FHE for the last three weeks

I'm not doing too good about getting on the computer and blogging about family home evening. I've missed blogging the last three weeks, but we did have FHE and I will sum them all up here. We've actually been talking about being happy. This all started three weeks ago when I went to a depression class that they had at church. We had Psychologist/counselor Dr. Frank come and talk to us for a Relief Society class about his experience with treating depression. I thought he did a great job speaking on this subject, and the things that stuck with me I brought into family home evening. Dr. Frank told us that the #1 attribute of a happy person is to be grateful, or have gratitude. The following four attributes are also are found in "happy" people in no particular order:

-Zest and Enthusiasm for life
-To Love and to be able to be Loved
-Having Hope and Optimism
-Having a curiosity of the world we live in.

Anyway, for me it seemed he talked about how to be happy. He said it's important to focus on how to be happy not how not to be depressed. Does that make sense. He talked a lot about gratitude since it's the #1 happy predictor. He said it's important to stop and "smell the roses" -You know notice not only the big things in life, but the little things and be grateful.

So anyway, I really want my kids to be happy. I think it's so easy to be depressed, and I want them to know ways to be happy even when life throws us curve balls. So the first week of FHE we talked about how it's important to be happy and one of the best ways is to have gratitude. We challenged the kids to notice something everyday that they are grateful for and to report it to us at dinner. They couldn't use the big obvious things either like our family and our home (we know the big things that we are grateful for, but I wanted them to try thinking deeper) It seems to work Claire would notice little things like Vivi laughing and friends at school that were nice. Will one day noticed a bee (which is very exciting- doesn't that mean spring might be coming?).
The week after that we talked about having curiosity of the world. I'm not 100% sure what he meant by this, but I think that if we are curious about our world we will appreciate the many differences in it and appreciate our own lives. So, we talked about the world.
This week we talked about loving and being loved. This was pretty easy, we talked about who we love and who loves us and why it's important to both love people and to accept love from others. Next week we will talk about zest or enthusiasm for life. We will be revisiting these again in FHE because really I can't think of anything I want more for my kids except a close relationship with our Heavenly Father than to be happy - truly happy not the world kind of happy, but really internally happy. Ok, so this is a long blog entry, but I wanted to get that all out. One more thing, a quote:
The past is behind, learn from it.
The future is ahead, prepare for it.
The present is here, live it.”
Pres. Monson
I need to do this I get too caught up in the past and future. The present is now and we need to live it!