back to school bbq & fhe

We decided to have a back to school bash today after church and add in Family Home Evening with the Clouses. We grilled burgers & Beaumont hotdogs, I made baked beans, salsa, & ranch dip. Jenny made yummy cream corn and they brought a cake they had gotten yesterday from Sam's. We parents, ate ourselves stuffed, the two tween girls ate pretty well, while the little kids barely even touched their food because they were too busy teasing and playing with each other.



We have decided to have one FHE a month together as families, so this month it was our time to host. Greg's schedule is more than crazy on Mondays, so we opted to do it on Sunday. We decided we should have a lesson on being good examples since the kids will be heading back to class in less than twenty-four hours! Greg did a power point on pioneers and how they were examples and then related the pioneers to us and how we are examples and people will be coming behind us later and hopefully we will have set a good example of how we, as Latter Day Saints , act and what we believe.
The kids acted out several different skits on being examples when people are making the wrong choices at school, when someone is playing alone, and when people are being mean to other kids. It was fun to watch them "perform" and hopefully by them acting these skits out they will remember the decisions they made while pretending and choose the right if any thing similar comes up at school.
In our kids' elementary of over 700 students, their are only ten LDS kids. Four of those are Mackenzi, Maci, Taylor, & Jared. We explained that if they let others know they are different and what they believe they will be setting an example for other LDS children that will come to their school in years that follow. If someone next year or in several years attends their school and people know they are LDS then automatically the teachers and staff can say, "oh I know what LDS is, the Gordons and Clouses were faithful members of that church." We talked about being friends to those who have no one to play with. We also talked about other children making wrong choices and trying to convince or kids to go along with them.



Greg gave all four of us girls blessings tonight before the girls went off to dreamland. It is such a comfort and special blessing to the girls,and myself to have a worthy Priesthood holder in our home to allow us the priveledge of these ordiances.



I bought Mackenzi & Maci new jammies to sleep in tonight for going back to school. They have alarm clocks & sleep masks on them, and say sleeping beauty, relax, & sweet dreams all over them. I thought they would be perfect back to school jammies for them. They are so cute but only wish they would have had them to fit Maryn, too.





The girls backpacks are all ready to go for the morning. They were so anxious and excited when they went to bed. Tune in tomorrow for the update on the first day of school.