A Family Home Evening lesson on Gratitude

Since we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we participate in a weekly event called Family Home Evening (FHE) or Family Night. This is a designated time once a week (traditionally on a Monday) when the whole family gathers together to enjoy time together and learn more about Christ. Since this particular FHE lesson fits in so well with our theme, I decided to go ahead and include it in here with the rest of the things we did for Thanksgiving.
Using the FHE Resource Guide as a base, we talked about what gratitude is and how important it is. We talked about how happy it makes us feel to say "thank you", as well as when people say it to us. We love using the Mormon Messages videos as part of our Family Nights whenever we can, so we watched this video about gratitude.

After watching the video, we made a commitment as a family to try harder to live in thanksgiving daily and to cultivate an "attitude of gratitude". To help us accomplish this goal, we made a Gratitude Tree. Using brown construction paper I made a tree trunk with a few branches and taped them to the wall, high enough that Sharli wouldn't pull them down.

 We took turns thinking of things we were grateful for and wrote them on leaves cut out of different colors of construction paper. I just googled leaf clip-art and traced a few I liked onto the paper before cutting.

It was really fun to listen to the things Erik came up with that he was thankful for, he really put a lot of thought into it. Some of my favorites that he came up with were: "My right hand and my left hand", "oatmeal", "hot air balloons", and "going to Explora".

Every night for the rest of the month, before we left the dinner table (or at least that was the plan, it didn't always happen), we would each write another thing we were thankful for and hang it on our tree. It was fun to watch the tree fill up and to try to always come up with new things.

Nature Collage

For Family Home Evening (more info here) this week we decided to take advantage of the nice(ish) weather and get outside. We wandered along through the neighborhood and enjoyed the beauty of the world around us. Spring is just getting going around here, and it's great. The daffodils are blooming, the trees are budding out, and it's just so nice to feel that springy feeling in the air.

As we walked along, we made sure to notice the little details in the world around us. Erik loves rocks, so we ended up with a good pile of the ones he thought were pretty. We picked up leaves and pine needles, blew the seeds off the dandelions, threw rocks in a pond and watched the splashes and ripples.  It was really fun!

When we came home we wanted a way to help Erik remember our little outing, so we used this idea I found on Pinterest, and made a fun collage to hang in our window. I won't post instructions since they're on the original post, but it's super easy, give it a try!

We finished off the evening watching a short video on creating things, since we had been admiring the creations of our Heavenly Father and creating something of our own. 

Halloween Cookies

We recently decorated cookies at our play group that we go to every week and Erik had so much fun that we decided to make this a family activity for Family Home Evening. Erik and I made cookies, and then when Daddy got home we stripped Erik down to his diaper and got things going. 

He was sorta interested in spreading the frosting, but there was something else he wanted to do more. 

He started off with just a delicate little finger-full of frosting for a taste...

But then he just went for it. It was close to bedtime, so we didn't let him eat the whole cookie, but he did get a bite or two. 

This was a really fun little family activity, and it also helps Erik work on his fine motor skills and builds a sense of family belonging as we all do this together.