Fun Family Home Evening

Max Sheen, Verity''s grandpa, who was a teacher for 37 years

Inspired by my brother Jordan's posting on Facebook, we talked about family history tonight for our family home evening.  We looked through pictures and records that Jordan had scanned while he was at Grandma Sue's house one visit, and it was so neat!

Then we opened up a file of Jason's Grandma Lola's recipes that his cousin Brittany had spent a lot of time typing out.  Jason recognized many of the family favorites--everything looked so good!  We will have to try a bunch of those out this summer!

For treats we ate knock-off jelly beans and played Scattergories--it was a fun night!

We feel very grateful for the family connections that we have, for Jason's family, for the Sheen family, and for our own little Jason-Verity-Rhiannon-Wade family.  Life is good!

Wade and the perfect FHE lesson

Last night we decided to watch Captain America for family home evening.  I expected us to just plop down on the couches and start the movie up, but Wade came downstairs with his brand-new scriptures, ready to give a lesson.

He started by saying, "My lesson is about the scriptures and why they're important.  First we're going to take turns saying what our favorite scriptures are and why."

Jason's was Mosiah 2:17.    "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."

Mine was 2 Nephi 31:20.   "Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."

Rhiannon's was the story of Alma the Younger in the Book of Mormon.  (see Mosiah 27)

And Wade's was Moroni 10:5.  "And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."  (Wade wanted me to add that he's loved that scripture since he was 5, and every time he read it before he turned 8, it got him "boosted up" to get baptized.)

We read each scripture and got a chance to share why it was important to us.  I wish I could recall everyone's exact words, but I do remember perfectly the good feeling that was present.  Wade concluded his lesson by saying, "The scriptures are important because they bring us closer to God!"

The lesson was short, sweet, and to the point. 

And perfect!

Good job, Wade!

Want to learn more?  See Elder Richard G. Scott's last General Conference talk, The Power of Scripture.

7/18 Family home evening

I really enjoyed our family home evening last night.  Wade conducted the meeting, Jason picked people for song and prayer, I gave a quick lesson on pioneers, and then we played some Rock Band, Rhiannon's choice.  We played for quite a while--Jason and Rhiannon played  the guitars, Wade sang, and I tried to keep up on the drums (easy setting). 

In the middle of one particularly loud song the doorbell rang.  It was the Nation family!  They have 5 cute kids, age 7 and younger.  They made some delicious, still-warm chocolate chip cookies for us and handed over this adorable get-well card, too.  Jon, the oldest, had drawn this big picture of my face with "sparkles" in my eyes because he thought I was a great Primary president.  How's that for feel-good stuff? 

That evening I had made a choice to stay home and be with family instead of going to a farewell girls' night out for a friend who was moving.  It was the only night they could do it.  To be honest, the g-n-o sounded like TONS of fun, but I was very tired and wasn't excited about getting around on crutches all evening.  So I bailed and stayed home.  I felt guilty for not making that effort to go, but in the end, that relaxing family time was just what I needed, and I was very happy I was home to thank the Nation kids personally for their kindness!

Family soccer game

Last night for our family home evening "activity," Wade wanted to have a family soccer game out in the backyard, "girls against boys."  We had a blast.  Rhiannon was very gracious about having lame duck Mom on her team--we got creamed by the boys about 100 to 3. I'm very grateful that the kids can learn about competition and playing hard from their dad, because their mom doesn't seem to have a single competitive bone in her body.  (I did try, I just wasn't very successful making goals!)  Wade was the MVP of the night, taking a hard-kicked ball to both the face and the stomach, and not crying about it. 

Thanks for the good idea, Wade!  We had fun and got a little exercise, too!

Good gifts

Jason gave a wonderful family home evening lesson earlier this week.  The kids had given me some money for my birthday, and while we both appreciated their generous spirits, Jason talked to them about other gifts that he appreciated more from them, such as gifts of time and service.  We talked about examples like cleaning the church and their great job surprising me with a spotless kitchen.  It was a good discussion, and another reason why I am very grateful to have Jason in my life.  He is a wonderful husband and a thoughtful, wise dad--we love him!

That very day I'd been up to the kids' school, helping out at the library.  I'd been sick with a cold the previous week and hadn't come in at all to help shelve books.  I try to come in an hour or two a week.  Our school is probably 10 times busier than other schools in the district, mainly because the Accelerated Reader program is in full force there and kids are constantly checking in and out books to read for their goals.  With the volume of books being used, there's just no way the two women working full-time in the library can handle all the processing of books on their own--if they focused only on that, the kids would suffer and the library would be a total ZOO!  As I was getting books ready to shelve on carts, the school librarian came up to me, and in all seriousness said, "I'm so glad you're here.  I prayed that you would come today!"   Boy, was I glad I'd decided to come, instead of taking a snooze like I'd been thinking about doing! :)

How's THAT for an intro?

So this morning we were having a "work party" in the front yard helping Jason muck out the ponds a bit.  Jason did the hard part while the rest of us just put the yucky pond goo and weeds in the trash can.  I should have filmed him and sent it in to that show Dirty Jobs!  Just imagine him with his pants rolled up, wearing sandals, standing in the water and pulling stuff out with his bare hands...yeah, he's our superhero! :)

Somehow the end of the world came up in conversation.  We've watched the Cusack movie 2012 a lot, and I think that's where the talk started.  The kids were joking around about how funny it would be when 2013 rolled around and the earth was still okay.  I made some comment about how we don't know the exact date when that will happen.  Wade froze, eyes opened wide, and said,

"You mean there's REALLY going to be an END OF THE WORLD?" 

He wasn't afraid, just surprised!  Why this didn't come up when we were watching the movie, I don't know.  (The movie got to a point where it was SO over the top that we started laughing at parts...) But it was a neat thing to give Wade a 1-minute run-down of the 10th Article of Faith and the Savior's Second Coming, about how we don't need to be afraid if we're prepared, while we were in our work clothes, in the front yard, deep in dirt.  I said we could talk about it more for a family home evening lesson, and Wade was pretty excited about that.  Score one for Mom, taking advantage of a very unique teaching moment! :)

Friend to the rescue!

It was my turn for the lesson tonight during Family Home Evening. I wanted more discussion on bullying and friendship. We're doing fine in that department, but prevention and preparation go a long ways, ya know?

The September 2009 issue of the Friend magazine was exactly what I needed! There was a great story about a girl who sought help for someone else being bullied, and then a good couple pages of lists that described examples of bullying, what to do if you're a victim, and what to do to help someone else. The kids were very attentive! After that I had some strips of paper with either a "situation" to act out or a question to answer. My favorite scenario was when Wade was supposed to be the bully and I was the kid he was picking on. The kids were a little shocked when I said, "STOP!" in a very FIRM voice, but I think they got the message! Jason had some great input on what makes a good friend, too.

Here are links to the articles I used:

Scriptures and Bullies
Stop Bullying Now