Family Home Evening Tree

“And thank you for a house full of people who love me.  Amen.”

-A Child-

journal entry:

Monday night is Family Home Evening. That means that the families we know plan things.  Usually they plan a lesson about something important, scriptures to read, treats to eat and songs to sing.  Monday is a carefully guarded evening.  Children know that they shouldn’t plan things away from home on Monday.  Monday is a family night.  Little children look forward to their parts.  There are many ways to make Family Home Evening charts.  Assignments.  This is just one.  One I made for a little family coming to visit this week.  A surprise.  It was so fun.  I bought the wonderful “tree” at Hobby Lobby with a coupon.

This is what I did:

• Printed out 4×6 photographs of each family member.
• Trimmed them to the size of some chipboard rectangles I had in my stash
• Glued the photographs to the chipboard.  Glued printed cardstock to the back of the rectangles
• Punched a hole with my crop-o-dile
• Sprayed the photographs with sealer
• Sanded the edges with FINE sandpaper to make them smooth
• Threaded some heavy twine through the holes so that the photographs would hang

• Took photographs of various activities, food, etc. for the following categories:   treat, song, lesson, prayer, scripture, service, story, adventure, activity
• Wrote on them using Picasa
• Printed the photographs out at wallet size on my color printer.  Trimmed them and put them all on a lamination sheet.  Laminated them and trimmed

On Sunday evening, mommy can decide who is going to do what.  She can put the appropriate activity in the slot above the photograph of the person in charge.  I made extras so that little children wouldn’t get tired of the same photograph.   Little children I know look forward to Monday evenings.  Especially when they are still young enough to be at home without the conflicts that come later.  They plan their lessons, their treats and their service.

There are SO many wonderful ways to let everyone in the family know what is coming.  Family Home Evening is a perfect way to teach families, provide service and draw closer to each other.  So, who has the treat?

“There is beauty all around, when there’s love at home.”

-A Church Song-