Family Home Evening

Up until about six or so weeks ago, Brian and I would take turns doing the lesson and treats and thinking of an activity for family home evening, with Eliza and Libby taking a turn here and there every so often. I kept promising to get a FHE chart where we could rotate. I looked and looked and looked for one that I liked and never really found one. So in desperation, I just decided to type up everyone's assignment for the week and tape it to the wall. And that is how everyone knows his or her assignment and how everyone has an assignment every week. That little change has improved our home evenings ten fold. We rotate between conducting, song, prayer, lesson, activity and treat. Libby has really enjoyed this and takes whatever role she has so seriously. She comes up with the most creative treats, lessons and activities. We've actually done some fun activities lately. One Libby found in a Friend magazine was where you have a bag of dress up items--hats, costumes, belts, masks, etc. Someone has an iPod and you play a song and with the participants in a circle, they pass the bag of items. When the music stops, whoever has the bag pulls an item from the bag and puts it on. At the end you see who has the most items on or the silliest outfit, etc. That one was really fun. Another was fun but a little harder for Hattie to understand and for everyone to play. You have everyone in a circle and one person in the middle of the circle. The person in the middle is blindfolded. The people in the circle walk around until the person in the middle says stop. When he or she says stop, she points at someone and says an animal. Whoever she points to makes the sound of that animal but tries to disguise their voice. The person in the middle tries to guess who it is. It might have worked in a bigger group as everyone in our family was pretty easy to guess. It was still funny to hear all the sounds.

Ellie's game tonight was fun, too. It was called Scribbles. Each person has a blank sheet of paper, a pencil and a book. You put the book (for a hard surface) with the paper on your head and you make scribbles until someone says stop. Then you hand your paper to the person to your left who then draws a picture from the scribbles on your paper. Tonight we had two snowmen, two flowers and one van. They all had fun with that. Then we turned the paper over and had everyone put the paper back on their heads and draw a face. That was funny, too. Can't wait to see what next week will bring.