What's FHE?

Confessions of a Latter-Day Saint family.

For those of you who don't know what Family Home Evening is I found this on the LDS.org website:

'Church leaders have instructed members to set aside Monday night as "family home evening." This is a time for families to study the gospel together and to do other activities that strengthen the family spiritually, create family memories, and increase unity and love.'

Now we have not been doing this in our home, routinely. Sometimes we'll plan an activity, like going swimming, or go for a walk or whatever we might want to do and consider it "family home evening', but we haven't done it formally, or on a regular basis. So a couple of months ago I asked Sydney if she knew about "Family Home Evening", and of course she said, "No, what's that?". Shame on us! I explained to her that on Monday nights we would like to spend time together as a family and we would begin with a prayer, sing a song, have a short lesson, play a game and then probably have a treat. Well, she was all excited about that. She loves anytime we spend together playing games, reading and talking.

So we have been trying to do this on a regular basis in our house. Sydney will often ask during the week..."Is tonight family home evening night?" Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, but she sure is helping us to remember to do it and to realize how important it is to spend time with our children and teach them. Last weekend Alex and Wesley were with us so we decided to have FHE on Sunday night so they could have it with us. They weren't real excited about it at first, but by the end everyone was having fun. Here are some pictures of the kids playing Twister. Aaron and I were the spinners.

I just listened to the talk given by Elder Ballard at general conference about motherhood. It was very good and I will definitely read it again. He pointed out how little time we have with our children and how important it is to spend time with them and teach them. They enjoy every minute we spend focusing on them.

Look who came to visit.

The birds like to build nests in our garage and sometimes they fly in the house. Isn't he cute!

Hi Hallie!

We had a play day with grandma again last week. Well, really it was a shopping day for mom and grandma but the kids had fun, so it counts as a play day too. We went to lunch and then went to a consignment shop and found some good stuff. Cute little boy shoes, cute bathing trunks and the perfect little train picture for Wyatt's room. Great bargains!

Anyway, since we were in the area and the girls wouldn't be quiet unless we stopped by to see Hallie, we surprised them with a visit.

Thanks for the wagon ride Uncle Jared!

Snicklepop!

Here are some pics of the baby boy. He now has 2 teeth and he loves to eat and talk. He can scoot himself across the floor like an inchworm. He's a boy on the go! He won't sit still for even a second unless the girls are around trying to make him laugh.

Look. Now there's 2 teeth.

Mmmmm Mmmmm. Yummy. Biter biscuits.

Here's one more of Syd and Wyatt.

Watch him scoot. Don't look at all the stuff on the floor. It's a maze.

My house is SPARKLING!!!

Not because it's clean. That is a losing battle at this point. The girls got their costumes for their dance recital that is coming up on April 26th. Of course they had to try them on and do a little dance. There are sparkles and glitter all over the place. Even Wyatt's head has been sparkling for days now. You are all welcome to come to the recital if you want. I'll be taking lots of pictures and of course I will post them here on the blog, but here are a few pictures as a preview of things to come.