golden springtime: leap day

For Family Home Evening this week, we celebrated Leap Day, and the number 29. Since I know that several of my friends are probably not familiar with FHE, I'll just quickly explain what it is. It is an evening dedicated to strengthening families. We do this by learning the gospel together, by listening & talking to each other, by teaching one another, and by enjoying activities together. It is strongly encouraged by our church, and it usually held on Monday evenings. It is a family meeting, that usually starts and ends with a song and prayer. The length of time varies on the age of the family members, and the activities vary as well. When I was growing up, my parents used it to consult together as a family about everyone's schedules, to review gospel principles, to discuss problems, and to play games or other family fun activities. Family Home Evening is a night that I look forward to each week. K & T love to sing and dance while I play songs on the piano, and Andy or I prepare a short lesson. Sometimes it's a scriptrue story, or a basic gospel principle, sometimes we talk about house rules, or things that have come up. We try to do something fun as well, sometimes it's a game, or a family sword fight (T's favorite, K will always vote for Candyland). It's just a dedicated night to family. It seems simple enough, but knowing it's always Monday night, helps me make sure it gets done. As a teenager, I didn't always love it, but now it's one of my favorite things, everyone should have Family Home Evenings!

So, back to the number 29. We explained leap years to K & T tonight, and how they will be 9 & 8 (excuse me while I cry in the corner) when the next one comes around. I had done a couple of these activities with my first graders earlier in the day, and saved a couple of copies of things for K & T to do. It's the first time that I've thought about saving them something, because they can actually do it now, and I realize just how quickly they are growing up.

My first graders turned these into hats, but we used them as signs so we could get to the good stuff. Although I think K & T would have liked them as hats too.