REAL LIFE EASTER FHE.

I've been following along over at Women in the Scriptures as Heatherlady has shared and linked up with many great blog posts about how real live families are doing Family Home Evening. I thought I'd join in on the fun, and snap a few photos of our Monday night as well as share how it went.

At about 4:30 p.m. on Monday I realized I better figure out what we were going to do for FHE that night. A lot of times we go straight to the nursery manual or will have discussed briefly beforehand what we want to talk about, and Jimmy is very good at teaching off the cuff. But, I'd been reading about lots of great Family Home Evening ideas surrounding Easter and wanted to be sure to talk about the Savior and the resurrection this week prior to this coming Easter Sunday.

I began exploring the Easter Egg Lesson, and realized quickly that it wasn't going to happen. I didn't have a lot of the materials handy, and wouldn't be able to pull it off. I also knew it would be a little advanced for our crowd.

But, in my brainstorming I realized we could do a much simpler version of this. I quickly made a list of characteristics of Jesus or key events in His life and found a coordinating image online. I saved small images into a document, printed them, cut them out and stuffed twelve eggs. I then numbered the eggs and we were set to go for our own Easter lesson.

Here we go:

Jimmy closed all the blinds to a very curious Hannah and I distributed the eggs in the back yard. After our opening prayer, song and talk of any family business, she was instructed to hunt for the eggs that would teach about Jesus, but not to open any of them. Kate played, while Hannah did most of the hunting.

After we came back inside with our eggs we quickly realized that this setting wasn't going to work for Kate. She was intent on opening every egg immediately. Hannah and I moved to the couch while Jimmy did his best to distract Kate. Slowly, we opened each egg and talked about Jesus' life, mission on earth, His death and then to His resurrection. We spent a few seconds on some of the eggs, and a few minutes on others.

Because Hannah is a mini-mom, she then took the liberty of teaching her lesson after (she usually does this), using our materials. One by one, she told the story of Jesus' life, remembering a lot of what we had just discussed. When she got really into it, we pulled out the video camera and recorded for a few minutes. Kate, our little growing toddler cried in the background.

After our lesson we ended with three songs, "Popcorn" for Kate, "I am a Child of God" for Hannah and "I Wonder When He Comes Again" because I had suggested it. Typically we go out for yogurt if there is time, but this week we went outside again to enjoy popsicles.

I deemed it a successful FHE. It's not always that way. It's not always planned either, but it works. We are spending time with our family and learning together.

How's FHE working at your house?

I know this is late in coming, but if you'd like to use the images I did for a simplified version of the Easter Egg Lesson, go ahead and download them here. Might be fun to do on Sunday or earlier in the week if you've got smaller kids.

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