Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Fortified

Sometimes it's nice to do something different for Family Home Evening. Actually... let's be real.... sometimes it's nice to actually have Family Home Evening. We try really hard.

Sometimes.


We could definitely try harder. We always make sure that we are together on family nights but tend to justify baseball practice or a trip to the grocery store together as our activity and lesson.


But I've come to realize something. It doesn't always have to be about scripture reading, service, or family meetings. I need to stop feeling guilty when I don't plan ahead for a lesson and a treat. (Although that is the ideal goal.)

What we did last night was a treat in and of itself. It's something we've never done before but turned out to be a huge success. It was simple. It was fun. And although it wasn't something that taught my children to strive to be better people and it didn't teach them anything about Heavenly Father, church doctrine or the prophets... it definitely brought us closer together and strengthened our love for one another.



We built a fort.




And cuddled inside of it while reading books.




And sang songs like "Take Me Out To The Ball Game", "Three Blind Mice", and -upon Reef's request- "Another One Bites The Dust" by Queen.


And ate peanut butter/milk chocolate chips right out of the bag.

And we were happy.

And strengthened.

And fortified.



3 comments:

Stefani said...

I don't think is says anywhere in the FHE book of instructions that we always have to read scriptures, do service projects, or have a family meeting. And though you think it didn't teach them to be better people or learn anything about Heavenly Father, I bet it taught them more about that than you realize.

And I LOVE the song choices! Laughing!

Annette said...

Awesome! Spontaneous Family Nights like those are the best! Ours was "Family Minute" this week. Loren has recently started calling it Family Hour (which I thought was funny), and then this week he said, "OK everyone, time to come in for Family Minute." I laughed so hard. But some Mondays are just like that.

Anonymous said...

The whole point of family night is to spend it as a family. I LOVED what you did. My kind of FHE. And I love Annette's comment on having Family Minute. So funny. We do what we can!