Sabbath Day

I think we've always been pretty careful about how we spend our Sundays.

The kids are not allowed to play with neighborhood children on Sunday. We watch animated scripture stories or "cousin video's" or home movies of the kids as babies - when we watch TV at all. (Rick often watches football in the afternoons, which has been a source of contention between us these 10 years ....) We don't shop, or do the regular chores, etc. Yet, I have been really feeling like I wanted to elevate our Sabbath Day a little.

This is how our Sunday's usually go -
Our church is at 11:30 - which is a terrible time. It's been at 11:30 since February 2007 - and boy, oh boy I CAN NOT WAIT for it to change to 9am in the New Year. Rick usually leaves around 6:30am for high council meetings and then heads to speaking assignments. I feel like I spend the entire morning just getting everyone ready for church. Rick comes home, just in the nick of time to take us to church, although we are usually late. He typically drops us off and then heads to his assigned ward - Yonkers Spanish, coming back for us when church is over.

I spend 3 hours wrestling with tired, hungry children who have missed a real lunch (because they weren't hungry enough to eat it at 10am) and should be napping. I am lucky if I catch 50% of my class time. Rick comes back to pick us up and we all head home.

As soon as we're home everyone grabs a snack - making a total mess of the kitchen and dining room. Rick heads to the basement to watch TV. He usually falls asleep on the couch - so the kids who are down there with him, wreak havoc on the place. Rebekah disappears to her room to finish homework or who knows what, and I head straight to the kitchen to spend the whole afternoon making dinner.

We eat dinner, have family council & put the kids to bed. Then I spend the evening cleaning up the house that has been destroyed over the weekend - and we all go to bed, generally leaving dishes for me to face on Monday morning, because they won't all fit into the dishwasher in one load.

So, it's not that we're exactly breaking the Sabbath, but I have not really been feeling like it was a day of rest or being uplifted, or even just bonding with our family. I wanted - needed - a change.

I have to give my family credit for being willing to get on board. I made a deal with Rebekah. I would not wake her up on Sunday mornings, but would let her sleep in as long as she needed (she's so busy though the week and is always tired) as long as she was up early to do her chores on Saturday, so she could do all her homework on Saturdays too and commit not to do homework on Sunday. She would also need to spend Sunday afternoons with the family. Rick agreed to be more helpful on Sunday afternoons, and for us to spend time together. I asked everyone to chip in, so I'm not Cinderella (at least one day in the week.)

We've only done it for 3 weeks, but I'm pretty happy with how it's going. The mornings are still tough - but we'll change times in January, and we have been making a concerted effort to be on time. In fact, last Sunday we were EARLY!

This is how dinner went two weeks ago -

Jane fell asleep on my shoulder when we got home. I sat in a chair in the doorway, and gave directions & cuddled Jane to keep her asleep.

Emily cut the vegetables for me.

Jacob crushed the crackers & spices together to coat the chicken.

Rebekah cored & chopped the apples for the apple crisp -

and Jane helped make the topping, once she'd woken up.

Rick dipped the chicken in yogurt & then in the crackers & put it all in the pan.

Jacob helped to cut vegetables too - after he'd pulverized the crackers.

Dinner was made in record time!

I am lucky enough to have an oven that can be set to turn itself off. For the past few Sundays, I've put dinner in the oven, and set it to turn off just before it's ready - that way it still cooks a little as the oven starts to cool. The we load up and go on a family bike ride. It's fun to ride & be all together, it's healthy, it gets us enjoying the nice mild weather while it lasts, and we come home to a delicious, hot, ready to eat meal.

Here's last weeks ride -

We finally got Emily onto her new bigger bike that we bought her in spring (and off Rebekah's old, smaller one.) She did really well, although she was nervous about the bigger size.

Jacob & Jane love riding in the trailer, but this day it back-fired on me a little. We had been out late the night before at "Legend" and it was cooler than the weeks before. I put on their warm fleeces, and threw a couple of quilts around them too. They went right to sleep all bundled up together. I wondered why they were being so quiet back there!

Look at little Jane. I promise she can breathe!

Even when I took off the blankets & their helmets, they stayed fast asleep. Poor little things. They did wake up as I lifted them out. I thought we'd killed our evening & they'd be up for hours - which is what usually happens after a nap - but they went to bed at the usual time. They must have been exhausted!

At least now I know how to get them right to sleep when I want to!

I'm not sure how much the rest of the family is enjoying our new Sunday format, but I'm delighted. I hope the mild weather lasts, so we can keep it up for a while.