Plan of Salvation

Brinley taught us of the Plan of Salvation for her lesson, showing that Heavenly Father's plan spells out LOVE for all of us! 

And then we played the Dead Fish Game.

She did a great job teaching!

On Compassion

If there is one thing we try to do each week, it is to hold Family Home Evening.  The other day, I listened to an interview in which a woman talked about how grateful she was that her mother kept a record, or minutes, of their home evenings.  I thought I'd share a few pictures from some we've had this year.  I love my family and enjoy Monday nights, even if it is just a brief event. 

 Nathan had us draw papers with situations on them.  We were to consider what it would be like to have these struggles and how we could help people in these situations.

 Having Levi imagine being blind.

Nathan helped us think of others, and how to be good brothers and sisters on this earth.

Years ago, when I was teaching seminary full time, I had a student who was struggling.  I was speaking with her mom over the phone one day, and I learned so much from the conversation.  She said, in essence: "When our kids were little, I thought I had to do fancy Family Home Evening lessons, and so when I didn't prepare something spectacular, we would skip it.  I wish now that I would have had home evening, no matter what.  I wish we would have just read a little something out of the Friend magazine and not felt like it had to be a production".  Her words have really blessed me many times, when we have just thrown something together and enjoyed one another's company.  In fact, sometimes the more casual the setting, the better!

This makes me think of a statement from Elder Bednar about leaving room for the Holy Ghost to direct the experience:

"Inviting children as gospel learners to act and not merely be acted upon builds on reading and talking about the Book of Mormon and bearing testimony spontaneously in the home. Imagine, for example, a family home evening in which children are invited and expected to come prepared to ask questions about what they are reading and learning in the Book of Mormon—or about an issue that recently was emphasized in a gospel discussion or spontaneous testimony in the home. And imagine further that the children ask questions the parents are not prepared adequately to answer. Some parents might be apprehensive about such an unstructured approach to home evening. But the best family home evenings are not necessarily the product of preprepared, purchased, or downloaded packets of outlines and visual aids. What a glorious opportunity for family members to search the scriptures together and to be tutored by the Holy Ghost. “For the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner; … and they did all labor, every man according to his strength” (Alma 1:26).
David A. Bednar, "Watching with All Perseverance", April 2010 General Conference 

I am grateful for what Nathan taught us about compassion on that night. And I am so grateful for prophets, who counsel us to gather in our homes each week and teach each other.

Freeze Dance, Noah, and Murder in the dark...

 Here we are with our silly song.  It is a freeze dance, found on the internet.  It wasn't my favorite one, which goes:  "Hop and hop and hop and hop and hop and hop and Stop!"  But it was a pretty good one. 

 Obviously freezing here:

Cory helped Levi with his lesson.  They used some vintage flannel board characters that depicted Noah's Ark.  (our church library was cleaning out all kinds of stuff, and I brought these home!) 

Levi had fun putting up all of the animals.

 When the floods came, we sang "The Wise Man built his house upon the Rock", because of the raining lyrics.   Fun times.

 And THEN we played murder in the dark....

 By the light of Nathan's color-changing alarm clock.  Spooky fun.  We played the "hand squeeze" way, because the winking way freaks Brinley out.  I was the first murderer, and went on a real spree right away.  After that, it was decreed that you have to wait for one person to die before killing another.

 Then we had these semi-okay sorta yummy treats that we probably won't make again.

          

Are we on target?

 Saxton came up with a great lesson, all on his own.  He printed this target and put a little picture of the Savior in the middle:

Then he blindfolded us, spun us around, and had us try to put a post-it note with our name on it on the center of the target. 

My camera ran out of battery, so I couldn't get a pic. of all our post-its around the picture.  

Saxton likened the blindfold and the dizziness to sin, and encouraged us all to repent so that we can see our direction clearly.

Way to go, son.

Trust Fall, App lesson, and Monkey milkshake

For our silly song, we sang, "What do you do with a scurvy pirate?", from Backyardigans.  Levi sings it all the time, and it was his turn to come up with songs.

Scurvy Pirate What do you do with a scurvy pirate? Raid their ship and then hot wire it. What do you with a scurvy pirate? Make them walk the plank!!! Arrr! Arrr! What do you do with a scurvy pirate? Load the cannon up and fire it. What do you do with a scurvy pirate? Make them walk the plank!!! We’ll raid their scurvy pirate ship and make them walk the plank. Grab up all their treasure . . . And put it in the bank!!! What to do with a scurvy pirate? Load the cannon up and fire it. What do you do with a scurvy pirate? Make them walk the plank!!!

We only sang the last verse.

We had people trust fall into our arms when we said "plank"!

And then our chorister led us in "I Am a Child of God"...  

 Conducting is so much more fun with a wand in your hand!

 Nathan taught us a lesson, using an app on the iPad, in which he had us guess the scripture character.

For activity, we took turns playing this app:

The scores (below) reveal how very terrible mom is at video games.  Or maybe they reveal that my children play too much.

 Our treat was a Monkey Milkshake!  Ice Cream, chocolate milk, and bananas.  Yum.

The Hustle....

I substituted for my mom today, who is a dance teacher.  So, for several hours I saw myself, in spandex, in front of some big mirrors.  The whole time I was dancing in front of all these cute little girls, I thought, "my bum is totally jiggling right now.  gross.  my mom's bum does not jiggle.  it is made of steel."  Talk about a wake up call.   I feel so fat.  Time to call the carbohydrate police because that is so much my weakness right now.

But I digress...

Family Home Evening was fun and fast.  

Brinley gave a lesson on bullying.  She used this article from our church children's magazine, The Friend:

So one example she gave of bullying was rolling your eyes and laughing at someone.  Nathan proceeded to act that out, only he did it in such a dramatic way that it made us all laugh.  Then we laughed at how we were "bullying" Nathan for the way he was acting out bullying.  Oh funny.

A great scripture in this article was Mosiah 2:17, which reads:

"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."

For an activity, we stood in a circle and danced to Disco music, one of the songs being "The Hustle", which is from my birth year, 1975.  Woot Woot!   We each came up with 8 counts of music and put it all together.

I chose a super fast activity because we needed to get to bed!

And our treat was one of my favorite cookies ever!

 Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 c. shortening

1 c. sugar

1 egg

1 c. mashed bananas (3 medium)

1/2 tsp. soda

1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 3/4 c. sifted flour

1 3/4 c. rolled oats

1/2 c. mini chocolate chips

Mix together and bake at 350 for 12 minutes.  Makes 2 dozen.  These are so soft and yummy.

 Aw, man.  They are FULL of carbohydrates.

Yesterday:

I hear Saxton groan loudly at Nathan and say, "Don't say that!  That's my motto!"
(Mad Skill and Determination  is what Nathan said, probably in response to a question like, "how did you do that?)
Ellie:  "You don't own those words"
(I was giggling in the other room.  Sometimes, I enjoy kid arguments.  Before they escalate to violence.)

We played a board game last night, Zarahemla.  Miracle:  We made it through the whole game, no one threw a fit, and we had lots of fun!  They are old enough to last!   Yay.

Tonight:

Family home evening:

Song: Brinley

Silly Song was "A pumpkin is a pumpkin", a fun song Grandma Sue sings with her dancers around Halloween.  You sit around in a circle to sing it, and tickle everyone at the end!
Pretty Song:  "Families can be Together Forever", with sign language!  The three in Primary showed off to dad what they have learned and stood and signed both verses.  They did great!  The Song leader in Primary allowed the children to write their first and last names on her skirt if they could sign the first and last verses of the song.  I was happy that our three children got both of their names on the skirt just in time! 

Lesson:  Ellie
Ellie played different music clips for all of us and asked us each how we felt during them.   One of the clips she played was from Harry Potter, and we all let ourselves get creeped out a little bit as we focused on the music (especially Levi)!  During the hip hop song, all the children got up and danced.  Levi had so much fun bopping around between them all.  They were each vying for the attention of their parents with their new and crazy moves.  So fun.
Then Ellie read the section on music in the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet and testified and commented throughout.  She is a great teacher.

Activity:  Saxton
We played the sock game, where we all crawl around on hands and knees and try to take socks off each other while keeping our own on.  We got through two rounds with just some minor scuffles and lots of laughs.

Treat:  Nathan

He asked me to pick up bat brownies at the store.  They are a seasonal thing that I found for soccer treats the other day, and he wanted them again today.  They are cheap and sort of gross (like you feel like you are eating a whole lot of preservatives and hydrogenated vegetable oil), but it was an easy treat.  It was a major trial for Levi today, as he saw me purchase them at the store and had to wait many hours to have one.  We learned from the box of these goodies that 1 in every 5 mammals is a bat.  It kind of freaked me out.  We are way outnumbered!

I know.  Gross Picture.
Here is one of a toad seeking revenge on the gargantuan mammalian populace:

It is gross too, but a funny gross.

Happy Halloween!

Love

One of Ellie's creations.

Kids had fun with the camera.

Playing with Charlee

Family Home Evening Treat:  Fruit leather people and Hershey's kisses!

Daddy comes home from working in Virginia!

Wrestling with Brady

Science