Pages

Monday, July 12, 2010

Peanut Butter Sunday

Being a Mormon means a lot of things. One of the "things" is that we try to keep Sunday Super Special or have it feel like a Sunday. hmmm what does that mean?

Our church is not super specific on what that means, but encourages the members to do what works in their families.

Some of the activities we are encouraged to do is spend time as a family, go to church, focus on helping and serving others. Some of the things we are encouraged not to do is anything that takes away from family time that could be done on other days during the week.

I have been working on a million ideas for a few years now to find ways to make Sunday a Super Special day. Some have worked and some have flopped.
One that has worked really well is Peanut Butter Pancakes. My kids would eat Peanut Butter on their pancakes everyday if I would let them. So I decided to use this as a Sunday Marketing tool.
I told them that Peanut Butter is just special for Sunday Morning Breakfast.

The kids love it. Often they go to bed and say "is tomorrow Peanut Butter day!"
On Sunday I could not get Sally Jane out of bed for 9:00 am church and then I said you get Peanut Butter and that girl shot out of bed as fast as a kid on Christmas Morning.

Since we have moved into our new house we now have a new dilemma of keeping track of which yard our kids are in at any given time or who's kids are in our yard. (I went through 12 Gorilla Ice Cream Sandwiches today with all the neighbors)
So Sunday can became difficult to spend as a family when everyone is running every which way. We decided that we don't jump on the trampoline on Sunday. One it keeps the masses out of the back yard (great problem to have) and two it just makes Sunday feel different.
Now don't go thinking that all Mormons can't jump on a trampoline on Sunday and call Salt Lake City when you see your neighbors bouncing, but it is what I love about our church it encourages us to find what works for our family.

I think it has taught me how motivation works much better when their is a reward in stead of a punishment.

So, now I need to come up with more fun ways to make Sunday Super Special.

Anything that works for you to help kids remember Sunday is a Special Day?

Sunday was good/fair. I didn't shed one tear but they were close. The biggest blessing was that there was a new family and so I clung to her as I knew what she was going through. We sat together in Relief Society.
Our Bishop came over on Sunday to meet our family which was so nice! He called Jeff, Joe but we didn't correct him as I am sure the guy has a million things on his mind. He asked what callings we had in our last ward and then the water works burst. I seriously could not even talk. Jeff had to answer for me. Oh what a mess I am.
We had dinner with some neighbors down the street that had invited us over. They have 3 boys so it keeps our 3 girls tough!

12 comments:

Jill said...

Your peanut butter pancake idea is a good one.

Sundays definitely feel different around here and I love it. We have 2:00 church so that means a long morning of time spent doing peaceful things. There is no TV watching (unless it's church movies or home movies) or video games. This means the kids usually end up playing board games together! Yesterday they wrote and illustrated a book together (Landon did the right side of the book while Whitney did the left). We listen to church music all morning as well. I love how peaceful and family-filled our Sundays feel.

When we get home around 5:15-5:30 we get dinner ready and eat, then we have Family Home Evening, then we watch a movie together as a family until the kids go to bed. It feels like a fun, mellow, family-filled day for sure.

Melissa {polkadot chair} said...

We try to eat healthy as a family during the week, meaning we don't have dessert EVERY night (even though my kids want to)...
so we have "Sundaes on Sunday".. which is a name my 8 yr old gave it but pretty much just means that I bake a dessert on Sunday, like a pie or a cake or sometimes it's just ice cream and chocolate syrup.
It gives me a good excuse to try some new sweet recipes and keeps me from eating an entire tray of brownies on a wednesday night!!

Melissa {polkadot chair} said...

oh btw.. I feel your pain over the zillion neighborhood kids...sometimes it's a blessing sometimes it's not.. I used to tell my husband I wish our house had an "open/closed" sign to make it easier to know when our kids could come out to play.

Unknown said...

My kids favorite thing about Sundays is before bed we have testimonies and a dance off.

We have family prayer right before bed (kids already in jammies) and then we each take turns sharing our testimonies. This isn't too formal. For example, I'll say "I have a testimony of paying tithing and then I share why I know it is important. We all share something short and quick.

After testimonies we turn on music, like Back Street Boys, or something fun with a good beat and we all dance to a few songs. Now this is mostly fun for the kids because we dance...I mean really dance, both me and my husband. It gets really crazy and we play add on and invent new moves, but they love it and we do to.

Since starting this in the fall, they have learned to love bearing their testimonies in church.

They never forget to remind me about our Sunday evening tradition.

We even do it with cousins or visitors when they are over on Sunday night.

Pretty fun!

Laurie said...

Check out the calendar desk pad here:

http://www.erincondren.com/store/index.php?cPath=129_532

Your new neighborhood sounds wonderful!

Love these Sunday ideas.

Amanda said...

I am struggling with making Sundays different as well! I have liked the suggestions you've received so far.

I let my kids watch those living scriptures videos..we always have church music playing. But our afternoons are way too casual and lazy for my liking. We need to be doing more "good" stuff.

wende said...

we love sundays around here with all of the family time. something we do on sundays is board games. any given sunday afternoon, there's always at least a few of us at the kitchen table getting our butts kicked by dad in boggle or uno or whatever else is in the cupboard. our latest favorite - snorta! seriously, try it, you'll will die of laughter!

The 5 Bickies said...

I don't know if our family could wait until Sunday for peanut butter...we love it so much!

A dear friend's family has Sundaes on Sunday. Sunday night only they have a scoop of ice cream , some syrup, a little whipped cream and a cherry. There you have their Sundaes on Sunday. I think it's a terrific idea and their children (5 of them) don't ever want to miss it!

Moore Family said...

I know this wouldn't work for everyone, but at our house we have "screenless Sundays." No tv, no computer, no video games, no using the cell phone for anything other than calling or receiving calls. We are SO "connected" the rest of the week, that it's a nice change of pace on Sunday to just unplug from the rest of the world.

Rachael said...

Those gorilla ice cream bars are banned from my house. I can't keep them out of my mouth!!!!

Traci said...

we really enjoy having an evening walk as a family. enjoying the beauty of the earth and time spent together.

michelle said...

I love the peanut butter pancakes idea. We love those, too.

I struggle with this, Kristi, and will be waiting to see what you find out and what you do! (We don't play outside on Sunday, except for going for walks.)