New and Improved FHE

Yesterday morning I was feeling bad that my children did not know more primary songs and more scripture stories.  Then I took a three hour nap in my husband's work office/our bedroom, and he made sure our children didn't kill themselves while he was working. By twelve thirty both my four year old and I had eaten lunch, my daughter was down for her nap, courtesy of her father, and boy did the world look better. I remembered their ages are one and half and four, and figured they knew plenty songs and stories for their respective ages.
Then came yesterday evening.  Family Home Evening, my son loves FHE.  He wanted to give "the lesson" on a ziploc bag full of craft supplies he filled during my nap. I was more than happy to pay attention to him and listen to his babble, but I hardly find that a lesson.
And yes, I fully remember the talk that said remember your audience.  Ten minute scripture study with a five year old is probably 8 minutes too long.  Although I have no idea who said that.  But really, we were struggling through family home evening. Then I hit an a-ha. We have a new section in our family home evening-- show and tell.  Our four year old gets to find something in the house that he wants to tell us all about.
So our new family home evening schedule is as follows

• Singing- one or more songs depending on how much my daughter is enjoying it, she loves the songs, not to mention J needs to hear them more than just on Sunday, even if singing time at home usually makes him cry
• Prayer
• Show and Tell
• Lesson- which rarely last 2 minutes, unless J is really enjoying himself
• Treat
  
• Bedtime

I kind of wish we played a game, but J is still young enough he really struggles at playing by the rules, which dad insists upon, he doesn't have the energy to follow the rules of a game and after singing and lesson.  But he does love "house games" (board games) even if his parents don't feel the same way so we should play them more often with him, maybe I should start pushing for that Sunday afternoon, but then when would all of us other than the four year old nap? No I do not have a no movie/no computer game rule on Sunday in my house, because once again how would I nap if I spend my Sunday afternoon reading The Friend and writing a journal for my son.  Yes those are important things but so is sleeping so I don't yell at my family. The computer games usually lose interest around the time I'm gaining consciousness, so it works well. Not to mention the last thing my son wants to do after three hours of sitting still is reading The Friend.