Popcorn Ball Night

Family Home Evening has always been a struggle for Blaine and I. In the beginning when it was just the two of us, we tried to read an Ensign article or something for FHE but, let's be honest, that really only happened a few times. Then as Bella came along, we tried to hold little FHEs, but it was hard to feel motivated. On the occasions that we did do FHEs when Bella was an infant and a toddler, we usually just sang primary songs and called it good. Even though we didn't do that consistently, we always felt good when we did. The primary songs brought such a nice spirit into our home and it was good to just sit down for a minute together and sing. Well, Bella is finally at an age where we feel like FHEs are worth the weekly effort. We now affectionately call Monday nights popcorn ball night since every week for the treat we make popcorn balls and Bella gets to create the color. (It almost always ends up being pink.)

Last night we had a great opportunity to work on a problem that Bella has recently developed: lying. For example, she drew on the floor with marker and told me that Sophie did it. When I asked her to clean up her mess and she protested by saying she couldn't clean it up all by herself, I gave her one of those classic parent lines like, "You made the mess all by yourself so I'm certain you can clean it up all by yourself, too." Well, once again, she pinned it on her very best little friend by saying that Sophie made the mess. (Sophie hadn't been to our house in a few days, so I was on to her.) So we have obviously been having many discussions lately about telling the truth, what a lie is, and why we need to be honest. We were able to talk about it even further in FHE where we played a little game trying to reinforce that good things come from being honest. We took turns asking questions like, "What color is your shirt?" If she told the truth by saying the real color of her shirt, than she got a chocolate chip. Of course, she told the truth every time so Blaine lied a few times about the color of his shirt or shoes so that she could see that he didn't get any chocolate when he told the lie. A very basic little game but Bella was having a lot of fun and I think she was understanding better the difference between honesty and lying.

Making the popcorn balls...we all have our roles. Tirsa pops the popcorn, Blaine melts the marshmallows, Bella chooses the color and mixes the food coloring, and Blaine forms the balls. Then we watch them disappear FAST!