Sowing

Its not a typo. If I ever have a post about me "sewing" you'll know some thing's terribly wrong. Hemming Kolby's pants with duct tape is just about the closest thing I've come to sewing. I digress. This post is about sowing.

Several months ago I was contemplating all the things I've been able to teach my children. I had a blast teaching them their colors and shapes, numbers and letters, science and math. But deep inside I wondered if I had taught them the things that were most important? Had I taught them to be kind? How to make friends? How to forgive? How to stand up for what's right? Had I taught them to be like the Savior? I had a feeling of urgency this summer to arm my children with the attributes they needed to go out into the world. And here is what happened:

Inspiration: "will i want to be the person I've become when all is said and done?" -Katherine Nelson "You are more than what you have become." -The Lion King

"The final Judgement is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts and thoughts- what we have DONE. It is an acknowledgement of the final effect of our act and thoughts- what we have BECOME."

"The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become." - D. Todd Christofferson

"The desires we act on determine our changing, our achieving, and our becoming." "When we have a vision of what we can become our desire and our power to act increase enormously." -Dallin H. Oaks

Study: This profound talk: http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/what-manner-of-men-and-women-ought-ye-to-be?lang=eng&query=manner+men+women+ought

Action:

I found this great program online (many thanks to my amazing sis-in-law Ale). http://www.valuesparenting.com/ They are members of the church and created the Joyschool program. I just do the monthly value and FHE lessons. You can do most of that stuff for free. A generous donor paid my $50 membership fee. I'm all about keepn it real though. I don't spend hours and hours doing stuff.

1.I read through the website. 2.We made our own family rules/chart which hangs by the dinner table to remind us to discuss our rules and values. (Order=cleaning your room, Peace= no fighting, Obedience= responding with a "yes ma'am" or "yes sir" when asked to do something) 3.The 1st FHE of each month we introduce the theme and do an activity/lesson from the family night section on the website. 4.We also ask the kids each night at the dinner table or before they go to bed to share a time when they were honest or had courage or whatever we are learning about. (this month has been fun because I happened to have a bag of stones from a previous FHE lesson on David and Goliath. I painted the word courage on it. Now each night, whoever shares their moment of courage gets to sleep with the courage stone in their room...simple and cheap yet so effective:) 5.I have a book called The Children's Book of Virtues. I like to pull quick stories or poems that correlate with the monthly value from there for our bedtime stories. 6. I also try to choose scripture stories that teach the value as well for our nightly scripture reading. Basically if you're already doing FHE, bedtime stories, and scripture reading it's NOT extra work, it's just all cleverly organized for you:) and I definitely supplement with my own stuff too. I think it just helps me focus and reminds me to keep teaching a value over and over and over in fun ways. I love hearing my kids exclaim, "Mom I had courage today!"

Can't wait to see the seeds we're sowing:)