Something we recently began, with school starting, is read an article from
The Friend, before school.
At first I thought I would go through and pick a fun article with an activity for the kids to do to keep them from wanting to watch tv or play video/computer games, and let them color it or work on it when they were ready to go to school. This morning I was excited when they chose a story just to hear a story.
The first day we did it, I was almost in tears. I felt so strongly that this is what I needed to start our day. Maybe the article hit home, but I kind of randomly picked one that had a maze for the kids and it was such a good article! It just so happened to be the "Come Listen to a Prophet’s Voice" article for August.
This morning I found an article with a fill in the blank spot. It was to help review what the "Come Listen to a Prophet’s Voice" article for July said. We read it and then the boys saw the picture for the next article and asked me to read it as well.
The article said "Turn Upside Down and Push." They were curious about the picture of the boy under the water. The boys were so interested in the article and I asked them a few questions that led us into a discussion of the Holy Ghost and how they too can feel /hear the spirit even though they are not 8. Which apparently they thought they had to be 8/baptized.
I have really been enjoying the time to sit and read with my children and invite the spirit into our home at the beginning of our day.
I do this all online and print off what I want to use each day.
I actually made this link a tab on our toolbar.
http://lds.org/gospellibrary/pdfmagazine/0,7779,594-7-1-2010,00.html#(this is to get to the pdfs of
The Friend archives, the link at the top is to the picture above and it has some fun games for your kids and a lot of other really neat things)
I hope someone finds this helpful. I know mornings are crazy,
but this has really helped us BE HAPPIER!
