Love is Spoken Here

I've thought a lot about how to help my family progress forward instead of staying stagnant or moving backwards... So I decided that we are going to pick on topic or theme a month and focus on improving in that area... I'm going to put some quotes on the refridgerator, focus our Family Home Evenings, include the goal in our prayers, and just try to make the topic a priority in our daily discussions. We probably should have been doing this for a long time, but since I just thought of it, we're starting now. Better late than never.


With the onset of February, and in honor of Valentines Day, our first family goal is:

LOVE IS SPOKEN HERE

I feel like I need to be more loving with my children, primarily when they're misbehaving or when I'm tired, which coincidentally seems to happen at the same time, making it doubly difficult for me to keep from getting frustrated, and not modeling kindness.

I just think it's so important for my home to be a safe and loving haven for my children and for my family. The world can be so cruel, I want my home to be the one place we can come and escape from hard things, frustrations, and critisms. I want there to be respect and love and safety. I want the spirit to dwell in my home, and I want my children to be able to feel and benefit from that spirit at all times. I think speaking kind words (kid to kid, parent to kid, and kid to parent) is an instrumental part of my quest to creating a safe haven from the world.

I think in order to achieve the goal of: love is spoken here, I'll be setting some smaller goals. For example, I think along with talking about it in FHE, praying for it, and putting up some reminders around the house, another one of my goals for the month will be to have an after school activity planned for us to do when Porter gets home. Yesterday I bought a little Gingerbread house on Christmas clearance at Michaels, and we had so much fun putting it together. We're all tired in the afternoon, and Porter' usually pretty grumpy, so I know constructively channeling some of that energy will be beneficial to our family. Maybe I'll need to include preparing dinner early into this category as well.

I'm also trying to get up earlier so I can get my scripture study and blogging in before my kids wake up. I think this will be helpful so I'm less distracted at other times of the day. I won't get irritated if I get interrupted, and I'll be able to quickly jump in and help my kids "speak kind words to each other" as needed. Knowing I've already read my scriptures, and not trying to squeeze it in at other random times during the day will give me peace, not to mention the strength that I get from having read period.

As I think of my mini-goals, I'll try and post them, I think it will motivate me more to know that they're published, rather than to just keep them inside of my head.

Wish me luck!