courage.

Today is the first day of school!  Hooray!  (pictures of my new little students to come tomorrow... promise.) In honor of the new school year we decided to have a special dinner/family home evening.  It's something that I've been wanting to do for a long time, a tradition that I've seen all over the internet.  I'm grateful that I had my act together and was able to pull it off this year!  It almost didn't happen because our basement flooded three hours before dinner... but we made it.  

I asked the kids individually what they would like to have for our special dinner and they all said, "Noodles with white sauce (alfredo).  Good to know.  We had noodles and alfredo, broccoli, and a yummy fruit salad.  What's a special dinner without Mommy's favorite Muppet cups?  

After dinner was cleaned up we introduced them to our family scripture and theme for this year.  We talked about what a tradition is, and how we want to do this ever year at the beginning of school.  When they are seniors, we hope to have taught them many important principles of the Gospel through doing this.  Hopefully they will remember the themes and really use them in their lives.

We live in a rough neighborhood.  I'm not afraid when I go to bed at night or anything... but it is way different than growing up in Happy Valley, Provo Utah.  Our kids have already been exposed to things that I never had to deal with in my childhood.  We want to help and protect them as much as possible.  We prayed and found a scripture that would help each one of us in our daily lives.  It is found in Joshua 1:9.

"...be strong and of good courage.  Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersover thou goest."

I printed it out and made it fancy to hang in our home where they will see it multiple times a day.

The key word for us is COURAGE.  We talked to them about ways to have courage in school.  Ways to have courage at home.  Ways to have courage any place and in any thing you do.  There are lots of different ways to have courage.  It is so important to remember that the Lord is with us always and there is no reason to fear.  I find such comfort in this verse.

I made a little banner to hang in our dining room all year to remind us daily to have courage.  We plan to have monthly Family Home Evening lessons on different ways to have courage.  I already have several lessons planned out in my head.  I can't wait!

One of my favorite parts of going back to school is the routine that it brings!  My kids take after me in that they thrive on schedules.  Maybe I've just programmed them that way... probably.  We start our back to school routine this morning.  I am so excited!  The kids love having it printed up so they always know what to do.  We're not drill sargeant about it... but we stick to it for the most part.

We started our chore charts as well.  They are hung upstairs in the hallway with our family theme.  That way they walk past it multiple times a day and might actually stick to them.

This is what they look like (the boys have blue).  Each of them have the same six simple chores each day.

Get Dressed

Make Bed

Clean room (it needs to be clean before bed)

One Job Wheel chore

Set out their clothes for tomorrow

Get their lunch/backpack ready for the next day

(We do the job wheel after dinner each night.  They rotate between four jobs: clearing the table, helping with the dishes, emptying the garbages and straightening up the living room.)

So happy to be back in our routine!  And so excited to hear how the first day of school went!