One thing I love about our church is the program of Family Home Evening.  Every Monday evening we are encouraged to gather our families together to sing, pray, have a lesson, do something fun together, and eat yummy treats.  In our family we rotate who is in charge of each thing, so the kids get to teach lessons, choose songs, plan activities, and make treats.

Last night Jonah was in charge of the activity, and with it being the summer solstice he decided we needed to swim until sunset.

So we did.

We built sandcastles.

Hunter learned a new word.

Goose, goooooooose…

After a hot day the air had cooled off, but the water was pretty warm.  It couldn’t have been more perfect.

I am so thankful for this tradition we so faithfully keep in our family.  Gathering 5 little ones around the piano after dinner clean-up (and all the prodding and nagging that often entails) does not always feel like the fun, or sane, thing to do after a busy Monday.  Often the treat is a hurried Tupperware full of “shaker pudding” (instant Jello pudding dumped with milk into a Tupperware and shook, shook, shook by the child in charge of treat) or graham crackers dipped in milk, but by the time we have sung together, by the time a little person has taught their lesson and shared a heart felt testimony about their love for the Savior, by the time we’ve finished honoring a child’s wish to jump on the trampoline all together or play a game of Bananagrams we go to bed happier than we could have imagined in those harried minutes of wrangling.

It’s a miracle in the making…

one week at a time.