Clark Family Day

So we've started our own new tradition/celebration day. While taking my mom's parenting class, Graham and I were working through an exercise that led us to the idea of having a family day each year to celebrate and thank the Lord for what he has given us. This will be much easier to accomplish in the early days before the kids realize how uncool it is to hang out with the family, but we hope to make it a fun memory and tradition for them nonetheless...

There are a few components that we'll do each year on Clark Family Day:

1. Have a family picnic and during the picnic we'll take time to give each of the kids a blessing and pray over them (idea taken from my parents who do this each year for all of us at Christmas) and write down in our family journal various ways the Lord has blessed us throughout the year and ways we've seen him at work so we can reflect back over the years and remember the great things He has done.

2. We will do a new activity the kids have never done before so they can try something new. this year was easy since Titus hasn't done much - so we went for a hike at Lake Norman State Park.

Titus got such a kick out of this - he giggled for about the first 20 minutes - I think he loved being able to travel on daddy's back like that.


3. We have a "feast" of celebration in the evening... this year's consisted of Graham's request of white chicken chili, salad, breadsticks and leftover German chocolate cake for dessert :)

And then we have our program in the evening before the kids go to bed - you can see below for details, but the major components are a talent show, a sing-along, family appreciation time and an awards ceremony for the kids.

Mommy's talent: playing "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" and "Minuet" (both by Bach) on the penny whistle:

Daddy's talent: playing a newly learned scale (from guitar lessons) and "Hosannah"

Titus' talents: Patty cake and.... Army Crawling! He learned about an hour before the talent show how to do it - just in time!! (another post on this later)

And then the awards - the Mommy's and the Daddy's - so Titus earned the Cuddlies Baby of the Year from Mommy:

And the Giggliest Baby of the Year from Daddy:

Talk about two peas in a pod! Of course, they were so excited, they couldn't get a shot of both of them and the award at the same time... so here is the award:

After Titus went to bed, Graham and I had some wine and danced in the living room - a great end to a great day! We're already looking forward to Clark Family Day 2011!