Family Home Evening

One of the thousands of things I adore about the LDS Church is Family Home Evening. Our Family Home Evening was extra special because we invited our local LDS Missionaries to come and join us! The Missionaries offered to come up with our activity. Boy, was it a fun one! We were ALL laughing and having a great time! The soundtrack to the evening was courtesy of Vocal Point from BYU. We had such a great time, and we all loved the lesson.

Each person in our group was given two cookies. Our task was to remove chocolate chips from within the cookies. We listened to Primary Songs that were performed by Vocal Point while we removed the chocolate chips to the beat of the songs. It was so much fun! Once each person was finished, there was a small pile of crumbs, and a small pile of chocolate chips. The missionaries asked all of us to count out ten chips. The kids loved it! When we each had ten chips, the missionaries asked us to take one tenth of the ten, and put it back in the bigger cookie pile. The kids had a great time trying to figure out the concept of "ten percent" and they did really well! Each one of us put our tenth back into the pile... and each of us still had a pile of chocolate! It was a beautiful way to demonstrate the idea of tithing.

I love tithing to my church. I SEE the tithing in action!!!

The Church explains, "One of the blessings of membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the privilege of paying tithing. This privilege is a double blessing. By paying tithing, Church members show their gratitude to God for their blessings and their resolve to trust in the Lord rather than in material things. They also help further the work of the Lord in the earth, blessing others of God’s children with the opportunity to learn of Him and to grow in the gospel.

Through the prophet Malachi, the Lord declared:

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10).

Church members give their tithing donations to local leaders. These local leaders transmit tithing funds directly to the headquarters of the Church, where a council determines specific ways to use the sacred funds. This council is comprised of the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the Presiding Bishopric. Acting according to revelation, they make decisions as they are directed by the Lord. (See D&C 120:1.)

Tithing funds are always used for the Lord's purposes—to build and maintain temples and meetinghouses, to sustain missionary work, to educate Church members, and to carry on the work of the Lord throughout the world."

One chocolate chip to give back to the Lord. My children happily gave their one chip- and ate the other nine. What a super lesson!!!

"In family relationships, love is spelled T-I-M-E"

Harrison talked Grandpa into watching Toy Story 2 with him, and does all of Buzz Lightyear's actions during the movie. In this scene, Buzz is flying!

President Uchtdorf got it right. Time is vital for families! Today we were lucky to have SO much time together! Grandpa Smith came to visit us, and Kurt and Brian were both off from work! We had a family meeting, a nice lunch (thanks for grilling, Bri!), and then played around all afternoon! When the bigger kids got home from school we all had little family dates- Sean and Brian went to get Father/Son haircuts, and the Lyles went to the park! It was such a good time! We all met and had dinner together, followed by roasting marshmallows by the grill! SO FUN! We then had Family Home Evening (FHE), and it was SO awesome to have Brian and Sean join us!!! After the FHE lesson was over (it was Chapter 2 of our Gospel Principals book), Brian played games with the kids! SO FUN!!!




One of his favorite places to sleep =)



While grilling, we realized there is a wasp nest in the wooden pillar in our backyard! AHHH! Kurt decides to smoke them out, and hit them with a plastic bat... nope, he didn't get stung... but he did manage to kill 5!


Men.

Kurt takes a moment to swing with the boys.

Kids at the park.

My first time grilling! YEAHHHH!!!!

Carter says he is playing "fireman baseball!"

Sean and Brian show us their new haircuts- lookin' sharp!

... So... being that it was my first time grilling... I may have burned a few things... what this picture captures is Kurt attempting to get at any edible portion of food... what it does not capture is the crunching sound that the meat made as the scissors were cutting it. oops...

Anyone wanna come over for my next BBQ? ... anyone?

Kurt demonstrates safety!

Love this picture =)

Carter's fire-safety lessons have been a bit too effective and he is scared... but agrees to ONE marshmallow.

Brian took turns playing Dr. Mario with the kids. They had such a blast!!!

Family Time!

Things have been so crazy around here that we knew we needed to schedule some family time! We decided to have a family day!!! (Well... after school OF COURSE!)

Carter and Harrison look at a helicoptor- they really wanted to fly!

Our first stop was to the Stead Airport! We looked at planes and saw a helicopter! Of course, we didn't have approval to get too close, so we stayed pretty far back- but it was still neat to see all the different types of aircraft! Carter and Harrison REALLY wanted a plane ride! Maybe next time!

Harrison feeds Kurt some broccoli, lol!

After the airport we went to dinner together. It was nice to go out and be together!

Carter and I enjoy chips and salsa.

When we got home we had Family Home Evening! Last Sunday one of the sisters in the Ward gave us a good idea- we could use the Gospel Principles book for our FHE lessons! HOW SMART!!!! So, this week we did Chapter 1: Our Father in Heaven. The kids asked lots of questions! It was neat! We followed up with Popsicle treats and we all played together in the back yard. What a great day!