A Real Family Night

I remember the day this Ensign magazine came in the mail.

I was ticked.  I must have been PMSing because I ranted and raged a bit.  My thoughts went something like this:  “Who’s Family Night looks like this?  I am the poster child for FHE with thoughtfully planned, age appropriate, creative and fun, yet doctrinally based lessons, and my kids have never sat this still or around me with their hands on my shoulder listening?  Oh! and everyone has a smile on their face.  Are you kidding me? This is not reality! Why do they publish this picture- leaving us to assume that this is what a Family Night should look like?”

(Chad just listened quietly to my tantrum.)

I just about wrote a letter to the Ensign and gave them a piece of my mind, but I am as lazy as I am hormonal, so it never happened.

If the Ensign were to photograph our Family Night, here is what they might capture:

Crew mooning us in the middle of a song

Locke crying or whining because he should be in bed

Croft dancing to every song sung  (I am not sure if you would call that lyrical or interpretive dance)

Mom exhausted after a day of doing laundry, teaching manners, baking treats and planning Family Night

Crew attempting the middle splits

Someone crying

Someone sitting upside down on the couch

Someone talking over someone else

Croft leaving the room

Elle trying to give the lesson when it is not her turn

And I don’t even have teenagers yet!  That is a whole other picture.

But just because our picture doesn’t look like the one on the magazine cover doesn’t mean we stop having Family Night.  (just like I don’t stop cleaning or decorating my house because it doesn’t look like a magazine cover.) We plug through each week despite the bare bums and craziness and hope that the kids are learning something anyway.  And just being together and being consistent is what is most important.

Maybe I could get the Ensign to publish a real picture of Family Home Evening.  What would your Family Night cover look like?