Every month, I look at my little sidebar, with the months listed and the number of posts next to the month in parentheses. If it is May 6 and the number is 6, I feel a little giddy. Every month I think, "At the end of the month, I want that number to match the date." It never does.
I would make a goal to have 30 posts by the end of June, but we are going out of town on the 23rd, so that just isn't going to happen.
So I will make this goal - by the 22nd, I will have 22 posts for this month. I always have a million blog ideas floating around in my head. Whether or not I have the time or energy to carry those posts out (in the manner that I want to carry them), is another question. Most of the ideas that mean a lot to me take a long to actually make it to my blog, because I want to do them
right.
So my 22 posts are probably not going to be very brilliant (not that my posts ever are), but they will be
there. That is all I can promise.
Here we go then...

For Family Home Evening tonight we started out with making refreshments (because they had to go in the oven). When Chad's aunt Carolyn came to visit us in March, she brought me
The Magic Kitchen Cookbook. My kids have loved looking through it because it is full of Disney characters, and today we finally made a recipe from it -Jungle French Toast Sticks ( basically spead cream cheese on whole wheat bread, put sliced bananas on top and a piece of bread on top of that, then dip the sandwich in egg, milk and cinnamon and bake for ten minutes on each side and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cut into sticks). As my kids get older, I'm starting to get frustrated with how picky they act sometimes with food. I am not a picky eater, and neither is Chad - I want my kids to grow up trying all kinds of healthy different foods. One very useful thing I have found is that if they help me make something new, rather than just having it show up on their plate, they are way more likely to give it a fair chance. I think this book is great for this - everything in it is healthy and easy. I definitely need to utilize it more.
While we got the french toast into the oven, Oliver kept himself busy in the chemical cupboard. That's Orchid Spray right there (with a fly swatter behind him), which is actually worm poop that has been liquified. Seriously. It was shut though. I don't think that qualifies as "healthy different foods."

Next we had our opening song, prayer, and family business (Colin has Field Day tomorrow! Chad has a meeting Wednesday night! Gabe has Speech on Friday! Mom's got nothin'!) we read a story from an old Friend about how our Heavenly Father is always there for us. We talked about prayer and how we can use it for comfort, or to deal with anger (possibly brought up because of the two blow-ups followed by time-outs that Colin experienced earlier today), or to receive answers to questions we might have. Both of the big boys were quite attentive during the lesson, while the baby got a mixing bowl out and dropped it over and over, from varying heights, onto the wood floor. He was quite satisfied with his sound experiment. I know that all babies are curious, but I am tellin' you, that little boy is something else altogether. He never stops.
After the lesson we had some time to kill while the french toast cooled down, so we sang songs. We all made Oliver laugh by singing "If You're Happy and You Know It." Clapping is his favorite, but other variations tonight were "Kiss Oliver," "Run a Race,"and "Fight."
Gabe loved the refreshments. Colin wasn't too fond of the warm bananas, but still ate his share, and I ate too much - very filling!
A good evening was had by all. I am so thankful for my six year old, who has an absolute fit if we forget Family Home Evening.