FHE Lesson: Gratitude cont...

Our lesson this last week was a continuation of gratitude, specifically recognizing and expressing gratitude. We talked about things we are grateful for and brought up how our oldest's birthday (and, not too long after, Christmas) was coming up. We talked about what we do when someone gives a gift—we say thank you. We talked about how Heavenly Father loves it when we thank Him for things we have been given and expressed how important it is to say thank you, whether to Heavenly Father or someone else, for things we are given, nice things people do for us, etc. We left it at that because Sunday was a tough day and my middle son was really struggling with a meltdown. We wrapped things up by doing our second leaves for the Gratitude Tree (I'm LOVING how full it's looking and being reminded of all the wonderful things we have to be grateful for.) If you have older kids (or just more patient...), you could do thank you cards. Have you and your kiddos think of someone that's done something nice for them recently and write letters to them about it. Explain for happy each person will be when they read their cards. I'm hoping to do this next year and you can usually find inexpensive thank you cards in the dollar bin at Michael's or Amazon has quite a few that you can get in bulk for relatively inexpensive. Honestly, this was one of those nights where I wondered why the heck am I doing this?!?! The kids were fussy, one didn't even want to be there, and I ended the lesson more frustrated than anything else. It was exhausting. But I'm reminded of the fact that this is becoming routine: it is for a reason that church leaders has instructed us on the importance of this and, even if I can't see it and even if it's sometimes frustrating, it is FOR A REASON. Anyhow, keep it up!