"We're Thankful for Imperfect FHEs..."

Family Home Evening was funny last night.  Not funny ha ha, at first, not funny wild...just funny at the very, very end of the night when Steve said in our bedtime prayer, "We're thankful for an imperfect FHE...and that we just keep trying."

At that point it became hysterically funny, to me anyway!

  

I'm like, "Honey, what wasn't perfect about FHE tonight?"

Here's how the evening went.  You be the judge.

As we finished up our dinner, I bribed the kids with pumpkin pie to get them to actually eat the main course.  

Guy mentioned that he wasn't very hungry, so I said, good idea, let's save the pie for after YOU give our lesson....to which Guy broke out in hysterics.

We all sat on the couch watching our lesson-giver for about five minutes weeping and wailing and gnashing his teeth about wanting to eat the pie right now!

MOMMY offered Guy a mix of unsavory but very real promises if Guy didn't stop crying immediately and give the lesson.

When that didn't work, I conceded that pie had a tendency to bring me to tears also, and that I understood his plight.  

I hugged him back into his happy place just before the other kids started to lose their interest.

Guy gave the lesson, reading to the girls about what we should do "When Scary Things Happen in the World."

Then Daddy, who had actually come home a bit early from work because he was feeling pretty sick decided that for our activity, we would all play "Princess Yahtzee, Jr." a game that Autumn got for her birthday this weekend.

As a stall tactic to getting down on the hard floor to play a game that sounds rather ridiculous, I instead grab my camera to snap a picture of this happy little family all down on the floor together playing a board game.

After a few minutes, Daddy tells Mommy to put the camera down and just play with us.  "Alright!" I say slightly agitated.  "I'm coming!"

It is then that I realize that no one can figure out how to play this ridiculously simple game.

Sick and groggy Daddy can't decipher the instructions, so he passes them to beach-ball-belly Mommy, who really has no desire to figure the rules out, who passes the instructions to six-year-old Guy who deems the game unplayable.

"Let's play Uno," Guy suggests.

"Let's break for pie," rules the Mom.

The girls burst out in cheers.  However, I notice they each have a handful of playing pieces from the game, and Autumn, in particular, looks ready to toss them in the air.

I say, "Don't you dare throw those pieces!  You'll lose them, and then we won't be able to play."

Apparently, that was the green-light that she was looking for.

Giggles and Princess Yahtzee, Jr. pieces went flying through the air and landed kamikaze in the dining and living room areas.

We make them pick up the pieces, before we can have pie.  The pie is delicious, but everyone complains because Mommy, who ate her two pieces for lunch earlier today, also consumed the last of the whipped cream!

"Sorry," I say...not feeling very sorry at all.

Meanwhile, Daddy is on a mission.  He is looking up the rules to Princess Yahtzee, Jr. on the internet, determined not to let that infernal children's game win.

Back to the rug.  We are going to play this game, although most of us would rather move on, and Mommy is voicing this rather insistently.

Daddy notices that pieces of the game are now missing...surprise, surprise.

I say, let's just play something else.

Daddy says, "Autumn, if you don't find the missing pieces, you'll lose the whole game, I'll have to throw it away, because we won't be able to play it anymore."

In a sweet voice, three-year-old Autumn responds, "That's ok, Daddy!"

Which only irritates Daddy even more. (Mind you, Daddy, is doing a really good job of keeping cool, even though he is sick, and Mommy is not being very sympathetic, only trying to move us along from this infernal game.)

I tell Guy it's ok to start playing Uno with his sisters, instead.

Guy doesn't want Autumn to play...not as her own team anyway.  Yelling and irritated voices ensue.

I take my "typical hands-on approach"...I place my hands on the piano and start to quietly strum through some hymns.

I see Daddy slip out the back-door for a little quiet time of his own.  What did he do out there?  Pray?  Breathe?  Count to ten?

I don't really know.  But in the meantime, the music seems to melt the moods of everyone in our home.  

Steve came back in, offered to play some kind of rendition of Princess Yahtzee with Autumn while the other two happily resumed their Uno match-up.

Peace was restored.  And we stayed that way--Guy and Scarlett playing Uno on the couch, Daddy and Autumn playing at the table, Me & Baby Bump playing softly at the piano--for a good 20 minutes or so.  And everything was as it should be...again.

Now, you tell me...what wasn't perfect about that FHE?

A beautiful sermon was taught without a word.  

And the kids were able to see how Mommy and Daddy deal with their own off-days...and that prayer and hymns really can bring the spirit back to quickly turn a situation around.

I'm ok with that kind of lesson.

By the way, the kids are now waking up...and I think at least two of three of them are getting sick!

PS - Check out That Good Part for a slightly less hairy FHE report, I'm sure!