Family Home Evening and Bedtime Prayers

     Being Monday night, tonight was Family Home Evening.  Unfortunately, Daren and I were very poorly prepared.  More unfortunately this isn't a terribly uncommon thing.  We'll keep working at it.  Anyway, we didn't really remind Natalee that she had lesson tonight until we were all seated (I say that loosely because rarely are we ALL seated at the exact same time during family home evening) in the living room.  To give me a few extra minutes to find a scripture to share (since I was on scripture) I remembered how once in a while we do family business when there are things we need to work out for the upcoming week.  We talked about how they needed to get to school early tomorrow because the Grovers aren't here so I have to drive the kids to school AND Kelsey to Joy School and both start at the same time.  Then Mackenzie reminded us that the Cannon's dog Missy died over the weekend.  It was a close call.  We were watching the Cannon's kids while they were at Magic Mountain but since it was just for one night, they didn't feel like Missy needed any extra care.  Otherwise we could have had two of their dogs die in our care.  More like both of their dogs since they are the only 2 they've ever had while we've known them.  But instead of having an incredibly huge coincidence, Missy died peacefully in her own home.  Everything else that was brought up for family business after that was dismissed as "not actual family business."
     Natalee came up with a superb lesson considering she had about 3 minutes to figure something out.  Since my scripture ended up turning into it's own lesson (as often happens in our family) I told her she had an out but she insisted she had something.  Then she told us all that when we do kind things for others that it makes them feel good inside.  And it would make Thomas feel good if we all wrote him a letter so that was going to be the lesson.  We were planning to make a treat for my cousin Patrick who is currently serving in Afganistan so we thought we'd send some to Thomas as well.  The girls wrote letters to Thomas and Patrick while I baked peanut butter cookies to send to both of them.
     It was finally time to pray and get the kids to bed but we couldn't seem to get them all back into the living room.  Kelsey was still in the bathroom and the rest of us were all in the living room waiting for her.  So I yelled to her, "Time for prayers Kelsey!"  She was saying she was doing something but it didn't sound like anything you would normally hear (i.e. brushing teeth, going potty, etc.).  So I said it again.  This time I heard her say something about toilet paper so I asked, "You're out of toilet paper?"  And finally it was clear.  Kelsey said, "No, I'm making you a pillow pet out of toilet paper."  I probably should have gone to see it myself so I could have added a funny picture with this post.  But we quickly sent Natalee off to get her out of the bathroom and to rescue whatever toilet paper was left.  Maybe I'll ask her to make me one tomorrow so I can see what it would have looked like.  Under close supervision, of course.


This is the pillow pet Haylee and Mackenzie have.



It's a pillow!  And it's a pet!  It's a Pillow Pet!

I can't wait to see what my toilet paper pillow pet is going to look like!