FHE

For February I have been working on doing more of the things I know I should be doing... specifically with Church.  We have tried having family home evenings on a more regular basis.  We have gotten two done so far.  We did them at the end of last year a time or two, and they went terrible, so I gave up.  I had a break and recharged and have prepared them at a different angle: a 3-year old angle.  Something short, sweet, and fun!  Our attention span here averages about 10-15 minutes.

I have the FHE resource book but find myself wanting something more 'modern'.  You can access it online though and it can give you a great start for topic ideas.  I also can't believe how much I use the iPad or my phone for things.  I have the Mormon Channel App, LDS hymns, and the Gospel Library on there.  They all come in handy!

I will share the two FHE's we have done. 

FHE #1: Nature - Evidence of Heavenly Father's Love

I read from the FHE manual a highlighted a few things about the lesson that I liked for our family FHE.  We talked about things around us that are nature related, especially our favorite things in nature.  Then we got a big poster board and magazines and cut out examples of nature.  We also watched THIS short video clip on how the earth was made.  Quite honestly it was a complete disaster.  Sophie was being so grumpy.  She doesn't like to say prayers, so that was a bad start.  Then, not that we could even sing, but the thought of music she hasn't asked for is enough to put her over the edge.  By the time I finished reading... (we had to physically keep her sitting with us as she cried and yelled almost the entire time) she was in such a horrible mood she didn't want to do the fun part.  Kale and I went about it though, and by the end she thought it was pretty cool to use glue and actually participated...

FHE #2 Prayer

Well since, last time had gone SO WELL... (yeah right) I was fearful of putting in a lot of work and having high expectations.  I searched pinterest high and low and didn't find much that seemed like it was ready-made for a 3 year old.  So I took some ideas and information from a few sites and made my own lesson about Prayer.  I found THIS cute printable and send it to Kinkos to be laminated so we can use it to plan our lessons.

I also found some really great stuff for the lesson from HERE.  We went through the lesson (I adapted it more towards us and added things I had found on LDS.org ect).  It was going ok, Sophie was protesting by putting her hands on her hips, crying, or trying to leave.  After the lesson, we read this fun story.  I had printed it out and Sophie was mesmerized by the picture of the boy in the elevator.  Things were looking up!  Then watched an awesome video about Prayer.  This was the part that Sophie finally stopped protesting and loved the music and the birds in the video.  After the video, we listened to "Sweet Hour of Prayer" as we colored and cut out/glued THIS fun craft!  Sophie loves using scissors (a little too much sometimes) and glue!  

What a relief FHE went a LITTLE better!  

#3 Our Next Lesson is on Love One Another - Love at Home

We listened to "Love One Another" and read a scripture about that.  The lesson is about Love at Home.  I kind of combined THIS lesson with this TALK and some other ideas I ran across while searching.  We're going to read a poem by Shel Silverstein about Hugs, cause those poems are always fun.  Our activity is going to be a LEGO one.  I used THIS but added a lot more adjectives to put on the side of the legos for our tower (just a few examples that are more specific: keep journals, obedience, be good influences, invite priesthood into our home, fasting, carrying out family traditions, sharing our testimony, ect).  

My daughter loves puzzles so I printed THIS on cardstock, cut it out, and stuck some magnets on the back so we can use it all year long on the fridge.

Then we made cookies (and ate them too!)