Angels

Opening Song: An Angel Came to Joseph Smith

I used pictures in the Gospel Art Book to teach what angels are. The definition I used was from the Bible Dictionary: "Angels are messengers of the Lord."

Page 28: The Angel Gabriel appears to Mary

Page 31: The Angel Appears to the Shepherds

Page 62: The Ascension of Jesus

Page 77: Conversion of Alma the Younger

Page 91: Moroni Appears to Joseph Smith in his room

Page 66: The Second Coming

I had my daughter point out the angel in each picture and then told her what was going on in the picture. For #91, we also discussed how that relates to Angel Moroni on the temple. For the last picture, we talked about the difference between Jesus and angels. (This was the motivation for the lesson, my daughter was confused on who everyone was in that picture.) I closed with my testimony of how though we will probably never see an angel, I know they are messengers from God.

Angels

Teaching About Fire Safety

October is National Fire Safety Month. For this last Family Home Evening, we learned about fire safety and practiced our evacuation plan. I am cross-posting this on two of my other blogs today because I think this is a very important topic.

Teaching children about fire safety can be difficult to do. I have been trying to think of ways to teach my young children what to do in case of a fire. Here is what I have come up with.

Preparation
First, I reviewed this website:  Fire Safety.gov for Kids

Second, I wrote a list of notes from the website. If you have an older child (five or older), you can review the website together, but I think younger kids will much prefer to hear it mom's own words. I actually think all kids prefer that.

In Action
Monday night, we had a lesson and practice time for fire safety for Family Home Evening. Start with a song and a prayer. Follow with family business if you do that. Then begin the lesson.

First, we went over rules for preventing fires and burns. We discussed rules that applied to our home (for example, we don't have a fire place so we didn't discuss fire places).

Second, we talked about smoke detectors. We pointed out the smoke detectors in our home. We tested them. This a)tested the alarms and b)let the kids hear what a smoke detector sounds like. An idea from the Fire Safety for Kids website is to also take this moment to clean smoke detectors, but I knew we would lose the focus of the kids at that moment, so it wasn't a family affair.

Third, we talked about our escape plan. Firesafety.gov has an Escape plan grid you can use to write out your evacuation plan.

We talked about how if our smoke detectors go off, we need to get out of the house as fast as we can. We talked about staying low to the ground. We practiced touching the bottom of doors first to make sure they aren't hot.

Fourth, we practiced our evacuation plan. We had the detector go off. We dropped to the ground and left the house. We ran to our designated meeting spot. We practiced leaving each room two ways.

We went into each child's bedroom and discussed and practiced the two ways to escape. It was great to do. We, the parents, were able to observe the children executing these plans and became more aware of things we need to do to help aide in a quick escape. An example is in Brayden's room. He likes to play with his cars on his large window sill. We don't often clean those up each night because he just gets them out the next day and they aren't in the way. But as he was practicing escaping from his window, he was severely slowed down by the cars. He also didn't want to just brush them onto the floor as we suggested. So we will now have him clean those up each evening before bed.

We also realized that our three year old would be unable to open her window on her own. So we practiced having her leave through her door. We also instructed her of what to do if the door was hot. We told her to leave it shut and go stand in a specific spot close to her window. In that spot, we could break her window from the outside and then reach in and grab her if needed.

We spent about an hour practicing our escaping over and over from room to room.

Now, you may be thinking this over and starting to realize if you talk about fire safety, you are going to have a scared child on your hands. This is most likely true. Even Kaitlyn was scared, and she just doesn't get scared. I do think, however, that it is a small price to pay for preparing your children for a fire. Better a little scared today than unprepared tomorrow.

While house fires are relatively rare, they do happen--obviously. Over the last weekend, a home in our community burned down and is a total loss. Luckily no one was hurt. It was started while the father was grilling outside--one spark. It doesn't take much, and it can happen. This really brought to light the importance of preparation on this topic.

Treat
After you finish the lesson, you can try out these Fire Truck Cookies posted by my friend Raegan.

Teaching About Fire Safety

General Conference: My Favorite Things

I hope you enjoyed General Conference! We took our children to Temple Square for one session. While we were not able to sit and listen to the talks like we would have at home (thank goodness for DVR!), it was a great experience that I would highly recommend you try at least once if you can. Families bring blankets and lunches. The speakers are blasting conference all over Temple Square. It is such a unified feeling, and reminded me of the people pitching their tents to listen to King Benjamin. It was a lot of fun.

For a Family Home Evening lesson following General Conference, I think a great idea is to bring the family together and have everyone share their favorite talk or thought from General Conference. Bring scriptures so you can go further into topics if prompted. You might even visit the new General Conference website and watch a favorite talk again.

I plan to make this a tradition. I think it will help everyone pay attention a little better if they know they are going to be asked about it. It is also a great opportunity to share testimony. Also, it is a great time to discuss goals we have for ourselves and our families.

General Conference: My Favorite Things

Holy Ghost Lessons

During the month of October, your children might enjoy lessons on the Holy Ghost. We have a couple here on the blog. See the Holy Ghost blog label for ideas.

Holy Ghost Lessons

FHE Treats

Not sure what to do for FHE? Even worse, not sure what to have for DESSERT? I have to admit, the dessert part of FHE is my favorite. Sometimes, the making of the dessert IS our family activity. Most kids love to help in the kitchen, get the whole family involved!! Here are a bunch of ideas to get your mind thinking.

Monkey Bread - Mix 1/3 C brown sugar, 1 T. water, 3 T. melted butter in a round glass bowl. Microwave for 2 min. Add 1 pkg. refrigerator biscuits onto mixture and place a small juice glass in center. Microwave 2 more min. Remove glass and invert onto serving plate. Serve warm by pulling sections apart.

Marshmallow Puffs - Take a pkg. or refrigerator biscuits and pat each out flat, place a marshmallow in center and wrap up sealing the edges. Dip in melted butter, roll in cinnamon sugar. Put in muffin tin. Bake at 400 for 10-12 min. Eat 'em hot.

Fruity Tuties- Get a bowl of ice-cream and add some of your favorite juice or soda. Enjoy! -

Teddy Smores' - Roast a marshmallow. Put it on a graham cracker and put 4 chocolate teddy grahams on the marshmallow. Enjoy!

Easy Donuts - You will need: 1 can of Pillsbury biscuits or more depending on how many you want to make, and a Fry Daddy, or other similar deep-frying appliance. Take the biscuits out of the can and cut out the center of each biscuit. Fry donuts and holes in oil until golden brown. Drain on wire rack or cookie cooling rack. Top with glaze. Glaze: Powdered sugar and milk combined to desired consistency. Pour over hot donuts. These are best fresh. They do not re-heat well.

Patty Cakes - First, get some soft tortillas and cheese. (refried beans if desired) Then, sprinkle cheese on top of a tortilla and put microwave for fifteen seconds or until cheese is melted. Cut like a pizza and enjoy!

Temple Cake - Make a cake (square is best) put 4 ice cream cones point up on the cake. these will be the pillars. then, put a little Moroni on top of one pillar.

Oreo Pie - It's easy, you just get chocolate pudding and Oreo's and whip cream. Crush the Oreo's up and put them on the bottom of a pan. Then put the pudding on top .then more crushed up Oreos. then put the whip cream on top and spread it out.

Homemade Ice-cream Sandwiches - Yummy and easy. First make a box of brownies, any kind. Let cool and cut into squares. Take aluminum foil and put one brownie square on it add vanilla ice cream (or any flavor you like) and top with another brownie. Wrap up and put into freezer. Do this with all the brownies.

Waffles and Ice Cream - You need ice cream in a box carton and waffles. Completely open ice cream box and slice it into 1/4 inch slices. Place slice of ice cream on one warm waffle and top with second warm waffle. Eat like a sandwich. Kids love these! -

Ice-cream Spiders! - Put 1 or 2 scoops of ice-cream in a cup fill with your favorite soft drink and enjoy! :-)

Fondue Fun - Fondue is a really fun and yummy treat for FHE. If you don't have a fondue pot you can use a crock pot or something like a crock pot, on low heat. You can have either cheese fondue and dip bread chunks and veggies in it or have the obvious chocolate fondue, (either brown or white chocolate) and dip fruits and sponge cake chunks into that one. It's easy, inexpensive and fun!

Rice Crispy Treats - Take rice crispies and turn them into fun!!! Add food coloring for each season of the year or for any special occasion.

Nachos - Put corn chips on a cookie sheet and put on shredded cheese we like the four cheese blend the broil in the oven until the cheese is melted. don't bake it too long! hard cheese is not very good.

Banana Malts - First get a few bananas. (Buy more if you have a big family) Then, buy malt mix. Get some ice. Put all of these things into a blender, little by little. ENJOY!!!!!!!

Kid-Proof Sushi - To make kid proof sushi you must have fruit roll ups, a gummy bear and rice crispies, you can use store brand or homemade. Take the rice crispies and flaten it out but keep it in its shape. Then take 1 fruit roll up and cut it to the length of the crispy. Take a gummy and put it laying on 1 end of the crispy, then roll the crispy and eat it!

Colored Thick Shake - Ingredients: Vanilla ice cream, food coloring (all different colors), vanilla, milk, and whip cream. Instructions: Plug in blender, fill blender up with enough ice cream for all, put vanilla and milk in. Blend it until it is mushy. Then in all the different corners of the blender put in the 4 different food colorings. Blend again (but only until the colors are swirly) pour into glass, top with whipped cream, and sprinkle. Then you have your loving desert! ♥ -

Home Made Oreos - A favorite of my family is a joyous mix. It's lots of fun to put together as well. Prepare one box of devils food cake. follow the recipe on back on how to prepare it for cookies. Place the dough/batter on a cookie sheet and cook for app. 10 minutes, (the back of the box should say exactly.) After the cookies are cooked and cooled, spread vanilla frosting on the flat side of each cookie and place to together!!!! ENJOY!

Counter Sundaes - On the kitchen counter (kitchen table works, too), lay out wax paper and tape to counter. Scoop ice cream on counter and let kids add toppings, syrup, etc. After, eat straight off counter. Kids will love this!

Fruit-a-shoot-a : Put fruit into a bowl. add walnuts, and a pinch of sugar if you please.

Microwave S’mores - Place two pieces of a Hershey’s candy bar on a graham cracker, then place a large marshmallow on each of the two pieces of candy bar and place in the microwave. Be sure not to over cook, you only need about 30 seconds. Its fun to watch the marshmallows expand. After you warm the chocolate and the mallows place another graham cracker on top and squish together. Let cool for a few moments and dive in……….

Graham Crackers and Frosting - Get some graham crackers and your favorite frosting (or Nutella if available) It is fun to make and good to eat. (Make sure you have lots of milk to wash it down)

Milk Shakes - Just some ice cream and milk in a blender make a great milk shake. Our favorite is vanilla ice-cream, milk and Hershey's chocolate syrup. If you want a faster shake, stir with a spoon instead of using a blender. Not as smooth, but still tastes great!.

Frozen Bananas - Freeze banana slices on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. (do early in the day) . Remove from freezer after family night and dip in melted chocolate and favorite toppings (nut, coconut, sprinkles, etc)

Homemade Popsicles - In the morning or day before, make juice and poor it in cups. Use popsicle stick (or spoons) and place them in the cup. freeze them (you might need to let a little hot water run on the outside of the cup to release them.

Carmel Apples - Put popsicle sticks in each apple, make sure the apples aren't too sweet. Sour ones work best. Slow cook Kraft caramels and dip the apples in. cover with nuts or chocolate chips if you like. Put on wax paper and let cool. Put them in refrigerator to harden

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds - Clean the pumpkin seeds well. Fry them in butter and salt. Let cool a little bet. Eat

Orange Julius' - Put 1 1/2 c. water, 1/2 c. milk, 1/2 c. sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1/2 can frozen orange juice concentrate (regular size can), ice cubes (as much as you like, around 2 cups is good) into a blender. Blend until ice is well crushed. We almost always had this with popcorn! Contributed by Christine Jensen

EASY Carmel Apple Dip - This really tastes like caramel! 1 block cream cheese (softened), 1 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla. Mix well and serve with apple wedges!

Banana Shake - First you get your blender put a whole banana in there in slices, then put ice as much as you like, put 4 teaspoons of sugar and pour milk in the blender until it covers the ice and banana or as much as you like to serve, blend it and serve, taste better than a milkshake! -

THING-A-MAJIGS - Get 12 fig bars, 4 oz peanut butter, 6 ice cream sticks, six 5 oz paper cups, 9 to 12 oz choc pudding, 1 1/2 cup raspberry yogurt. Put two fig bars on each side of stick. spread with peanut butter, fill cup with 1/2 pudding, push stick in cup, add yogurt to top, freeze over night, split cup, peel , eat.

Baked Apples - Core the apple, put a little cinnamon, sugar, raisins, and water inside the hole in your apple. Bake until a little bit brown......... ENJOY!!!!!

Quick and Delicious Peanut Butter Cookies - Ingredients: 1 cup of white sugar 1 cup of creamy peanut butter 1 egg Mix all together and bake at 350 degrees til' done. (About 8-10 minutes. Enjoy with a glass of milk. Can add a chocolate kiss to the middle before baking. (I like to bake mine in a mini muffin pan to make little peanut butter tarts.)

Cookies with ice-cream in the Middle - Take two chocolate chip cookies (or any other cookies that you think would also taste good,) and put ice-cream in the middle. You can make as many cookies as you would like.

Nacho Cheese Dip - Take any kind of salsa and sprinkle it with grated cheese on the top of the slasa. Cook it in the microwave for 60 seconds.

FHE Treats