SunDay!my husband and i were both raised that Sunday was a different day than the rest of the week. We didn't go shopping on Sunday's, go out to eat, play sports, go to parties, when we had a swimming pool we didn't swim that day. Our parents did a great job of making that day feel different. We have tried our best to do the same in our home. Sometimes we have been better than other times. But as this Sunday is coming to an end i know that taking the time to change our routine on Sunday's has been a huge blessing for our family.
I started think of Sunday as being just a bunch of don't do's and realized I want my kids to be reminded of all the Sunday do's.
Some of things that we do do on Sunday
- Go to chruch
- have a big breakfast
- take a family walk in the red wagon
- have our "Cutler Council" we go over the schedule for the week
- read lots of books to the kids
- have a big sunday dinner
- play some of our games
- we used to tie a red ribbon on the t.v to remind us not to watch t.v. but now since we haven't watched it in 4 weeks, we don't need the red ribbon any more (i can't believe what a change that has made for our family)
But i am curious, what Sunday traditions do you do?? and if yours are spend the day with extended family pick another one so i don't feel so bad that we are moving to the other side of the country!
the above photo is our new church in Maryland
the above photo is our new church in Maryland
10 comments:
I made a "Sunday Box for the kids. It has lots of scripture coloring pages, books, puzzles, scripture cards, journals, stuff to write letters, crayons, etc. They love it. They only use it on Sunday so it doesn't seem to get old so quickly.
I love the idea of focusing on the "do's" of Sunday rather than the "don'ts" (that word looks weird). We do listen to church music before church, the kids play well together or look through The Friend magazine, we are good about eating together on Sunday (which we're not as good at during the week), and we always watch Funniest Home Videos together in the evening. You're making think I should come up with some other good ideas for us to do together.
I was going to answer similar to Amie. Evie isn't old enough for this to be a big issue yet,but I was going to do a "Sunday is a Treasure" Treasure Chest with games and things that we only use on Sunday. I also like the idea of writing in a family journal on Sunday and having kids make cards to mail to cousins and grandparents (see, I am going to get the kids doing "good mail" early!) on Sunday, so maybe some fun art supplies that are only in that treasure chest. I remember Marguertie Garcia teaching a lesson about being selfish about Sunday, taking is back, using it as a day to recharge, rather than being bummed that we were missing out on things, so for Dave and I, we have done that. We've reclaimed it as our day to reflect and relax( easier said than done!)
We actually hold FHE on Sunday only because Doug has Monday conferences and gets home way too late. I figure I guess it is better than not doing it at all. I know they tell us to do it on Monday...we also have a huge family calendar (which I love) and post everyone's schedule and plan out our meals for the week. We almost always usually play a game together as well and sharades (which the kids love).
Sundays are always game days for our family. Kinda hard with little kids, but we always make it a point, since I was little, to have it as family game night. For service, we would always work on some ongoing project in the house- food storage being my dad's favorite thing to do something with.
I'm like you Kristi, in that our family all lives across the country- therefore, it seems like we are the only ones missing from big Sunday dinner gettogethers, etc... However, one thing we just started doing, is once a month on Sunday I bake a "birthday cake" and we celebrate all our cousins, Aunt&Uncles, Grandparents, etc.. birthdays for the coming month. The kids sign cards, we show pictures, and tell stories about those people and sometimes even call them on the phone that Sunday. My goal is to put together a questionaire to mail to those people ahead of time for them to mail or email back with their favorites, etc.. so we can spotlight them in our family home evening. This is one way it has made me feel a little better about being so far away on Sunday!
- Laura
laura i love the idea of the birthday party! great idea.
Great photo of your new church. I love the idea of focusing on what we can do on Sunday. We're not so great at this. Obviously, we go to church. We have a nice Sunday dinner. The kids play nicely together. We try to relax more. That's about it! I like the idea of having a Sunday treasure chest. Maybe I'll institute that. I think it would be fun to have a family walk, too.
We have strived to make Sundays like you, more of a day to look forward to. The one thing we do that I love, and it works for little kids, is we write in the kids journals, and our own.
I will ask them their favorite part of the week/or worst part, than they draw a picture, and we write what they say. I also have a journal jar for them, that they love to pull from, and use the question.
I love your traditions and thanks for always sharing them with us, they help me with more ideas.
These are great ideas from you and all those who commented. thanks.
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