Family Home Evening

For years our church leaders have encouraged us to hold a weekly "Family Home Evening."  Each Monday night is set aside for time with our family.   No church meetings are planned for Monday nights.  We try the best we can to avoid scheduling other conflicting events as well.  The format for the evening isn't super important.  What is important is spending time together.  Our typical family home evening goes something like this:

Opening Song

Opening Prayer

Lesson

Activity

Closing Song

Closing Prayer

Treat

One child is in charge of conducting the meeting, and each of the above items is assigned to a different family member each week.

For the most part the kids love it and look forward to it.  Even the older ones are engaged most weeks.  This is video from two different weeks of activities.  The first week we played a game where everyone is assigned a color.  One person stands in the middle with a rolled up newspaper.  Mom or Dad calls out a color and the person with the newspaper has to remember whose color it is and whack that person on the head.  The person who is about to be whacked has to call out a different color before the person in the middle gets to them.  Once the person in the middle whacks someone in time, that player becomes the new person in the middle. With our group, some accommodations need to be made.  For Sophi, one of us would hold her and she would hold the newspaper with her feet.  Then Parker got a better idea...

The second week we played the dice game.  Very simple.  Everyone has a piece of paper.  There is one pencil in the middle of the table.  Each person takes turns rolling two dice.  When somebody gets doubles, they pick up the pencil and start writing out the numbers 1 through 100.  When somebody else gets doubles, they grab the pencil from the previous person and they start writing.  The first person to write every number up to 100 is the winner.  As you'll notice, it can get pretty animated (especially when you're playing with Graci:).  Conner and Christi were a team.  Christi rolled the dice, and when she got doubles, Conner would braille the numbers.

Sophi Teaches Us About Easter

Save a Tree?

Taylor:   "Dad.  Come upstairs.  It's worth it!"

Me, as I'm walking up the stairs:  "What."

Taylor:  "Close your eyes."  He leads me into the bonus room.  "Open your eyes.  These are all of the papers from 3rd quarter that I'm throwing away!"

He's always been a bit of an artist, especially with geometric shapes:)

Disney for Lexi

Most of our posts have lots of pictures, which most of our kids love to peruse.  This post is for Lexi.  I put together a few video clips of her.  She loves to listen to these and remember our trip.  If you want to watch as well, the thing that most stands out to me is how sweet the characters are with our special needs kids.

More Disney!

Sophi took many selfies on the trip down.  We'll just share one of them:)

We stayed overnight in St. George.  Christi's sister has a wonderful mother- and father-in-law who let us crash at their house.  They have a great dress-up selection for their grandkids:)

The Tower of Terror lives up to its name:

After a couple of times on the same ride, you get to know when the pictures are taken.  Love the poses!

Nice, Park!

A Bug's Life kiddie rides:

Up in Tarzan's treehouse.  It's crazy to think these boys first came here at ages 1 and 2!

If you take selfies on Dad's phone, know that they may end up on the blog:)

Taylor's favorite Disney food has always been the pretzels:)

On the Carousel:

Somehow Parker always manages to situate himself next to the pretty princesses.  Hmmm...  Coincidence?  I think not!

Lots of pumpkins at Disney in October!

Lunch with the princesses at Ariel's Grotto:

Way too cool!

At Duke's restaurant in Huntington Beach.  You don't go away hungry!

Conner's (and Dad's!) favorite Disney food:  The turkey leg.

Good-bye Disneyland!  We'll miss you!  Hope to visit again!!!

Disneyland!

Sometimes it takes us awhile to blog significant events.  This is often because there are so many pictures and so much to share that we get overwhelmed at the thought of sitting down for so long to journal that part of our lives.  So I'm going to break up our Disneyland vacation into at least a couple of posts.

Last October over fall break, we decided to make the trek down to Southern California!  What an exciting trip for all of us:)  Elli does not travel well, nor does she do well with crowds, so she stayed with Christi's parents while we were gone.  Thanks, Dean and Larita!  We left on a Saturday and drove to St. George, where we stayed with Christi's sister.  It's always fun to see the cousins.  We arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday, where we checked into our hotel.  We had two rooms, each with two double beds and a hideaway.  They also had a refrigerator and microwave, dishes and a dishwasher, so we were set!  The space was cozy, but sufficient.

We were able to spend time at both Disneyland and Disney's California adventure, and we also spent a day at Huntington beach, playing in the sand and the surf.  It was a fantastic trip and a fun adventure for all of us:)  Here are some pictures and video.


Loaded and ready to go:

Proof that Parker doesn't always look good.

On the tram:

When we first arrived, we went to the desk for assistance with special needs.  They were SO helpful and sweet.  Among other things, they helped us get in to see Elsa and Anna.  All of the characters were amazing with our kids.  They let Lexi and Conner feel their outfits and their faces.  Disneyland is the best!

Taylor and Parker don't look too sad to be with these princesses ;-)

In the Disney Jr. Playhouse:

With Sophia the 1st:

Sophi continues to be convinced that Jake from "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" has a crush on her:)

Conner and Xander with a statue of Mr. Disney himself:

Again, Minnie was so sweet with Conner and let him feel her ears and arms: