New Family Tradition

Doug and I decided to start a new tradition this year. As most of you know basketball is Doug and Dallin's favorite sport. Selection Sunday is more important to Doug than the Super Bowl. Our family has a March Madness competition every year. So we decided to make a tradition and have our Family Home Evening relate to sports. We planned to have Doug give a lesson on a sports related subject (friendly competition, teamwork, etc.), then we would all chose our bracket, and play basketball. This year we had a nice lesson on a talk given by President Monson on sportsmanship. My mom brought Dallin's basketball hoop to the hospital so the boys could play some basketball together. The basketball hoop ended up being a great idea because it kept Dallin very entertained and he was able to stay at the hospital a little longer than normal.

You may be wondering how our 1 year old chooses his bracket. Last year when he was 8 weeks old he chose his bracket by playing under his play mat. If he hit the giraffe he would choose the higher seed and when he would hit the monkey he would choose the lower seed. He didn't win but Doug enjoyed having his son participate in the family event. This year Dallin got to choose his bracket again. Doug printed out the names of all the teams that were playing. He first held them up and had Dallin pick. When that didn't work so well Doug put a team on each leg and Dallin would pick a paper. When we still couldn't get him to focus, Doug would put treats on the papers and Dallin would pick a treat, thus choosing the team.

We certainly had an enjoyable family home evening and I hope that it's one we will continue each year. As Dallin gets older we plan to have a family Hot Hoops competition.