Sunday to Sabbath (with a little help from Samantha Grace....)

We attend our Sunday church meetings from 1-4pm.  That leaves a lot of morning time for the kids to get cRaZy.  I don't want them to sit still all day and recite scripture but I would like them to refrain from running around the house screaming like banshees.   

Lately I have been frustrated about our Sunday mornings but haven't gotten organized enough to ACTUALLY make a plan for changing the "banshee" behavior.  

It started again this morning with my youngest 3 slamming doors upstairs, screaming, giggling as they played together.  At least they were having fun and not fighting you say??? oh, that always comes shortly after the wild play.    I hollered upstairs  "You guys need to settle down.  It's Sunday".   I'm sure my hollering really promotes Sunday reverence....

I was cleaning up from our pancake breakfast and pretty soon I noticed it was quiet and they actually HAD listened.  They were being reverent.  I went to investigate. 

On Sunday evenings our bedtime stories usually come from a church magazine called "The children's Friend".  A couple of weeks ago we read this story.  It was based on a real family in the same circumstances  and gave their solution.  I remember at the time the kids got excited about it and we all agreed we should try it......  I forgot.

My sweet, earnest, "I've got an idea" Samantha remembered.  When I went to investigate, I found that she had set up 4 stations and her brothers actually LISTENED to her and were going along with it. 

Station #1: Reading Sunday books

Station #2: Reverence practice.  you sit on the couch and practice being in church.

Station #3: Singing Primary songs

Station #4: Resting 

She had a timer and switched them every 5 minutes.  It was so cute.  It got me through my shower and getting ready and lasted until Dad came home from his meetings and wanted his chair which was the "singing station".  Mark agreed to sing but wouldn't switch when the 5 minutes were up.  That really irritated Samantha.  I wasn't around but I think it kind of disintegrated at that point. It was pretty cool however that it got started at all and it really set the tone for the rest of the morning.  Even though they drifted off to other activities, they remained somewhat reverent activities.  There was no more screaming.  No door slamming.

Maybe I'll just put Samantha in charge of Sunday morning from now on.  She handles it way better than I do.....