Family Home Evening....Smith Style

First and foremost, you must have HUNGRY, WHINEY children to enhance your FHE experience. They should have eaten massive amounts of snacks during church, but not actually consumed any real food. This will ensure timely meltdowns.

Second, you must gather together in your designated FHE spot. Ours is the front room. Complete with piano to attempt to play a song on while no one sings.

Ready? Begin.

Maren and Evey are placed strategically on couch with their music wands, so as to not hit each other. (I bought these fabulous pointers from the dollar bin at Target and we use them to "lead" music, or hit each other, whatever the preference.)

Jes, on chair next to piano, me, piano bench, attempting to play Scripture Power, Matthew on chair, baby in her carseat, next to piano.

I play end of Scripture Power. Sounds decent. Matthew announces that Dad will be saying the opening prayer. Jes prays. Maren and Evey are now pawing at him, wanting to sit on his lap. Somehow, a wand has been stolen, and Maren is crying. Matthew has collected all the wands, and now Evey is crying because hers was collected as well. Hand out all the wands again. Sing I am a Child of God. No one sings but Jes and I. Jes now moves to couch with twins. Evey gets down and proceeds to violently rock Anna in her car seat. Maren gets down to join in. I get up from my seat and give them back to Jes. I look up scriptures for lesson.

Matthew waves his "sword of truth" around. No one gets hit. Whew! We read about the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation in D&C 27. I have now moved to the couch with the girls and Jes is holding Anna. The girls are trying to rip my scriptures while I read. Evey is trying to climb up the couch to get the lamp on the coffee table. Matthew is holding a shield I made 10 years ago in Flint for primary, and wearing a helmet Jes made in 8th grade.

He is still waving the sword around. He still hasn't hit anyone. He randomly holds up the sword and makes sound effects "ching, ching!." We give up on the girls sitting at all, and they are roaming around wreaking havoc. We continue our lesson. We ask Matthew questions, and he has to cut through the "LIES" with the sword of truth! "Matthew, Jesus says that we should NOT read our scriptures." "CHING!" the sword falls and cuts through the lie! "Jesus says we should be kind to our little sisters." "CHING!" the sword raises up in the air to indicate truth. Brilliant.

Someone falls down in the dining area. Evey. Jes swings her around for a minute. Maren wants a turn. Anna is back in the carseat and playing with toys. We herd the girls back into our designated FHE area, to sing our songs. Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Rock-A-Bye Baby, Once There was a Snowman. And, the finally, Matthews choice: Scripture Power. I forgo the piano.
I sing on key, Jes sings off key (and rhythm) Matthew holds up the scriptures at the appropriate points. The girls are climbing on me and watching Matthew with interest. Matthew says the closing prayer. He is thankful for the commandments. We are all happy for like 5 minutes afterward. Yay for FHE!

6 minutes later....Matthew eats a late dinner of leftover cold pizza and a juicebox. Everyone is dissolving in crying heaps due to the lack of food mentioned above, and their refusal to eat dinner. Anna decides to cry too, she's in with the in-crowd. Everyone is grumpy for the next hour, including mom & dad. Oh well!