Family Home Evening

Monday nights have become a favorite in our home! When it's Family Night, my girls get really excited!
A few years back, in order to help get us in the habit of holding family home evening, we started doing a family night swap with some friends. We all got together and took turns of where it was held and who did the lesson, etc. It worked out well until our numbers multiplied and became too much to have us all together. I'm still grateful to these friends because it helped us get to where we are today.
It's so nice to have one night devoted to complete and only family. Other nights often get busy in our home with other activities and other distractions, but it's nice to have one night where that is not allowed. The girls thrive off of all the attention and fun they have while the parents love that we are talking about gospel principles. It's definitely an inspired program!
Making a FHE chart like the one I showed in this post has also really helped our family. Brooklyn LOVES when it's her turn for lesson or activity. She doesn't care too much for the other options and it sometimes can be a problem, but she's learning she will get her turn. Eliza is still too little to help much, but she gets her turn while mom and dad help her. She knows it's family night and knows what is expected of her though she doesn't always sit and listen.
Last week, Brooklyn had lesson and completely floored me with her preparation. When I asked her if she needed any help preparing, she told me she already knew what she wanted to talk about, but she needed to make some pictures. She's learning her letters and likes to write them, but asked me to help her write down what she needed. Then she drew little flowers around each item. The lesson was about how to not follow Satan. She asked us if the things she had listed were following Satan or not following Satan.
Above: Listen to mom & dad, be nice, read your scriptures.
Below: Pray, go to church, go to school.
She said a few more things, but it was simple and perfect! She was so proud (and so were her mom and dad)! She's learning and I see it when we are together. Tonight, during our lesson on the 2nd Article of Faith, we were talking about Adam and Eve and she branched off and started talking about how Satan didn't follow Heavenly Father's plan, but he followed his own plan. She is learning and it makes me happy!

A few weeks back (I mentioned this in R.S. for those who were there on Sunday), I had a lesson on Missionaries. It was pretty brief. It was about who can be missionaries and what they do. A week before this lesson, Brooklyn told me she could never be a missionary because girls can't be missionaries. I, of course, corrected her then, but I thought it would be good to also learn about how grandmas and grandpas can go on missions (because one set of her grandparents plan on leaving some time this year) and also about how we can all be missionaries. We showed them some pictures from Marty's mission and he shared a few experiences.
I made the girls very simple mission tags. Black paper, white crayon.
They wore them proudly!
Brooklyn's face cracks me up in this picture! What a great companionship!