A post a day--Dec. 23: Family Time

{the kiddos at home after church today--all dressed up in Christmas finery!}

I don't know if I have mentioned before how much I love Sundays now.  Sundays used to be really busy, hectic days of traveling when we were driving an hour to and from church, morning and evening.  We loved the church and the great preaching and teaching we were blessed with, and we loved our 6 years there, but . . . it was hard on us and really took away from our time to relax as a family.  We used to refer to Sundays as a day of stress, instead of a day of rest.  Of course, it was harder because the kids were really little and naps, etc. were messed up too.

Fast forward to the past year and a half of being blessed with a church only 15 minutes away, and currently only one service on Sundays.  Sunday school starts at 1:30 pm, and the service at 2:30.  We are usually leaving between 4 to 4:30 pm, after a great message and a wonderful time of worship and fellowship with our church family.  Our Sunday mornings are leisurely, and the evenings are relaxed, too.  We treasure our Sunday family times!  When we come home from church, we change clothes and then get a quick supper, or we just snack.  We watch a movie or play games.  Tonight's games were Ticket to Ride (one of our favorites!!) and then a few rounds of Uno.  We also spent some time earlier today teaching the kids how to play Dutch Blitz--an oldie, but goodie! :)  Sam is starting to get the hang of it, Julia finds it a bit complicated, and Josiah wasn't too impressed . . . but they'll get there in a few years!  I foresee having to get another set of cards so we can play a 5 player game when they're all older.  We will likely have lots of Dutch Blitz wars in our future!

Tonight as we played together, I looked around the table at my precious family.  How blessed we are to have these moments of laughing and teasing and loving.