Family Home Evening 2012: Religion and Family Fun

January - Nephi Sails to America

Our religious lessons for Jessica have leaned toward bible stories (Noah, the creation, the Nativity of Jesus), so I decided it was time for a Book of Mormon story. We focused on the ship and Liahona (compass from God) parts of Nephi's story.

Week 1:

We sang "The Iron Rod", and Dave read the story from the Illustrated Book of Mormon Scripture book. Then we all colored pages for a mini-book of Nephi's travels that I found on the internet. Last we coached Jessica through a high-energy scavenger hunt drawn on liahona-shaped clues. When the drawing was good enough, she would recognize it and run to it (like, her bed) shouting "OH! MATCH!" The last spot had a plate of brownies, and we ended by singing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam".

Week 2:

We borrowed the Living Scripture cartoon "Journey to the Promised Land" and kinda translated it into 2 year-old language. Then we had carrot cake and played ping pong, courtesy of Danny & Karen (thanks for the Christmas present, guys!) Dave won, as usual. After a few tries with the paddle, Jessica got bonked on the head and was happy to just be a snacking spectator.

Week 3:

We sang "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam", and watched the same movie from last week. We stripped Jessica down to a diaper for one of her favorite activities: painting. We water-colored 3 scenes from the Nephi story, then ended with rice crispie "golden plates". We had to break it off when a neighbor kid came over to get math help from Dave.

Week 4:

I borrowed the Nephi flannel board cutouts from the church building and we retold the story again. Because repetition is the toddler way. 

Then we played a game I spent way too much time drawing, which I called "Promised (Candy) Land". We used colored cards from our Candy Land game, but I substituted cards with story highlights for the candy destination cards. Jessica is getting better at taking turns and moving to the correct color. (My baby is getting so grown-up!)

February - Loving Others and Sharing

Toddlers are notoriously selfish, and Jessica is no exception. And since Valentine's Day is in February, we focused on sharing in our February family nights.

Week 1:

We sang “As I Have Loved You” and “When the Family Gets Together” for opening and closing songs. Dave read the illustrated story of Jesus visiting the Americas & blessing the children. We (Dave and I) made Valentines to decorate house (while Jessica was too hyper), and ate candy hearts.

Week 2:

We didn't do anything (as seems to be our pattern of only managing to do 3 out of 4 Monday family nights.) 

Week 3:
We had the Randolphs over for a lesson on the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000 and the boy sharing his 5 loaves and 2 fishes (tuna cans, in our case.) Joshua had no choice, as he was the only boy there to play the boy with the food.

We played the hide-and-pass-the-ring-on-the-string-while-the-person-in-middle-guesses-in-whose-fist-it's-in game. We also watched a darling video about kids sharing sandwiches. Then my idea to encourage sharing was to have everyone bring an ingredient for banana splits and discuss whether or not we should share in a big bowl. But the older kids were one step ahead, and were only too eager to dump their part in so they could get a scoop of the final product.

Week 4:

We webcammed with Grandma and Grandpa Robertson. We sang "Love is Spoken Here", had a lesson on loving our family, and played Don’t Eat Pete! They played a duet of “Give Said the Little Stream” on their banjo & harmonica).

March - Creation of the World and Gardening

The first week Dave read the illustrated scripture story of the creation. Then I explained it on the wipe board in calendar terms, which Jessica understands due to her kid calendar in her room. We roasted s'mores for a treat. We sang "Give Said the Little Stream" and "My Heavenly Father Loves Me (Whenever I hear the song of a bird...)".

Week two we borrowed cut-outs from the church to tell the creation story. And we assembled a digital puzzle of the Garden of Eden. We sang "The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden" and "My Heavenly Father Loves Me", neither of which Jessica was there for, as she was on timeout for hitting and spilling water.

Then we planted tomato seeds, (all of which came up, but only 1 of which lived to grow in the garden.) Then we ate cookies 'n' cream ice cream, since Oreo cookies look like dirt (it's a stretch, but it tasted good.)

The third week we watched creation videos on Youtube, and sang "Give Said the Little Stream" and "Popcorn Popping". Then we spent lots of time turning over garden soil in preparation for April planting. For a treat we cut animal and plant shapes out of store-bought chocolate chip cookie dough, which didn't turn out, melting into circular cookies.

April - Easter

We spent every week learning about Christ's final week and crucifixion, which I will write about in a separate blog post. Christ's death is one of Jessica's favorite stories now.

May - Service and Ammon (Book of Mormon story)

Four families in our church congregation had babies this spring, so we made treats and visited them. We also learned about Ammon's defending of the king's sheep. So our theme didn't turn out too baa-aa-aa-aad.

First week we watched our Ammon cartoon, and made Sheep cupcakes with coconut. The next week Dave read the picture story of Ammon to Jessica. I used my new loaf tubes to make a flower-shaped slice we could turn into a sheep. We delivered the heart-shaped loaf and a jar of honey to the Youngs.

The third week we made peanut butter teddy bears and delivered them to the Greers. We eventually made dinner for the Gentrys, who had the last baby in the bunch.

June: Gratitude for Our Bodies

This theme was partly inspired by my new interest in health, and my desire to get Jessica potty-trained. I Netflixed a National Geographic movie Inside the Living Body. We also got a movie about bodies from the library. And with our body chart book, we had some lessons on health and anatomy. We focused on the story of Shadrak, Meschak, and Abednego. We used chalk to trace our bodies on the sidewalk, including one of Smokey the cat.

July: Understanding the Sacrament 

Jessica had been too demanding, playful, and messy during church. So Dave and I did some lessons on the importance of taking the sacrament and reverence. We decided she was old enough to stop playing with toys and getting snacks or drinks during these first 20 minutes of our Sunday meetings.

The first week we played "church". We had a podium, and took turns weating the tie and announcing prayers, songs, and the sacrament. The other 2 in the audience did the singing and praying. Jessica thought it was awesome. She even copied us when we told to say "Welcome to church", "The opening song will be...", etc. Dave hammed it up by asking for a vote for Jessica to be nursery class president. Then we let Jessica pick pictures of Jesus to put in sheet protectors in a folder to take to church. It also had a little chart of 6 things we do in church before she gets to play with toys. It totally worked too. Now she flips through her pictures and understands the rule about no toys, drawing, or treats until after the sacrament.

The next week we watched Jessica's favorite short video of the crucifixion: To This End Was I Born. Then we went out to the garage and cut up some puzzles I made from religious pictures months ago. (I think I'm going to really like our scroll saw.) I cut, and Dave & Jessica assembled and bagged them, so she have more religious-themed toys in church.

I'll update this blog with more pictures as we have them.

First Thanksgiving in Virginia

Dave's sister Melanie and her family moved about the same time we did. Our Florida-to-Virginia move wasn't nearly as much of a climate shocker as theirs: Arizona to Connecticut. Melanie's husband is an optometrist with the Navy, and they drove all the way down to see us for Thanksgiving.

Melanie and Sam are dedicated runners, so Dave signed them all up for the local Thanksgiving 5k along the James River. Sam came in first in his division, (there were several hundred runners) and may have come in first overall if the course had been more clearly marked.

While they ran, I watched the 5 kids, and we played by the riverside history mural.

Stackable cousins! Collect them all! Samuel (left), Nate, and Jane held up Andy and Jessica.

In the picture below, we're outside the children's museum with James River fountain in the background. All the kids took turns climbing down the metal caterpillar and getting "pooped" out; Jessica was the last one, shown here.

Hiking picturesque stairs in the historic section of Lynchburg on our way back to our car:

Later we played and worked on Thanksgiving dinner. I ordered a card table the exact width and height of our kitchen table, and a new long tablecloth. The dinner looked great with all white dishes. (It was a perfect warm day, and if we'd thought of it sooner, we probably could've set up the table outside.)

Melanie and Sam made sweet potato souffle, a fruit salad, whole wheat rolls, and stuffing. Dave brined and cooked the turkey and made the mashed potatoes. And I made creamy beans and peas, Indian succotash (my new favorite), and mashed trio (turnip, rutabaga, and potatoes). 


It's ironic that Samuel, forks held the highest, was the pickiest eater, but Jessica was a close second. There was only one food everyone loved: turkey!

 Happy Thanksgiving!

 After the feast we took naps, did some Wii dancing, and went on walks,

and of course, ate pie. Melanie and Sam brought pumpkin and pecan (my favorite). Dave and I made apple, cherry, and grasshopper (chocolate mint) pie. I experimented with several variations of pumpkin: maple pumpkin with walnut streusel, pumpkin with gingersnap crust, and apple butter-pumpkin with pecan streusel. (Honestly, I think normal pumpkin pie is still best, but it was fun to try, and I had to use up that apple butter.)

The next day we slept in, then did some black Friday shopping. I got discounts on Candy Land, our new Kitchen Aid mixer, outdoor lighted Christmas trees, and this:

Friday we also visited the Thomas Jefferson summer home: Poplar Forest, which is in the heart of Lynchburg. Surprisingly, the home was lived in and owned by private citizens until the 1980's; they only began restoring it, adding museum buildings, replanting historical landscaping, and restoring the furnishings (burned in an earlier fire) in the last 2 decades.

The home is octagonal, and the grounds very symmetrical.

Below our niece and nephews, pretending they are impatiently waiting to use the "necessary": the fanciest outhouse I've ever seen.

Below, Jessica, age 21 months, stands next to her 4-yr old cousin Andy. That's our tall daughter!

At home, we set up Jessica's little Christmas tree with plastic ornaments in her room. (It took forever to get this shot; silly kids!)

Bubbles + shaving cream paint + fizzy bath colors +  cousins = FUN!

And Dave opened up his extensive Lego Technics collection to make this Lego car with his nephews with gear shifts, steering, shocks, and headlights. Pretty impressive.

While Melanie and Sam had to sleep on air mattresses, they at least had their own place in the office. And the cousins slept on couches and air mattresses in the front room. We never could have accommodated them in our old squishy place. They left first thing Sunday morning. Thanks for coming to visit, Jarvis family!

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?