Valentines FHE

Growing up one of our favorite Family Home Evenings was the one where my mom got us all nerf guns and we got to have a big nerf fight throughout the house. Running around, picking teams, making quick forts, hiding behind couches... it was ALWAYS lots of fun. And while the nerf gun war was pretty exciting, the lesson just as memorable... so it was so fun to do it this week as our FHE ! And it actually has to do with Valentines Day so stick with me. ;-)

So Monday we had our nerf disc war (this guns are AWESOME and rapid fire- the kiddos had a blast!) and told the kiddos to try and hit each other as many times as they could and count how many times they hit someone. After 5-10 minutes of scrambling, hiding, running, re-loading we chatted about it... I asked, "How did it feel when you guys hit someone?" To my great surprise they ALL said, "Sad." I said "How did you feel when YOU were hit?" Same answer. They all said, "Sad." Then talked about when we go out in the world, there are many "fiery darts" of the adversary. They attack each of us and come in many ways, shapes, and forms. For each disc I held up the kids talked about some of these fiery darts- friends being mean, being called names, being made fun of, lying or being told lies, cheating, friends hitting or kicking us (Colby of course mentioned this one), being tempted to make a wrong choice, people not respecting us, etc etc. We talked about how we should never fire these fiery darts at our friends and briefly talked about being peacemakers and how to deal with those darts, but then talked about how AT HOME THERE SHOULD BE NO FIERY DARTS! Our home is a safe haven- where we are protected from the fiery darts and should be a place where we build and strengthen ourselves and one another against the world. The home is where we should feel total peace and nothing but love and safety.

Sydney then took over FHE and talked about LOVE with pictures and scriptures. Ways that we can show more love and respect for one another, how Jesus set the ultimate example for us with his love and kindness to everyone, and how it is a commandment to love one another. We talked about how the most important people in this whole life is our family. That good friends are very important but that our family is ETERNAL- we will live with each other forever so these relationships are so important!

We talked about it being Valentines Day and to show each other how much we loved each other, we were going to make mailboxes and fill them with Valentines from each other throughout the week. I LOVED these, but obviously didn't have time or means to make them. ;-) Here is another one...

So cute! Hopefully next year!

Ours were still cute and the kids loved making them... we cut two identical hearts out of cardstock, punched holes in the outside, and strung yarn through the outside. Then we decorated them and added our names... and hung them on our doors. I printed up a bunch of blank Valentines- find a list of cute ones here...http://thelongthread.com/?s=valentine&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=Search

The kids have loved being secretive and surprising us and each other with notes! They have drawn pictures and listed so many great reasons they love each other.

So I think it was a very memorable lesson for the kids! We really feel blessed to have such good kids who are overall very sweet and loving and kind to one another. They all play together so well and time outs around here are rare. Hallelujah! But especially with the thought of bringing another little one in to our family, Ger and I feel blessed that our baby will get so much attention and love from her siblings. She will be a spoiled little girl I think!

But this FHE and Valentine Mailboxes will be a fun tradition we will now look forward to every year! What are your Valentine's Traditions?!?