Before judging me off the title of this post, just read to the end and I'm sure you'll have a better understanding of what I mean by it. I'm not advocating not going to church at all, but sharing what has simplified our life, grown our marriage, and helped us gain a new balance in this time of our lives.

A typical Saturday night for us looks like this:

Last night we actually stayed up 'till midnight cuddling on the couch, enjoying our time of quiet with the children in bed. We'd hardly seen each other in the last few days, and our Saturday was fuller between me leaving early for the farmers market in the morning, and Nick having to go into work for a few hours in the afternoon. When we got into bed, we spent some more time talking before falling asleep, so I'm sure it was well after 1 a.m. before actually getting down to the business of sleeping.

We still need to get up during the night with our toddlers. It's part of the nightly routine for J. to wake at least once a night. Last night was no different. I woke up hearing the thump thump thump of little feet, getting louder, and closer to our room with each thump. It was S. He apparently got thirsty after our supper of pizza, and he knew that Mommy keeps a water bottle on her nightstand. I know how he feels. Having pizza for supper always makes me thirsty during the night too.

I don't mind my night visitor. He's easy to put back into bed when he's gotten his drink. I squeeze in a few hugs, whisper "Mommy loves you" into his ear as his head hits the pillow, and I tiptoe out of the room to avoid waking J., knowing he'll be up soon anyways for a middle of the night bottle.

As I climb back in bed, I check my iPhone for the time, 3:34 a.m., and vow to myself, again, to get our alarm clock set back on Nick's nightstand where it generally is (it's been pushed by little hands into the crevice behind the nightstand, and it's been there for a few days already).

Just as I thought, after what seems like barely falling asleep, J. cries out in the night for his turn to be awake. We'd already had a bottle prepared for him before we went to bed, so I grab it before going into their dark bedroom. I hand him the bottle, and he starts drinking it immediately. Now is a good time to change his wet diaper. If I don't, I know it will be so full in a few more hours that he'd wake up soaked. I lay him on the changing table, change the diaper, pick J. up in my arms, snuggle him close for a few seconds, kiss his forehead, and lay him down in his crib to finish the bottle. This is the only time he ever gets a bottle when he lays down to sleep, as it gives me a few extra minutes to get back to bed. This momma needs her sleep too! I'm pretty tired from going to bed after midnight and already being up with S., so I don't remember if I whispered a "Mommy loves you" to J. before leaving his room. If not, I'm comforted in knowing that my actions of feeding, diapering, and cuddling were loving actions already.

When I climb back in bed, checking the iPhone for the time seems highly irrelevant. I'm more concerned about falling back to sleep, for the third time this night.

I awake at 7 a.m. to the alarm on my iPhone. Our plan was to go to the early service and Sunday school, which meant getting up at 7, and being out the door by 8 a.m. As I listen for children who are nearly always awake at this time, I don't hear anything, and realize that they probably need a morning to sleep in too. It's unusual for them to still be sleeping, so I doze off when I am satisfied everyone is asleep, and  reason with myself that I should take advantage of getting in a few more minutes of sleep too.

Sometime around 7:30, I wake again. After a few minutes of trying to decide what to do, knowing that to make the first service at church was our plan last night, we'd now only have 30-35 minutes to get everyone up, dressed in clean clothes, eaten breakfast, up to the van and on the road, I decided that we'd probably just go to our small group church gathering this evening, in lieu of letting everyone catch up on sleep.

This wasn't the first Sunday morning we'd had to change our plans. In fact, in the last 3 weeks, we'd drastically changed our Sunday morning routine, and it all happened quite by accident. Our routine of waking up at 7, getting everyone dressed, making and eating breakfast, putting extra diapers, wipes, changes of clothes, sippy cups and bottles of milk into a diaper bag, grabbing the boys and heading up to the van, followed by a few minutes of unloading our arms of their burdens, fiddling with safety belts and clasps on carseats, settling ourselves into the front seats, and heading onto the road by 8 a.m. (8:10 a.m. at the latest to make it on time), was what we did every Sunday morning. We'd spend a few minutes catching our breath, talk on the way to church, get there and settle into the appropriate rooms.

But what happened 3 weeks ago changed our routine drastically, and Nick and I have been so relaxed and happier about our time together on the weekends ever since.

It began with a night rougher than the one that I described above. For some reason, both S. and J. were up at least two times each that night, and Nick and I both got up to attend to their needs. In the morning, we were so exhausted that we decided to skip all of the morning services at church and go to the evening service instead. I remember being so tired, that my body felt weak from the extreme lack of sleep. We hadn't been going to the evening service since it is a terrible time of night to be out with our boys. They don't sit well in the service at that time of night, and they are so clingy by the end of the day that they'd be miserable in the nursery. So for quite some time we'd only attended the morning service and Sunday school. But we decided to take a chance on that particular Sunday and change our routine. We spent a glorious amount of time cuddling in bed while letting the boys watch Veggie Tales. Let me just say that the only time we ever get to "sleep in" and linger in bed together, is between January and March before we start our schedule of selling soap on the weekends in April. The only other times would be if I skipped a market or if we were on vacation. Otherwise Nick works during the week, I'm out the door early every Saturday, and we rush out of bed to get out the door for church on Sundays.

So we not only got to spend time together cuddling and talking in bed, but we also were able to spend a few hours working together on the house. We'd like to sell it in the near future, but the projects we needed to get done before that could happen, weren't getting enough time to be worked on, and not getting us any closer to putting it on the market. We talked while we worked together, and it was just like "old times" when we could work together, back before pregnancies, irritable uteruses, newborns, and needy toddlers. It was the best Sunday we'd had in a while. We kept to the plans and attended church in the evening for the first time in months, and the boys actually cooperated. Since they were able to keep to their normal nap schedule because of skipping the morning services, they weren't crabby in the afternoon, which afforded us the opportunity to happily attend the evening service, as a family, at our church. It was perfect. A balanced mix in the weekend, of time together, church, and work. We hadn't experienced this, well, ever.

The next weekend rolled around, and we talked about how easy our life had been the previous weekend, the weekend when everything was mixed up.  We decided to find out if it would work for another week. Again, we were able to spend more time talking, more time working on the house, and more time as a family. We unfortunately weren't able to attend the evening service that week due to a monsoon-like rain, but the following weekend we were back at church in the evening.

I'm sure some people would judge us for not consciously being in church every time the doors were open, but for our family, we are experiencing more closeness, and more connection than we had with our previous weekends. It has strengthened our marriage by having more time to cuddle, talk, kiss ( :) just being honest!), and work side by side. We still love going to church and fellowshipping with other believers, and we look forward to the day when we can get back into attending all the services, which won't be too far in the future. But while we are in the little years with our family and catching up on house projects to realize our dreams, we're ok with skipping a service or two. 

For now, it's what's right for us. 

Share with us your thoughts! Do you ever switch up your routine to make life easier in different times of your life?