Sundays

Mike has a M-F job so we know he will be around on weekends and the kids always ask when its going to be the weekend so that daddy is home. I will admit I really really really look forward to the weekends too. Its hard being on my own with all the kids for 10-11 hours a day. We eat breakfast together every morning around 6 before Mike heads to work and Keira to school but it's more of a rushed  frantic time and dinner together doesn't always happen.
We have always spent Sunday together as a family and being Catholic, we always go to Mass as a family on Sundays as well. Back in the Fall Mike and I went to a talk by Catholic Mom Blogger Leila Lawyer http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/  and her husband at our parish. It was a fabulous refreshing talk and one of the things she talked about was making Sundays a special family day. She had wonderful ideas and since then we have made more of an effort to truly make Sunday stand out from the rest of the week. Our kids are still pretty little and definitely are not saints and since they have to sit still and behave and be respectful and say prayers etc every Sunday am we like the rest of the day to be fun and exciting for them.  We make an effort of having big breakfasts on Sundays with special things we don't usually have like bacon and homemade cinnamon rolls ( or in the case of the above picture Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread). Mike and I limit our computer time on Sundays and really make and effort to read, color,  and play games with the kids. The kids know that Sunday is family day and although they often complain about going to church ( they really are too little to understand the importance of Mass ) they enjoy Sundays alot.
 Sunday dinner is a big affair with dinner and a homemade dessert. Throughout the week there is alot of discussion on what the  Sunday dessert should be. We reserve dessert making for Sundays and the kids look forward to it all week. (That's not to say that we don't ever eat dessert M-F because we do (when it's not Lent) but its usually just a cookie from the pantry). To make it really special we eat in the dining room on our "company plates" and the kids really really enjoy this. They always say in the morning. "We get to eat in the dining room tonight right?" I never thought it would be a big deal to them but it is. We often have guests for dinner like grandparents or cousins and that makes Sunday fun too.