anatomy of a sunday afternoon

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. It's the only day I know we will all be together (for the most part). It's also the day we unplug. The TV stays off, the ipods are docked and the itouches are turned into us. (too much of a temptation to play temple run 2). We do this so our older kids will engage. I think it's just really easy when you are raising a bigger family to allow some kids to tune out. To be there in the room, but not present. I want my kids to have memories of being together. And for that reason, we have an unplugged day once a week. (Our one exception to this is, we will occasionally watch a movie as long as its something we are all doing together.)
So what happens when you unplug?
You get bored kids.
But here is a secret: bored kids usually translates into some kind of fun if you ride it out.

Our afternoons, consist of:

Racing home from church and jumping immediately into ratty house clothes. Then lunch. We are a fan of rituals and traditions here, and it seems Sunday lunch is always the same. Tuna sandwiches and strawberries.
We sit around our table and talk about church. What happened, what we learned, which is usually a nice segway for Brian into some kind of lecture. The kids moan and groan (little ones leave the table and Hailey goes to the piano to play the Harry Potter theme song), but they listen. They digest it. And hopefully, it helps them somehow.

The party somehow makes it's way into the library

where Jonas ponders,  Hailey reads, Luke gets his diaper changed, Porter plays, Caleb gets hyper and Brian and I try to hold some sort of conversation.

Usually someone makes someone cry.

And someone gets reprimanded and consequently pouts:

Hailey or Jonas will spout of random facts about the Titanic or Abraham Lincoln [hailey] or about the earth or how things work [Jonas].

This particular afternoon, Hailey told us the history of candy. Caleb listened with all the love in his heart.

All the talk of candy reminded Jonas of those jellybeans that taste like all sorts of disgusting things. I remembered I had box saved.

 In this box of jellybellys there are two kinds that look the same. One is gross, while the other is good.

  I gave the kids the same color, knowing that one or more would end up with the barf flavor, or skunk spray, rotten egg, or pencil shavings.

Hilarity ensued.

 Laughter and more laughter.

Usually people start to fall asleep. [Luke and Brian].

Then we bring the party down by setting out art stuff. This time, just plain paper.

Caleb the capitalist, always tries to sell his artwork for money to everyone.
The afternoon slowly ends and bring on the evening.
I love Sunday afternoons. The chaos, the talking, the laughing, even the yelling and the crying. I know someday I will be sitting in my quiet house with no one but Brian to talk to, and I know we will talk about this time. These afternoons, when we were tired of the loudness, the chaos, these afternoons we wished for some peace and quiet. We will speak of them with fondness and wish with all our hearts we had one of them back again.

Minus the poopy diapers. Neither one of us will miss those.