FHE

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:26-27

Family Home Evening was perfect tonight, and I'm writing it all down because, well, this might be the first time it didn't end in boredom and/or tears--ever. The kiddies* were sweet and thoughtful, and our "lesson" lasted about 35 seconds--which was just right for my rowdy monsters.

We read the above verses from Genesis and I explained that "dominion" means that Heavenly Father has given us responsibility over animals--both captive and wild. We talked about how caring for wild animals means preserving their habitat and making sure not to harm them when we're outside where they live, and that caring for our pets is an important job.

They groaned when I told them our activity would be to get a safe bed ready for the ducklings that will arrive this week, but they loved getting their hands dirty and all worked happily--there may even have been a bit of laughter and cooperation involved!

We took care to lay out moist pine pellets for our duckie darlings, and set up a heat lamp, a couple of feeders, some grit, and a large waterer. (They all grumbled about the smell of the pine dust, but kids have terrible taste so that's to be expected. Just wait 'til there are water fowl stinkin' up the family room. They're gonna love that!)

While we worked Jensie went over the lesson once more for good measure, kindly lecturing her siblings to "Remember, God made us responsible for our animals so we have to take good care of our pets and make sure they have good food and a nice bed. And sometimes we have to take them to the animal doctor." She is often more pleasant than I give her credit for.

We finished up by singing the first verse of Follow the Prophet, and knelt to say our evening prayer. Jensie looked around the circle and declared "I wish we had FHE every night! I love when we're all close together as a family." Success!

Then I gave them all an Otter-Pop and sent them off to bed--what an agreeable end to an ordinary Monday.

*Frankie hates when I call them that. She always gets upset and yells "We're not kitties, we're kids!"