Family Flag

Today was Silly's last official day of Joy School. Thank you, thank you, thank you to my awesome mom friends who let me talk them into being Joy School moms this year. I hope you had as much fun as I did. I'm already trying to figure out who might be willing to teach Joy School with me when Bubba is old enough...any volunteers?

This last Joy School unit is all about family and one thing the lessons suggest is a family flag. I have seriously been pondering our family flag since Cakes was a little Joy Schooler 4 years ago. And I bought this wool felt somewhere around then too, but haven't done anything with it except continue to ponder every now and then. Well, Monday I finally decided to pin it down, literally. Here's what I have so far:

For Family Home Evening this week I showed everyone our flag and asked them why a star and an anchor are good symbols for the kind of family we want to be. They said some good things about stars - a new star appeared when Jesus was born, you can wish on stars, they're pretty. Anchors were a little tougher, but eventually Silly started going on and on about ships in storms without anchors will get big holes and sink. We read Hebrews 6:19 and Mormon 5:18 and talked to the kids about having testimonies and what we can do to keep ourselves "anchored."

I asked everyone if they thought we should have a family motto. Scott suggested "Hold the line" which is his favorite movie line (any movie with that line in it somewhere is on his list of favorites) and actually, strangely, I kinda like it. It's one of those lines you could stretch to apply to other things. It's growing on me...

Then we voted on a family cheer. Three out of five family members voted for the following:
Bowens
Believe
Obey
Work
Enjoy
Nurture
Silly voted for "nothing" and Bubba had nothing to say. I have to add that there is a shortage of really good words beginning with the letter 'n'.

So, all I have to do now is make my mom teach me how to sew this stuff and let me raid her never ending supply of embroidery floss. Eventually I'll write our cheer and motto and put our names around the five points of the star (the kids were a little concerned that there was no spot for Charlie. Hmmm...). Scott said I need to do something between the star and the anchor. I'm still pondering.

Tonight is Silly's preschool graduation, and tomorrow is Cakes's Field Day so I'll have plenty of pictures to add soon, but here's one from yesterday:

This is Silly's preschool class. Everyone pitched in and we bought his teacher a new rocking chair for her room. I brought it in yesterday and most of the other moms were there the give it to her and show the kids. One of the moms gave me flowers for the bright idea of a new rocking chair and for collecting the money and coordinating eveything. It was fun! And Silly was really excited to be in on the secret.