Family Home Evening

Today for Family Home Evening (FHE) it started out a little something like this:

Bobby: Okay it's time for FHE
Me: Who has the prayer?
(As Liam and Kailey are completely ignoring that we've said anything)
Bobby: Okay Liam, who has the prayer
Liam: "Um...(with a grin) mom and dad and Kailey and Madison" (Liam's name is hanging under the word prayer)
Me: No I think YOU have the prayer (I know, I switched the names!)
Liam: I don't want to say the prayer!!!
Me: I'll help you (among some more words of encouragement)
Liam: okay
(we fumble through a prayer without much focus as Kailey is running around the room and Liam is rolling on the floor and sticking the word cake in between everything I am prompting him to say)
Bobby: Okay who has the song? (children completely ignoring us and doing their own thing)
Me: Liam, who has the song? (Kailey is climbing in the closet and Liam just threw something down the stairs)
Bobby: Children, get over here and sit down! Now who has the song!
Liam: Kailey
(we proceed to sing the ABC's, Kailey's song of choice)
Me: Okay, now what do we want to sing next?
(Maddy starts to cry, who is sleeping in the bedroom and has been doing so the majority of the day because she is miserable with a cold) (Liam and Kailey are again not sitting down nor listening)
Me: (As I run off to take care of Maddy and impatient by this time with the other two) If we EVER get through one FHE it will be a MIRACLE!


This is the way FHE seems to go for us just about every week! Sometimes it feels like "why even do it! Especially when I often (not always) spend time preparing a lesson that takes so much effort to get through?"

But just as I ask this I am taught a lesson.

While I was in the room calming Maddy down and making sure she was really done napping, Bobby got out the New Testament Reader and when I came back out we began reading about Heavenly Father's Plan and Bobby used the carpet as his diagram to represent the different "stages" of our existence. Who would've known that something that simple would have been the trick! It is so much fun to draw Heaven, earth, a star, moon and sun into our plush carpet! And they (well at least Liam) was engaged.

No, we did not have a lesson prepared today--we figured, we'll just wing it. I've done lessons on this topic before, with more elaborate explanations, but I don't think we've ever had this much success with a lesson for that LONG of a period of time. Now I'm not encouraging those of you who read this and have FHE yourselves, to NOT prepare lessons. I'm just saying, we learned a couple of things today:
1. Sometimes simple is better... think outside the box and... draw in the carpet for your lesson!
2. Never say never...we really CAN make it through an FHE lesson! Maybe we just need to make them more "interesting" to our unique children!
3. I said earlier "Why even do FHE?" We do FHE because it sets aside a special time for us to have fun together, feel the spirit and learn. Sometimes that doesn't ALWAYS happen but when it does it is great! And the more often we have FHE, the more chance for those things to happen.

So in the end, today, (though many days feel like they are not) was a successful Family Home evening!!!