Get Me To The Church On Time

I got another fabulous idea from a friend last week. I know. I have brilliant friends. What this friend has started doing is having a devotional with her family 30 minutes before Church starts.

She makes a treat like muffins or banana bread and anyone who is ready for the devotional on time gets to participate in scriptures and prayer and the treat. I know. It's bribery. I don't think my kids would necessarily care about the treat as much as spending that time with the family instead of getting yelled at to hurry up already. Not that I ever yell. Especially not on the Sabbath. Heavens no.

I haven't quite figured out how finding time to make a special treat makes Sunday mornings easier but we all know the real truth behind the matter of the devotional deadline. It is not about the children getting ready on time. It's about the Mom getting herself and the meals ready and getting the girl's hair done and changing diapers, and packing everything up, etc. on time. Maybe I need to assign the treat to one of the kids to make. Now look how brilliant I am!

We go to Church from 11:00-2:00 so we've eaten breakfast but it's too early for lunch before we leave so everyone is starving to death by the time we get home. Not to mention that Church is also in the middle of Lovely's nap time. It makes that last hour very difficult. And yes, I think getting through three hours of Church with children of any age is meant to be a trial of every Mother's faith. Obviously. What else could it be for?

So I thought I would try the devotional last Sunday. I got the muffins made and lunch and meals in crock pots and everyone was ready for the devotional by 10:31. Except me. That's when I realized that actually telling everyone about the devotional might have helped things along but oh well. Can we blame it on the time change?

I was ready a few minutes later, we ate our muffins and ran out the door without a devotional but on time for Church! That was the important part. We will try the devotional thing again next week because I'm determined to make it work, with or without treats.

P.S. I was so organized that I had oatmeal in the crock pot Saturday night set on a timer so we would have breakfast all ready in the morning except that the crock pot never turned on. No problem. I just turned it on the next morning and we ate it for lunch.

I also put dinner in a different crock pot Sunday morning except that somehow it mysteriously got unplugged so we also didn't have any dinner. That's when you wonder why you even try and you fry up some bacon and eggs and everyone is deliriously happy anyway because they can't remember the last time they ate such wonderfully exotic food.