Family Goals

Our family has made some goals recently to help us become closer to one another and more spiritually-minded. One of these goals is to do Family Home Evening every week. We've accomplished this two weeks in a row now! Yippee! Great rewards can come from even small accomplishments. I already feel a difference in our family unity just from successfully having a couple of FHE's. So far I've learned 3 things that help make our time together more enjoyable and something to look forward to. I'm sure this may not be the same for all families, but for us, a successful FHE needs the following guidelines:
1. No longer than about 15 minutes. Especially, now that Emma is joining us, she can only take a brief moment together before she starts to get much too distracted and then we all get frustrated. I guess, of course, if we were doing an activity outside of the home this guideline would change; but, for in the home structured FHE time, we need to keep it short.
2. Keep it centered around Emma. If Emma is entertained, than all of us are happy, so I've been focusing on things that Emma would enjoy, with maybe one short quote that Ben and I can benefit from.
3. Have a treat! We love treats and this is a fun tradition to have a quick dessert for the end of our FHE, like cookies or something. Emma also enjoys helping make the dessert sometimes.

Anyway, I don't have much else to talk about. I'll leave you with an odd Emma picture. She's been enjoying playing with this Halloween bucket in the bathtub. She recently discovered it can be worn as a hat.