Tonight's family home evening

We had such a dear FHE tonight, I want to write it down so I can remember this sweetness later. During dinner, Jay announced that he had a lesson for family home evening tonight. So he taught us about ways to remember Jesus. He thought this all up on his own! He said "There are lots of ways that we can remember Jesus." Then he proceeded to list some ways, with Rose pitching in every now and then. I wrote them all down in a list and when we were done thinking them up we talked about why it's important to remember Jesus (my contribution to Jay's lesson). Then I explained to Jay that most lessons end with a testimony, which is telling what you know is true and how you know it and why you like it. So he said "I know the scriptures are true. I know Jesus lives. I know we can remember him. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." WHAT A GREAT LESSON! We told Jay how he's going to be an amazing missionary if he's already this good at teaching the gospel when he's only six  years old.
Here's the list--Jay thought of all of them unless otherwise noted.

Ways to remember Jesus:

* take the sacrament
* do what he says
* pray
* be nice and kind (Jay and Rose both chimed in on these two)
* let people play your games
* don't pick on people
* remember him like you remember everything else with  your brain
* share
* read the scriptures (Jay thought of that with a small parental prompt)
* look at pictures of him (again, a small parental prompt)
* go to church
* make good choices
* go to the temple (parental prompt)
* serve others--help them (my contribution)


After the lesson we had Jay and Rose get ready for bed (cue a Rose-meltdown about hoisting her blanket up into her bed--after some melodramatic sobbing on the floor she finally gave in and listened to my coaching on how to get her blanket up into the top bunk bed. She felt better when she succeeded and we celebrated with her--whew).

Once everyone was ready for bed, we read family scripture and had family prayer. Amber joined in the circle at prayer time, so I helped her kneel down (she's getting pretty good at kneeling these days since she's always up on her knees to reach things). Then we tried teaching her how to fold her hands. Arm-folding seemed too advanced for her 10 months but when everyone in the circle folded their hands over and over a few times, Amber caught on and did it too. It was SO CUTE to see her little soft body kneeling with her hands folded! We all cheered for her. She was glowing with the biggest grin! Then she crawled over to me and climbed/gnawed on my folded hands while I said the family prayer.

Last we played our family game: ring around the rosies. It was Amber's first time playing and she liked it. Jeff and I each held one of her hands and we lifted her around in the circle while we sang for two rounds. She loved the end when we all fell down and then beat the floor with our hands saying "Cows in the meadow, eating buttercups. Thunder, lightning, we all stand up!" She tried beating the floor with her little hands too. The last round we played was an old family favorite, invented by Jeff a few years ago: ring around the rosies, zombie style--aka, ring around the BRAINS. In a loud zombie-ish voice we say "ring around the BRAINS, pocket full of BRAINS! BRAINS, BRAINS, we all EAT BRAINS!" and fall down. Jay improvised the getting up song with "cows are in the meadow, eating buttered brains." HA! We were cracking up.

It was a simple GOOD family night. I'm writing it all down because family home evenings that are as fun and happy as this are kind of rare for us. I loved tonight and I love my family.