Family Home Evening Love

This idea comes from the blog of one of my extended family members. My niece-in-law made cute little containers like these for each family member. She said they had a Family Home Evening lesson about love. They then encouraged their children to write love notes to each other which they read each night.

I thought it was such a cute idea that I stuck some vinyl letters on some boxes for my grandkids so that I could put notes and small surprises into them when they visit. They were delighted! It wasn't long until they were drawing their own love notes to me, each other, and their Mom. These tin containers come from the dollar section of a local Heights store, and I've seen slightly larger, slightly more expensive versions at the fabric stores in town. Any container will do- a small bucket, a box, a jar--I even think my grandkids would love to have made and decorated their own container.

Thanksgiving Things to do With Kids

Do you need a project to keep your children busy while you prepare for the holidays?  Or maybe you are looking for a Thanksgiving-themed FHE treat or activity.
Last year we posted an idea for turkeys made out of candy and cookies easy enough for kids to make.  You can read complete instructions here.

Here are some more to try:
The first decoration/treat is for pilgrim hats. It's very easy--easy enough for small children.

You need fudge strip cookies, large marshmallows, dipping chocolate, orange or yellow frosting, and a few kids willing to make a big mess.

Dip the marshmallows in the chocolate.

Place the marshmallow on the fudge side of the cookie.

Let them set up for awhile and then add a orange or yellow buckle, using tube frosting from the grocery store.

You can use these as place cards at the dinner table or eat them for FHE treats.

The next one is a turkey.  It takes a little more patience and coordination than the pilgrim hats and is more suited for older kids, or for a time you can spend plenty of time helping younger children.

You will need Oreos, Reece's peanut butter cups, candy corn, whoppers, and chocolate, white, and orange frosting.  Those decorating tubes of pre-made frosting in the cooking aisle at the grocery store work well for the white and orange. 

I used double stuff Oreos.  Put layer of chocolate frosting around the middle of the Oreo. 



 Stick five candy corns into the frosting.  Or use starbursts, cut into triangles.

 On a second cookie, put a dab of chocolate frosting toward back.

Set the "feathered" cookie into the dab of frosting and let set up.

Cut one side off of a peanut butter cup.

Frost top and cut edge of cup. 

Turn your turkey and place cup on top this way:

(cut side against plain cookie, top of cup against feathered cookie).

Next, put whopper on using chocolate frosting.  Add a beak--a cut candy corn--with frosting.

Using the white frosting, add two eyes.  Let your turkey set up for awhile at this point.

Now you can sit the turkey up and add a dark spot to eyes--either a dot of black frosting, a miniature chocolate chip, or a cake sprinkle.

Add legs and a waddle with orange frosting.  You can also use shoelace licorice for legs and a red hot for the waddle.

To use as a place card holder, attach a name to a toothpick and stick into the feather area.



Showing Gratitude Daily

 Recently, the stake RS presidency visited Shepherd ward.  Sister Cindy Edward gave a wonderful and timely lesson on showing gratitude.  Most of the information for today's post comes from Sister Edward's lesson.

Keep a Gratitude Journal

A gratitude journal is simply a place to record the things you are grateful for each day.  Choose a place that will work for you.  It doesn't have to be fancy.  If you live by your planner or calendar, record your thoughts there.  Or, find a notebook you like, big or little, spiral or handmade, plain or decorative-it doesn't matter!  Then, list five things each day that you are thankful for.

You can keep a personal gratitude journal, or set one out for the whole family to write in.  Family members can make a gratitude entry several times a day-whenever they recognize a blessing.

Children too young to write can contribute a picture to their own gratitude journal or glue one into the family journal.  You can write an explanation to go with the picture, if you wish. Wouldn't a family gratitude journal be a treasure to own and read as the years pass?

Read about Gratitude from the Scriptures or LDS.org

Read the story about the ten lepers healed by the Savior in Luke 17.

President Erying gave a wonderful talk about recording blessing in our life's entitled "O Remember, Remember".  You can read the entire article here.

Sister Edward gave us a list of

 things we can do today to show gratitude. 

This list is from the 2006 BYU Women's Conference.

Start a gratitude journal

Tell someone you love, how much you appreciate them

Send a thank you note to someone

Start a list of things that make you happy

Offer a prayer of thanksgiving

Sit down to dinner and share something you are grateful for today

Copy a quote about gratitude and put it on your fridge

Give something away

 Do something nice for some else

Give at least five compliments to people you see

Be more obedient to one of the Lord's commandments

Start and end your day with a grateful thought

Make a scrapbook page about something you are thankful for

Give thanks before meals.

 Make a Thanksgiving spot--a bulletin board or refrigerator are great places to let family members "post" things they are thankful for.

Gratitude FHE

November is a great time to have a Family Home Evening lesson on gratitude.  Last year we posted this FHE idea for encouraging feelings of thankfulness:

http://billingseaststakereliefsociety.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-am-thankful-for.html

This is a similar idea.  These "remembering to feel grateful" activities were something my children looked forward to every year when they were little.

First, make a turkey out of scrapbook paper or constrution paper.  My turkey has a big circle body, a little circle head, an orange beak, yellow wattle, feet and eyes.

Cut several "feathers" out of different colors of scrap paper.

Add notches, if desired.

Method 1: On the back of each feather write a family member's name or "friend" or "other".  On a FHE night, let each member draw a feather out of a pile and write what she/he is thankful for about that person.  "Other" is the wild card--they can write about anything or anybody they are thankful for and why. Make sure you have several feathers for each family member.  Do this over a couple of FHE nights.  Read them all together on a Sunday afternoon or final November FHE.

Method 2:  Each night during the month of November, everyone gets one feather to write about something that happened that day for which they are grateful.  Again, read them together as a family at FHE or on a Sunday afternoon.

Everyone can stick their feather on the turkey.

If you use blue painters tape, it's easy to remove the feathers later for reading.

You can add as many feathers as you like.

Hang your turkey somewhere in your home in a place everyone will pass by several times a day as a reminder to be grateful.

I am Thankful For.....

My family had a Thanksgiving tradition when our children were growing up. Every year a few weeks before Thanksgiving, we begin to keep a "thankful bag". I had a brown paper bag that my children decorated to look like a turkey, but you could use any container you want.

Starting early in November we would take a few minutes at the supper table and each family member would write down why they were thankful for a particular child in the family. Each night we would choose a different child until each child had been our "thankful child" two or three times.

We would put the paper slips into the bag and the Family Home Evening night before Thanksgiving Dad would pull the slips out of the bag, one by one, and read them aloud. It was always fun to read what the children had written, and even funner to listen to when the comment was about YOU. Even the smallest children participated, having Mom or Dad write their answer for them. We found that if we focused on one child each night, each child would end up with an equal number of comments.

Activities for Children

Do you have a bored child? Try downloading coloring pages from the internet. Enter "childrens coloring pages" in your browser. There are many sites to choose from.

A favorite one is http://disneyuniverse.net/. You can find coloring pages,

as well as games and puzzles to print.
An even better place to look is http://ldscoloringpages.net. This site links you to all of the coloring pages in the Friend, as well as games, puzzles, and other activities you can print for your children. This web site is a wonderful resourse for Family Home Evening.

Making Conference More Meaningful For Families

The ideas in this post came from my sister, Judy Cannon, of Redlands, California.

-Chris Jones

GENERAL CONFERENCE IDEAS FOR FAMILIES

KID CONFERENCE

1. At FHE a week or two before conference, have each child make the cover for their own “My Conference Book.” This can be an 8½ x 11 sheet of paper, folded in half. They can draw whatever picture they want on the front that they associate with General Conference.

2. Make pages for the book by folding or cutting white sheets of computer paper in half. Staple book together.

3. On the day of Conference, have child “take notes” on each speaker by drawing something from the speaker’s talk on one of the pages. Write the speaker’s name at the top of the page. Older children can write a few key words or sentences to explain the picture.

4. After Conference, possibly at FHE the next Monday (or two), have kids compare “notes” for each speaker, telling why they chose the picture they did to represent the talk.

(Idea courtesy of Kristin Richey)

“HEY! I KNOW THAT GUY!”
Gather as many pictures of the General Authorities as you can. There is usually a centerspread in the Conference editions of the Ensign, or you can buy individual and group pictures of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve very inexpensively through LDS Distribution or at CTR Books. Try to learn the names of as many of them as you can before Conference weekend, starting with the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. You can use the individual pictures as flash cards. For older children, learn one story or fact about the person along with the name. Try to identify their picture when they are announced as a speaker but before they come to the podium, post their picture when they speak, or try to remember the story/fact about them when they speak.

GENERAL TOPICS OF GENERAL CONFERENCE
Sometime before Conference weekend, make a list of topics you think will be discussed in General Conference (e.g., Joseph Smith, repentance, testimony, etc.). Write them on chalkboard or whiteboard, or write them on a piece of paper and make a copy for each child. Each time that topic is mentioned, make a mark by it on the board or sheet. See how accurate your predictions were. During your next FHE, discuss the topics that were mentioned over and over. This will help you discover some of the major themes of the Conference.

ADD SOME COLOR TO YOUR GENERAL CONFERENCE
Color a picture of the person speaking, or of their topic. Many line drawings of the prophet and apostles and church topics can be found at: http://lds.about.com/library/gallery/clipart/blclipart_gallery_%20subindex.htm

I HEARD IT!
After listening to the first few minutes of a talk, choose a key word you think will be repeated often in that talk (like “Thankful”). Count how many times that word is used in the talk.

CONFERENCE BINGO
Make BINGO cards in several variations where each square has a common talk theme (tithing, obedience, and so on). When you hear a theme mentioned, you get to cover it with an edible marker (raisins, Cheerios, M&Ms, etc.). At the end of the session, you get to eat the goodies on your card. If you got a “bingo,” you get extra goodies. See examples of cards at: http://lds.about.com/od/familyhomeeveninggames/a/fheg_bingo.htm

CONFERENCE FOR TOTS
It is hard to make Conference a positive experience for very young children. Keep special somewhat quiet toys—special building blocks, a special coloring book, a craft kit—that are only available during Conference. After Conference was over, the toys are put away and don’t come out again until next Conference. This makes it so that the kids look forward to Conference—maybe not for the right reason initially, but as they outgrow the toys, the feeling of “looking forward to Conference” remains.

TREASURE BOX MEMORY QUIZ
After each talk, if someone can tell Mom or Dad (whoever is the candy box holder) what the talk was about, they get a Halloween-sized piece of candy from a special Conference Treasure Box, brought out only on General Conference weekend. For older kids, wait until the end of a session to go over the talk themes. Pictures of the speakers from the Ensign can help children remember individual speakers. It’s amazing how attention will increase with the promise of a small reward.

CONFERENCE SOUP PARTY
Older children can invite some of their friends come over to watch with your family. One family always has a big "Conference Soup Party" between Saturday sessions of Conference. All the teens watch the morning session together, enjoy a fun lunch between sessions, then settle back down to watch the afternoon session. Teens can also watch the morning session at home, then gather to eat lunch and watch the afternoon session together. Additionally, a special food tradition can be started within a family or group of friends, with a favorite dish always cooked for lunch between sessions. An atmosphere of festivity helps reinforce to everyone that Conference is a special time.

WHAT WOULD YOU CALL IT?
(GOOD FOR OLDER CHILDREN AND ADULTS)After each talk, record the name of the speaker and his or her topic, then try to guess what the talk will be titled when it is printed in the Ensign or on-line. Keep the list to check against the actual titles later. The goal is to think about the message and summarize it in your mind, seeking for the “essence” or theme of the talk.