Family Home Evening is a piece of cake

Let me start by saying I am not a very crafty person.  I have never been one of those "Molly Mormon" moms that makes cute little bits and pieces for the house and the kids and all that.  I do put together a craft project from time to time, but it is really not my strong suit.

Anyway, a bunch of years ago I went to a church training meeting and the lady teaching the class brought her personal family home evening files to help present some ideas.  Each file folder had an awesome lesson plan with visual aids and games and all kinds of fun things to spice up the lessons and teach different gospel principles. 

I LOVED it and decided I wanted to work on putting something like that together for my family. 

So, bit by bit I have worked on it over the years and I have found that one of the best ways to expand our lesson repertoire is to keep my eye open when I go to DI (a local second hand store).  I watch for primary class and sharing time aid books (like <------- this one that I found this past week).  They usually cost $1 or less so they are a steal if you ask me.

Anyway, then I color and cut the lesson pieces (sometimes I find ones that are printed in color and so I am super lucky) and laminate them so my kids can't ruin them after one use (we invested in a home laminator when Josh started teaching school and that has been a FABULOUS investment...it only cost about $30 and we use it ALL the time for things...feel free to come use it if you want). 

Then I either copy the lesson plan from the book or make up my own and glue it in the front of a file folder.  I try to include a couple of relating primary songs, a scripture or two and maybe a story from the Friend magazine.  I put the rest of the new lesson stuff in there too.  Now it is all ready to go for family home evening. 

One of the best parts about this stuff is that we now have a drawer full of ready-to-use family home evening lessons so as each child is assigned the lesson (we take turns every week) there are a bunch of options all ready to go.  It helps the kids be able to participate without as much stress and it makes things easy for Mom and Dad when they forget to plan family home evening until just before it is time to start (which happens more often than I would like to admit at our house).

These are the lessons that I took from this last lesson book that I bought (except that tool box stuff, that was from another book all pre-colored and everything).  What a great find!

Anyway, to me this is a great way to strengthen your chances of having good, focused family home evenings without feeling overwhelmed.  You also get super cute ideas and fun pictures and art without having to be crafty and I LOOOOVE that.

If your second hand store doesn't really do these, or if you don't want to leave the comfort of your own home try printable family home evening ideas at sites like these.

http://www.mormonshare.com/fhe

http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5450&Itemid=200015

(or just do a google search for family home evening printables)

It's good stuff.