It's a New Year - and I'll never "Catch Up!"

I have decided two things: (1) I will try to blog more frequently this coming year. I love reading friends' blogs where they have just jotten down a few fun things that have happened - even if there were no pictures to be had; and (2) I will never catch up and I am not going to try. I am in the process of preparing past postings for publication and I will add such notable events as Josh's birthday, my "new" kitchen floor, and Christmas to that ...

That said, a little note about Christmas. The kids have absolutely loved their new playground - and I have absolutely loved having them spend so much time outside!

Also, the kids have really gotten into their new puzzles. Ben and Ginny totally trashed their little puzzles within 3 days, but Josh's puzzle is going strong. They sit down as a group and put it together over and over and over .... Another puzzle we got was a group of 26 alphabet mini-puzzles. The backs of each little puzzle is identical, because you are supposed to be learning your letters as you put together the picture side. Not Ginny, she goes for the advanced set-up where you put the puzzle together by only looking at the back! When I got this picture, she had two of the little puzzles already together and was just giving up on the third ... today she decided to try matching pictures instead.

Another "new" tradition we are working on is a more focused family home evening. I decided to go with the Primary theme for this year "I Know My Savior Lives." I got dog-tag chains for the younger boys that has the theme printed on it (Robert's dog-tag has the youth theme on it and Ginny's necklace is different too). Robert is enjoying his, the boys put their on as soon as they get up each morning. On Sunday, we were running late and so they didn't get to put them on before we headed out the door. When we got to the church, Joshua realized that he didn't have the chain. I told him I was sorry and that he could have it when we got home. He tearfully said, "But Mom, if I don't have the chain I won't know my Savior lives!"

Going back to the family home evening lesson. I picked up a FHE help book that came with a cd for printing out activities and challenges. There is a new challenge every week and an activity for younger kids as well as an activity for older kids. Perfect! This week the challenge is to pray more sincerely and focusing on Gratitude. The lesson (they are all really really short - just perfect for the attention spans in this house) was on being children of God. For the activity, the younger kids drew pictures of themselves (with help from Daddy) and Robert got a puzzle. Dad told him to head to the scripture the puzzle was about and copy it (or cheat) which totally backfired when they both realized that the puzzle was a paraphrase of the scripture rather than verbatim. Ha ha ha! Both Byron and I were tired going into the activity, so it was only by sheer determination to try at least once that I even got the crayons out of the closet. I am so glad I did. By the time we were finished drawing (the younger kids are never actually finished drawing, by the way), everyone was having a good time. As an impulse (and to check the tantrums caused by putting the crayons away), I taped each picture at the head of each child's bed. There is nothing on the wall right now, so it really stands out. The kids were so impressed. It was the first thing they looked for this morning when they woke up and anyone who has come to the house today has been taken back to show these pictures. I have therefore decided that every week's activity will go up on the wall - so at the end of the year, we should have the wall pretty well covered up with FHE activities that we have done together. It will also show just how well our family is doing with the whole focused FHE idea. Then I will clean the wall off and start again with the new year ... so, 1 week down and 51 to go!