Family Home Evening Deluxe

Around General Conference time in April, Dave and I decided Jessica was ready to join us for little scripture lessons on Monday Family Home Evenings. She loved singing "Do As I'm Doing" and "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree", and listened as we read from the Illustrated Scripture story books. Besides identifying "Jesus!", it seemed she liked being with us, but she didn't seem to remember anything we read.

But one day the thought came to me: "It's not fair to my family to spend lots of energy planning creative activities for other church members, or designing fun teaching strategies months in advance for my piano students, yet throw something last minute together for my kids' spiritual education." So I started planning some fun family time. Starting with this gem from my childhood, which I've been playing at the start of our F.H.E.: "Hey Everybody It's Family Night"

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

We'd better take the phone off the hook

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

I've already got the family night book

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

Don't anybody go away

C'mon Everybody to Family Night

I've been waiting for this all day

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

I washed my face as good as new

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

I have a special part to do

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

There's a treat as yummy as can be

C'mon Everybody to Family Night

If you hurry you can sit by me! 

Week 1
Dave was out of town at "man camp" (rafting with his brothers & Dad in Georgia). Jessica and I read the story from our illustrated children's Bible. Then we watched Disney's Fantasia 2000 "Pomp & Circumstance" clip, with Donald Duck as Noah's assistant. We agreed to watch it twice; with the surround sound blaring, I always tear up at the end when Donald and Daisy find each other--and Kathleen Battle hitting those high notes--sniff--and the rainbow----thank you composer Edward Elgar! It was our favorite video of the whole month. Jessica learned how to say "boat! boat!".

Then we both colored a rainbow picture downloaded from our church's kid website: www.lds.org/friend.

As we colored, we half watched/half listened to a cute video "Build an Ark", which you can also print sheet music. ("I can be like Noah, yes I can be prepared...When the rain starts to fall on me, I'll be ready for that day".)

For a treat, we had ate a pile of marshmallows, because we like them, Dave wasn't around to protest.


Week 2
I checked out "Baby Miracle Noah" from the library (which turned out to be an awful Baby Einstein's wannabe). We tried to teach her to say "Noah" with no success-ah.

During the movie we made foam people. I bought a kit with multicultural kid cutouts with stick-on clothes at Micheal's. (It looked faster than cutting out flannel people, which I still want to do eventually.) Dave and I tried to make them look like Bible characters, and Jessica ripped their limbs off.

Then we assembled chocolate rice crispies with rainbow M&Ms. They don't look as perfect as the picture on someone else's blog, but they were good enough for consumption.

Jessica was only interested in chocolate; we couldn't get her to even try a marshmallow rice crispie.

Week 3
This week's video was the real Baby Einstein Noah. I don't know how good it is, since I had a tennis game I couldn't reschedule, and when I came back, the movie was over, Dave was asleep on the couch, and Jessica was playing in her room. (I watched it later; it's mainly "world animals in videos and puppets, interspersed with a few paintings of Noah's animal ark".)

Then I made a quick paper boat taped around our short bathroom hallway. Dave helped Jessica collect pairs of animals, and she learned how to answer the question "How many ducks/lambs/lions?" "Two!" We got dressed in costumes, and put all the animals on the "boat". Then we held up an umbrella, and squirted water on ourselves with a spray bottle and said "It's raining! It's raining!" Jessica was getting claustrophobic, and kept breaking out of the boat. It took me so long to get this picture, we had to cheat out a smile by asking "Show me happy!" (which is how we get all these big cheesy smiles.)

We cut out Jell-o jiggler animals and called it a night.

After Jessica went to bed, we planned our date for our 11th anniversary.


Week 4
I get so excited for Monday night to come! This week we watched "Noah's Ark", a library DVD narrated by James Earl Jones. There's lots of story embellishment, and 30 minutes was a long time for Jessica to hold still.

We were getting close to bedtime now, so we planned to have the treat cook during our activity. We showed Jessica how to assemble banana boats with chocolate chips and marshmallows. Her response was "Eat?" and stuffed the toppings in her mouth. They were pretty good, even if they were not pretty.

Then we painted pictures of rainbows, which Jessica can now say well enough for me to recognize. Dave and I really enjoyed the nostalgia of a Crayola paint box. 

But Jessica wanted mainly rub her page to pieces with a wet brush. Seeing that, we had an 6-second Parent Board meeting; the minutes reading-- Financial CEO: "How about getting one of those paint-with-water books?" Purchasing Manager: "Done."

But I'm learning how exhausting it is! After Dave gets home from work on Mondays, and we eat dinner immediately, and get family night started with a song and prayer. We corral Jessica on our messy craft & treat, and clean up, we're exhausted. I make plans for the adult lesson and activity, but we usually just plop down on the couch and just listen to a religious message online, and try to stay awake.

This week's lesson was an interview of a non-LDS author who wrote about the Book of Genesis.

Week 5

We had little time for family night, and I was ready for an easy night. Jessica taught our Noah lesson this week. I handed her pictures and told her where to put them and what to say. It sounded something like this: "No." "uh." "Boat!" "Two!" "Ren." "Fud." "Renbow." Well said, babe.

 We sang: 

• "Up and Over and Down" (Janeen Brady, about Rainbows)
• "I Like to Look for Rainbows" (Children's Primary Songbook, #103)
• "I Will Build an Ark" (Marianne P. Clark)

We ate Mother's brand circus cookies, (Dave's favorite---with the pink and white frosting and rainbow sprinkles) and put Jessica to bed. Dave and I played Yahtzee, and listened to Elder Bednar's April 2011 Conference talk: The Spirit of Revelation, during which one of us fell asleep. Inspiring and relaxing.

I'm pleased with our fun Family Nights. I haven't decided about next month's theme--Noah was so easy. I'm debating between topics like God made my body, who are the prophets/apostles (before General Conference), the Creation, or sheep (Jesus is the Good Shepherd, Ammon defends sheep, Nativity shepherds). Got any other ideas?

Sesame Street is Brought to You Today by the Letter M

Jessica, almost 18 months old, can repeat most of her letters, point out a few, and sings a mostly recognizable first line of the alphabet song. We usually watch videos over breakfast after Dave leaves for work, mostly "Elmo!", but today "yo-yo" is her favorite new "Y" word.

I give credit to toys with letters, educational TV, Youtube vids of Sesame Street, and two new parents who show ridiculous levels of enthusiasm for every new word.

Marriage Party

Two friends at our church, Dustin & Deena, got married this July for time and all eternity. I attended their wedding in the gorgeous Orlando LDS temple while Dave stayed home with Jessica. I didn't get any pictures, but the day was about like this picture: beautiful, just very hot.

Another mutual friend John Haase had just flown into back to the states with his lovely girlfriend Esther. As John had the key to Dustin's house during their honeymoon, we decided a little 'welcome home' was in order. So we drew pictures of a bride and groom riding an alligator by a lighthouse on their windows:

marked their mirror with X's & O's:

left a surprise in their closet...

and John found some gifts he knew Dustin would appreciate. Who needs Ferrari pictures, when you can look at High School Musical? or DVDs, when you can have Richard Simmons and country line dancing on VHS? What a great friend John is!

We drug Deena's siblings into the dastardly plans by decorating Deena's car (no pictures, unfortunately, but it was cute), and sneaking some furniture into Dustin's bachelor pad.

I helped decorate their reception, which was post-honeymoon and had a great fun beach theme. Congrats you two; we're happy for you!

You can see Jessica at the bottom of the picture.

Florida Summer = Stay Indoors

There's a reason why most of these pictures are mostly inside buildings: because it's million humid degrees outside, and we don't have any summer vacation plans. So our July was mostly me & the babe at home, and Dave going to work; here's a snapshot of our lives, nonetheless.

Jessica loves practicing dressing herself--from underwear on her head, rolls of masking tape around her arm, swim diapers on one leg, and cow puppets on her feet. Now that's a moon boot.

She is improving her pretending:

And a friend gave us her kids' old "baby" grand toy piano, which is adorable next to my piano! So far Jessica can play loud, soft, black keys, white keys, and how to sit on the stool without falling off.

She loves to escape the house and play in the grass and the parking lot. (I am really looking forward to a fenced yard.)

We learned how to properly eat olives and sing "Yo-ee-oh" from the wicked witch soldiers on The Wizard of Oz:

Jessica goes over to play with her buddy Will Shurtz every week when I teach his older brother Fuller a free piano lesson. Fuller is making some of the faster progress of all my students, thanks at least partly to his mom's tutelage. In exchange they watch her for a few hours while I exercise or do errands. We've been doing it since Jessica was a few months old, and we love the Shurtz family.

The Deboskey boys, Jake and Drew, get in on the babysitting action too. These are my most energetic students (and great performers, as I saw them in the Honk! musical last week) and she loves their wild play. Just this week she learned to ask for "Dwew."

Some days we bike to the new neighborhood playground Eco-Island, and to the Busch Wildlife Sanctuary to look at the deer, foxes, armadillos, alligators, panther, snakes, racoons, etc. We've been to library storytime,  free summer movies and frozen yogurt (excuse the bad cell phone picture--I'm getting a smartphone soon),

tried PlayMobile (European LEGO-like Plasticland play place),

and Loxahatchee River Center storytime, below. She loves the nearby lighthouse so much, she pointed to our wall picture everyday for two weeks, until she learned to say "house!" (But she calls it the "blue house" because that's the only color she can say.)

Her lighthouse love probably started when my Texas friend Shannon came to visit me with 2 of her girls.

I liked the new banyan pavilion and the pioneer houses they've installed.

We also hit the turtle rehab center, which has new tanks and great kid programs:

Shannon and I were in the church women's Relief Society presidency in Austin, TX for 2 years. She and I love science, were learning Spanish, and I visit taught her, so we became good friends. Thanks for the visit Shannon!

This summer, Dave has been making the most delectable homemade ice cream in our new counter top ice cream maker (no ice, no salt, done in 15 minutes, yes!). Apparently, he let Jessica lick the spoon for the chocolate batch.

Time to wash off. (Note her Water Babies tanline. She never burns--she only gets pink brown and then fades to tan.)

Jessica suddenly one weekend started yelling at bedtime and bath time. I think it was partly sickness, and partly fear peeing/pooping in the tub. So I took a week persuading her to enjoy bathing again. It took new toys, getting in with her, and a few baths with swim diapers, but she likes it again.

Well, that's all we have pictures of. Dave is out of town this week, and we'll sure be glad when he's back. Thanks for your updates, and have a great summer.