Valentine's Day family home evening

This family home evening was inspired by those cute little candies running rampant this time of year...conversation hearts!! I wanted to do something that went along with the holday but that would also be of great benefit to my young family. One thing that I have kept feeling over and over is that we have to work on the way we speak to each other in our home, only using kind words so the Spirit can always be here. I thought conversation hearts would be a fun way to tie in using kind words! :)

The scripture I am basing this family home evening on is found in Ephesians 4 29-32:

29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
30 And agrieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

Using my handy Cricut machine I cut out a bunch of little hearts in pastel colors. Then in red pen I wrote some kind things we say in our home, and some not kind things as well. I laminated these and will have them taped up all around the room. We are going to take turns picking one off the wall and deciding if this is something that helps the Spirit dwell in our home, or not.

I also cut big hearts and did the same thing, wrote good and bad things and laminated them. I am putting these in a circle on the floor and we are going to all walk around on them while primary songs play. When I push stop we have to stop on whichever heart we're on and whoever is on a nice heart gets a little treat. I love doing activities like this because it helps my little ones get their wiggles out while learning an important principle.

Finally as our last activity Paul and I are going to help the girls "write" letters to each other using conversation hearts. We will glue them on the paper and the girls can tell us what they want to write to fill in the blanks.

I am so excited for this lesson, not only for the kids, but for me as well. I often find myself saying things that are unkind or sarcastic and am excited to challenge myself and my family to be a little bit better.

Oh, and I almost forgot about dessert! Bakerella had these darling cupcakes for the decorator-challenged....yes please!! I hope you all have a fantastic Valentines Day and enjoy those sweethearts in your life! :)