Craft FHE

 It's kind of a humbling/teaching moment when you realize that your husband can pull out a craft bin full of possibilities, and it blows the lessons you put lots of time and effort into out of the water.  I was at a loss for a FHE lesson one night, just before Christmas.  As we get closer to the big day, I get more brain dead and less creative.  That deer-in-the-headlights feeling, where I want to crawl into a corner and rock back and forth if I have to do ONE MORE THING.  And this year wasn't even that bad.   Scott took pity on me, and brought up the craft kit with some of everything, and let the kids loose.  I was impressed with what everyone made.  We had to help, of course, but Brighton was thrilled with a bunch of cardboard and glue.

These were the supplies.

 Scott made a really pretty paper and tulle tree for Waverly, but she subsequently unraveled it and made something of her own.

One of Brighton's creations.

 And Keaton's racecar and hand Santa.

 Waverly's re-vamped tree.

 Irelynd and Savannah had me help them sew stockings by hand.

 This is a boat on water, if it's not obvious.

 It was a fun, relaxed night, and I learned to be more spontaneous at times.  Ok, not really, but I have learned to trust Scott's judgement, so that's something.

Turkey FHE

One Monday before Thanksgiving we had an FHE lesson about Tom the Turkey learning how to control his anger.  It was a cute story where the turkey turns colors every time he gets angry.  For the treat, I made these brownie and pretzel turkeys.

St Patrick's day FHE

For FHE last week, I made these cute lime jello clover cookies, recipe here, and we talked about how it symbolizes the Godhead, with each person being a separate being, but being one in purpose, like these cookies are made from separate balls of dough, but, added together, make a clover.  We talked about how that vital truth was lost in 300AD with the Nicean Creed, and how it was again restored by Joseph Smith when he saw the Father and Son in the Sacred Grove.  The cookies were actually better than I expected, moist and yummy, and hopefully the kids learned something from the lesson.  I'm trying to work on simple truths alongside the more complex.  How do you plan meaningful FHE's with toddlers and pre-teens???  I'm finding it quite tricky.

Armor of God FHE

I want to share a fun FHE we did this week.  I did this activity when I was primary chorister in my last ward and trying to teach the kids Scripture Power, and recently I felt inspired to re-create this activity with my own kids.  I asked the kids how soldiers used to protect themselves when they went to war.  We talked about the various armor they put on.  Then we talked about how Heavenly Father doesn't send us out unprotected to fight the spiritual war we're fighting.  I told them how the Adversary hits us with fiery darts that will hurt us if we aren't protected.  Then I had Brighton stand in the middle of us and gave everybody a handful of marshmallows, which we threw at him.  That produced lots of giggles.  Waverly ate more "darts" than she threw.  We repeated the activity for Savannah and Irelynd too.  I asked them how it felt to have marshmallows thrown at them, and told them to imagine if they were flaming balls of rock.  Then we read Ephesians where it talks about putting on the armor of God, and as we read about each piece of armor, I put a piece of "armor" on Brighton.  I cut these pieces out of posterboard, and Scott made the sword from tinfoil-wrapped cardboard.

Not exactly a Knight's helmet and shoe covering, but one has to improvise...

When Brighton was fully clothed, everybody threw the marshmallows again.  We repeated it again for Savannah and Irelynd too.  Then we talked about the difference it made to have protection from the "fiery darts", and likened it to reading the scriptures, etc. and how that adds protection against Satan for us. 

The 3 littlest ones were pretty worked up and hyper after the sugar intake, so it wasn't as spiritual as I had envisioned, but I'm hoping it will be one they'll remember for a long time.  At least it was fun.

Henry Family Home Evening

Because I try to be like Shawna from My Mix of Six, we copied their FHE idea a few weeks ago.  We watched the YouTube videos by the Church on Thanksgiving.  My kids were amused by the guy that was grateful for his bed.  I laughed when he was grateful for no cabbies yelling to get out of the way.  We then wrote 5 things we were grateful for in 4 categories: activites, people, places, and foods.  Irelynd was grateful for Macey's and Walmart.  Brighton was grateful for construction sites, and he humbled me by naming off Heavenly Father and Jesus as his favorite people.  I shamefully didn't think about them.  Truly I learn daily from my kids.  Scott was thankful for heaven, which I never considered and found interesting.  But true.  I was grateful for chocolate, hospitals, and George Washington.  He's such an amazing person from history.

For treats, I set out ice cream and different mix-ins for shakes.  I love the Magic Bullet!  So easy to use.  Everyone got 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream and they chose their own mix-ins.  It was fun for me to watch what everyone chose.  Some were predictable.  Brighton wanted egg nog, as did the twins.  Savannah made pumpkin, egg nog, and chocolate chips.  After a taste, I had to copy hers, plus I added crushed oreos.  Irelynd was creative, as expected.  I think she had egg nog, pumpkin, banana, chocolate, oreo, and caramel in hers.  Usually Family Home Evenings at our house are more than a little crazy, and I go on faith alone that anything said is being absorbed, in the slightest way, but I really enjoyed this, and we had fun together.  Sometimes magic happens:)

From here to there funny things are everywhere!

With tomorrow being Dr. Seuss day, Scott decided to do a fun FHE on the man. He told the kids he had to go and get a special guest for tonight's FHE. After he left the room, the conversation went something like this:

Savannah: "is it Santa Claus? No, I bet it's a leprechaun!"
Irelynd: "I'll bet Dad is just dressing up himself." (she's my logical thinker)
S: "no, or he wouldn't have gone out the front door. I bet it's a lesson on St Patrick's day, since it's coming up. I bet he went to get Brother Packer [our neighbor], and he's dressed like a leprechaun because he's short and little like one!"

Scott came back, leprechaun-less, a few minutes later as Dr. Seuss and we read a few Dr. Seuss books together. This is his version of Dr. Seuss:

As there are no images of the famous author, he invented one himself. Like the lamb slippers on his feet? Classic!

Chalk up one more character Scott has impersonated for the kids! Cute, honey! Love you for doing this for our kids! I'm sure they'll remember it for quite some time!

Everybody's gotta have a goal!

For our first FHE lesson of the year, Scott taught a lesson on setting and achieving goals. Everybody wrote down their goals for the year and when they hoped to acheive them. This was Irelynd's only goal. In case you can't read her handwriting, it says, "become a fairy."
Does that mean we've taught her well how to set lofty goals, or blurred her sense of reality? I choose to believe the former:)