Finding Fun

This past Sunday was the first Sunday in a loooong time that a) no one was sick, b) everyone was "in town", and c) Logan wasn't scheduled to work, so he wasn't sleeping during the day. So the family had a lot of "together" time.

So....what do you d0?

Growing up, my family always tried to avoid treating Sunday like another Saturday, and so movie options were limited to Sabbath appropriate materials (scripture stories, etc.). Logan and I haven't built up a good "Sunday Movie Library" (I REALLY miss those old Living Scripture movies!), so I've been pretty flexible with the boys as far as watching Disney films goes, but this tends to make the boys want to get into their "weekday routine", including asking to go to the store and things like that. Now that Tommy is getting a bit older and more conscious of church and things, I'm trying to find time to focus on building our family and start some Sunday traditions.

Last Sunday Tommy did not have a good day at church (he had to leave his classes several times, and declared that he "didn't want to go to Sunbeams.") So, I've been "practicing Primary" with Tommy each day this week, trying to help him learn how to sit quietly while someone else is talking. To do this, I've been enticing him with jelly beans. The first day he got jelly beans after sitting quietly for 1 minute, the next day 3 minutes, etc. I've started adding teaching a mini-lesson as well, and he's getting better. He was reluctant to go to class on Sunday, but when I told him he would get jelly beans at home if he stayed in class his spirits rallied some. However, I was shocked that he actually stayed in class the WHOLE TIME! I guess practicing does help. I wasn't planning on "practicing" on Sunday, since he had already been to Sunbeams, but on Sunday afternoon he ran up to me and said, "More jelly beans, Mommy?" I responded that to get jelly beans he would have to practice sitting, and he needed to get his chair. He quickly ran over to his chair (Jack following along, of course), and asked to practice. So precious! We made it to 6 minutes with both boys. Yay!!! Small victories feel so good :-)

When Jack went down for his nap, Logan and I tried to play "Candyland" with Tommy. That was...interesting. He was so excited to see the game pieces, but he had no interest in playing! He kept taking the little plastic children and using them as action figures in his imaginary world (he has a very active imagination), and he quickly lost interest in identifying colors or trying to count. For a first attempt it wasn't bad. We'll have to try again soon.

We then moved on to one of our favorite family activities--baking! The boys LOVE to help me bake, and it's been so funny to watch Jack try to "help" more and more each time. I started out with just Tommy, but as soon as Jack realized what we were doing he pushed his chair right up to the counter and started saying "Hep! Hep!" (his way of saying he wants to help). I let each boy put in some of the ingredients, and Tommy actually held the mixer all by himself for a while! I wish I could have gotten a picture, but that would have required me stepping a way for a moment, which would NOT have been a good idea! The cookies were delicious, and are almost gone already...must be elves or something, eating them when we're all asleep...

Anywho, those are some of the "major events" from the past week. They boys are growing up so much, it's crazy to think they'll have another sibling soon! And then we get to start the desire for crawling/walking/talking all over again...