. We gave out assignments for next weeks FHE and the kids were really excited about that. I hope that the excitement stays with them and that we can make this a lasting tradition in our family. Thanks for all of your kind thoughts it really was a success.

family home evening

I have been thinking a lot lately about family home evening and scripture study in our home. Our family has never been strong in either of these two things. One of my new years resolutions was to work harder at having family home evening every Monday and Scripture study every night. The year has not started out too good. We have not read our scriptures once so because tonight is the first Monday of the new year and I have been trying to plan a family home evening geared to scripture study. My mom gave me this wonderful quote by President Faust and I thought I would share it with you.

"I wonder if having unplanned and infrequent family home evenings will be enough to fortify ourselves and our children with sufficient moral strength to meet the complexities of our day. Infrequent family scripture study may be inadequate to arm ourselves and our children with the virtue necessary to withstand the moral decay of the environment in which we live. Where in the world will we learn chastity, integrity, honesty, and basic human decency if not at home? These values will, of course, be reinforced at church, but teaching them in family home evening can be particularly consistent and effective. To combat the world's evil influences, we need the strength that comes from family home evening."

I love this quote. It has really opened up a lot of emotions in me. As my children are getting older I feel it is so important to protect them from all of the outside pressures that they will be receiving. I know that I will need all the help I can get from our heavenly father and by having regular family home evenings, daily scripture study, and nightly family prayers I can help protect my children.