The Importance of a Good Looking Home

  It was finally time to stack the bunk beds that the boys have been sleeping in.  Caleb is old enough and they were both very excited about doing it.  To date they have been sleeping in two separate beds, with the option of being stacked as bunk beds.

  After stacking them and doing the mandatory vacuuming that comes with rearranging it was time to put some decorations on the wall.  This is my favorite part!!  Jeremiah's desk is in the corner so I put up his things there.  He has a picture of the temple, his letter "J" from Grandma, a faith rock sitting on his desk, and a few framed things that he colored.  Above Caleb's dresser are his letter "C", also from Grandma, and some painted wood things: car, train, airplane.  He was involved in the process of putting them up so they are not perfectly spaced and arranged as I would have liked them to be.

  As I stood back to admire their room and its decorations, Caleb was playing on the floor with a toy.  I liked the way everything looked!  I was proud of myself for actually "getting around to decorating".  

  I turned to leave the room but then took another look, and couldn't help but notice Caleb- now very involved in his toy.  No matter how cute his room and its decor is; watching him and his brothers play will always be my favorite part of it!  So how important is decorating?  How important is it to have a home that is constantly clean?  Perhaps I cannot pin down a perfectly quantified answer to those questions, but I can say that before we decorate, before we spend tons of money on the perfectly placed eye-catching ornaments for the cutest shelf from the latest store; we should make sure all is well with our children.  We should be spending time with them in those rooms that we love to decorate so much- before they are grown and all we have left are the decorations, and the time for our children to fill those rooms has passed.

Wholesome Recreation

We took the boys up the canyon tonight for hot dogs, and mallows.  It was tons of fun!  They got to throw things in the river, throw things in the fire- get covered in dirt and ash, and cheetos  :)  Towards the end of the evening I told Jeremiah that we had been talking about the things that we can do to keep our boats going the right way.  He mentioned some too.  Then I told him that we would now start talking about the things we need to be careful of that could pull our boats in the wrong direction.  His interest was piqued!  On the way home he asked me a couple times what those things are and he wanted to start talking about them right now- not next week.

I am so glad that he is enjoying this and 'getting' it.  I love to see him thirst for more and be excited about Family Home Evening.  Next week we will talk about peer pressure and making sure the decisions we make are our decisions and not our friends decisions for us.