Making FHE A Little More Impactful

We've undertaken a little project to make FHE a little more engaging and impactful for the boys.  Our first "stunt" was to teach about Noah and about the role of prophets and then visit the Noah's Ark Exhibit at the Skirball Museum.  If you haven't been or seen photos, you can check it out here.  The kids had a great time and the only hiccup was Christian's fear that our house wouldn't be safe through the flood.  We assured him it would be there when we returned.

We were impressed that they remembered the lesson so much more vividly as a result, so we've decided to try it out a little more regularly.  We're going to cover the six days of creation for the next few weeks.  I'd appreciate any thoughts on good activities for each week and also any teaching thoughts.  This is what we've thought of so far:

Week 1:  Light and dividing of day and night -- Picnic and watch the sunset at the Santa Monica Pier
Week 2:  Creating the firmament and Heaven -- Still at a loss on this one
Week 3:  Dividing the land and the sea -- Tide pools
Week 4:  Plant life -- Huntington Gardens
Week 5: Lights in the Firmament -- Griffith Observatory (maybe combine with Week 2)
Week 6:  Sea Life -- Long Beach Aquarium or Marine Animal Rescue
Week 7:  Animal Life -- LA Zoo or Natural History Museum

Anyway, this may be too activity heavy, but we'll see if we can have some fun with it.  Look forward to your thoughts.

Christian & Jack: Cat Hunters

I'm not sure how Cleo turned out the way she did, but any other cat would have clawed my boys by now. Thankfully, she's very accommodating as the boys (Jack especially) love to chase her. Visits to Grandma and Didi's house sure are an adventure!

Jack's Haircut

We've been resisting cutting Jack's hair for a long time now. He just has such perfect golden locks that we've let it grow long. Here he is a couple of weeks ago.



The problem is that its starting to get a little ratty and people are starting to think that we have 3 sons and a daughter. Jack is easily our most accommodating child, laid back, easy going and a real treat considering how opinionated the rest of us are. I'd like to think he's the most like me, but the truth is he's probably the least. So, he hasn't made a big deal of cutting his hair.

While we were up in Sacramento for Easter with, I asked him if he wanted a haircut. He was totally excited and asked for a short cut. As you can see from the pic below, this was as short as I could allow. As you can also see from the pic, he was absolutely overjoyed to have that hair off of him. What a sweet guy. Shame to lose the locks, but what a great face and smile. Totally easier to see now that the hair is out of the way!