Family Home Evening

Now that Ollie is one it's time to start including him in on Family Home Evening. Tonight was his first one. It started with a song- I started us out on "I am a Child of God" and ended up singing a solo. Then we turned to Ollie for prayer- which was Matt holding him in his lap helping him fold his arms while he tried to help say a simple little prayer, Ollie squirmed around wanting to get lose so he could play. We all said a loud "Amen!" and threw our hands in the middle to do his favorite after prayer- not sure what to call it- chant? go team? That one always makes him smile. He squirmed over to the corner of the couch and sat there looking at both of us, so my impromptu lesson was to point at each of us and say "Mommy, Ollie, Daddy" He likes to point at us and repeat it, but he hasn't figured out how to say his own name yet. Then we sang again "I Love Ollie, he loves me, we love Daddy yes sir ree, Daddy loves us and so you see- We are a Happy Family!" and that was it lesson over!

For our activity Ollie went and grabbed his basketball, and then every other little ball he could find. I helped him work on his throw- we were pegging the balls at Matt. Which caused him to throw pillows back at us in return. We used them to protect ourselves, making a little fort. Seeing our protection he decided to make a big fort and started moving around furniture and chairs to show Ollie how it was really done. With the fort built he invited Ollie inside. I gave him a little light so he would be able to see in there.

Ollie had fun inside the tent, and when Matt started making growling noises he headed out!

Things got a little crazy and he knocked it down!

 

Matt rebuilt it and insisted I go inside to experience his creation.

 

My favorite part was Ollie giving me a big smooch inside :)

Matt joined us after that, we all squeezed in and Matt called Rocky and made him speak trying to give Ollie a little scare like Rocky was our big bear in the forest coming to rattle our tent. But Ollie isn't scared of his friend Rocky, he was even trying to say "Speak!" to get him to growl. At one point Rocky even walked right into the tent with the three of us- that was a bit crowded!

We ended our fun little night by going to the store to get Ollie some milk- he was out. And while we were inside I couldn't resist getting little boxes of chocolate- an early Valentine's treat for Matt and me. Good times- FHE was never this fun before, can't wait for all the good times ahead of us!!!