Mealtime. Family Life: Week 2.

The second week of this awesome Family Life journey finds us at the dinner table. Obviously, our dinner table is a big one, and unfortunately due to Dad's weird work schedule his seat is not always occupied at the same time as everyone else's. It's just one of the many things we don't love about his work shift...but we are praying for a change and know God has us here for now for a good reason and we are trusting!

Dinner time with the Pughs...now that is something to behold. I'm not proud to say it, but none of our children have amazing manners. In fact, table manners is one of the things we are focusing on with great intent at this point in our lives. However, there is always lots of food, many dishes afterward and most of the time great laughter during. Maybe that's why we can't nail the manners...we are too busy having fun! Sometimes when Dad is home we read out of the book of Proverbs during our meal, which usually leads to great discussion, or great confusion...depending on who is discussing. And sometimes we play our favorite dinner game..."Favorite part of the day." It's not really a game, but that's how the kids refer to it.

Dinner time is never boring, much like every other part of our lives, and almost always interesting to say the least. We try very hard to have dinner as a family most nights, but some nights things are just too crazy and we opt for all kids at the kitchen table and Mom and Dad hovering over the counter. It's not my preference, but sometimes it's all we can manage. Those nights it's more about eating to survive!

Tonight it was Reese's turn to say prayer. It's great to hear the little boys pray...they pray for the cutest things!

Reese always seems to be "hanging" off the edge of his chair. See..I told you they had bad manners!

Macie Lynn is always the comedian during dinner. She's pretty good at it too!

A few days ago Macie got into the pantry and found the Capri Sun box. She just had to have one, loved it and now thinks she is suppose to drink them all the time. We treated her to one tonight only after she finished all her milk.

Spaghetti face! Love the teeth, Mace. 

I sometimes wish I were one of those super organized moms who always have dinner ready at the same time everyday, but that's just not who I am. Sometimes, in fact, I realize it's 7:00 and we haven't had dinner yet. Those nights usually make for bad nights seeing how our kiddos start bedtime routines at 8:00. And with a family of seven heading down to the closest drive thru isn't an option all that often.

This year I really want to work on mealtime in our home. I love to cook, but think cooking ahead and freezing meals for the next week or month is a great plan for our family. I love to coupon and spend a lot of energy doing so to save our family money...and I do save money...quite a bit in fact. Now I just have to pull it all together. It's a great idea in my mind, but I'm not sure I have what it takes to actually make it work outside of my mind! We shall see. Life is about improving, growing and learning. Surely one of these days I will be that organized, time managed person I so desire to be. Until then we'll just keep on having these great thrown together meals with plenty of laughter to go around our super sized table.

Happy eating, friends!