Our church encourages families to have a meeting every week to allow family members a formal opportunity to teach about the gospel & Jesus Christ, as well as to promote family bonding and to have fun. Since K & T arrived home, Andy & I have made a strong effort to hold family home evenings each week. Granted, these meetings are short due to the kids' age, but we are having them nonetheless. I find it so fun that when we say it's family home evening time, both kids drop (literally) whatever they are playing with and run into our living room to sit at the piano to sing songs to begin our meeting. We start and end with prayer and usually read a scripture story, or share from our church lessons the previous day. K & T take turns saying the prayers, or choosing the songs we are going to sing. As they get older, they will get to do more of the lesson planning.
Here are the basics about family home evenings from lds.org:
What makes family home evening successful?
- Start and end with prayer. This invites the Spirit, increases love, and teaches your family how to pray.
- Learn from the scriptures and the words of latter-day prophets to help your family live the gospel.
- Add music, such as hymns and Primary songs, to create an atmosphere of love, peace, and joy.
- Make it fun by playing games, acting out scripture stories, and making treats. Keep the atmosphere light and loving.
- Be consistent. Monday nights are set aside by the Church for family home evening. If that doesn’t work, find a night that does.
- Add variety. Help a neighbor in need, hold a lesson at the park, or go for a walk as a family.
- Tonight Andy shared a gospel picture and told some of the story that went with it. He shared some of his feelings about Jesus Christ, his love for our family, and for his desire for the kids to grow up in the gospel in child friendly language. After this lesson, it was activity time! We decided to play 'horse' together and had a blast! Sometimes we have a treat, but tonight we just played for a few more minutes before bath time. I took a few pics of our family home evening fun.
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| 1, 2, 3, shoot! |
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| Daddy & K waiting for T to take a shot. |
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| Oh, how I love this little girl! |
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| T aiming for the basket. |
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| It's almost her turn! |
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| Who loves family home evening? This guy! |
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| Any excuse to play ball is a good one in his book. |
I love being with our little family, and family home evenings are a great way to spend quality time together. I'm already looking forward to next week!
