FHE-Making Doughnuts

Like so many mothers I want my home to be a place of fun, learning, and love. So I plan "fun" activities to hopefully accomplish this. In my head they usually involve my kids sitting and listening to me patiently while I explain all the directions, then them following them exactly and while doing this, laughing and getting along perfectly. Mission accomplished. How often does this happen? Pretty much never. This is how it usually goes:
Me: "Hey guys I have a fun thing for us to do!"
One of the kids (usually Amanda): "Can we watch TV while we do it?"
Me: "No, c'mon this is going to be fun!"
The kids: "Connor is sitting in my seat!, make him move!"
"Sam stuck her tongue out at me!"
"Mads is sitting on the table and playing with the scissors."
Me: "Connor that was not appropriate, go to your room!"
Amanda: "Sam kicked me!"
Me: "Sam I SAW you do it, go outside for your time out! Fine, Amanda go watch TV and take Mads with you while I clean this up!"

Last night was the exception. I decided to make homemade doughnuts for Family Home Evening, and it was a blast! The kids took over doing different jobs, Amanda glazed, Samantha rolled the dough, Connor cut them, and Mads covered EVERYTHING within her reach in glaze. I fried, and Shaun was the videographer, photographer, and took care of clean-up duty! It was amazing. For over one hour they worked together, didn't fight, and not one person got sent on a timeout! Today I am still reveling in it! It's times like that, that make up for all the failed attempts! I guess I'll still keep trying.


Mom in training...doing your job with one arm while holding a baby in the other!


Amazingly these two worked side by side for about and hour and did not kill each other!


These are obviously low fat.


The finished product.