Meant to post this on Tuesday: Life got a bit hectic there for a bit.

Over the weekend Jenna was at her parents’ house in Oklahoma City with Addi. This of course meant that it was Liam, Elli and me here in GR fending for ourselves. There are aspects of our life that we try and keep to a minimum: eating out (or not), going to movies/renting videos, and mixing work with church. But for the past weekend, it seems that we’ve thrown some of those rules out the window.

1. Eating out: Rarely do we eat out as a family. First of all with five of us, it gets expensive. Secondly, have you tried to eat a meal out at a restaurant with three kids 5 and under? You wouldn’t either. However, this weekend I’ve eaten out twice with the kids. They’ve been really well behaved (for the most part), and how can you resist: “Dad, can we go to a restaurant with coloring pages?” when you yourself are starving after working the Saturday evening service. Thankfully we have the eating out line item, we usually just don’t eat out twice and spend a third of it in one weekend.

2. Going to the movies: There are some line items on the budget that we just do not put money in. One of those is the movies/video rental category. We’re all about the library when it comes to DVDs; check out from the library they are free. When you rent them or go see them, they are not. And while it means that I’m not up on all the recent films that come out, it’s saving us money every month. I needed something special to finish off the weekend with the kids as they seriously have been amazing. Wall-E was still playing at the cheap theater. Still having money left on a gift card, I only had to buy one ticket. We had a great night at the movies for $3.50. Now you may think, what it’s only $3.50… keep a real budget, $3.50 matters. But this weekend I gladly spent it for my two kids and a fun night out. When kids laugh, it is one of the most beautiful sounds ever.

3. My work schedule: Jenna and the kids go to church on Saturday nights. We go as a family, leave as a family. It’s easier for Jenna, and the kids get to have a total chill out day on Sunday while I work. We try out absolute hardest to separate my work at church from actually attending church. But this Sunday we broke a major rule, the kids went with me to church at the start of my work day and had to follow me everywhere while I finished the normal last minute work before the kid’s environments opened. Liam and Elli ended up attending all three hours of Discovery Village over the course of the weekend. Thankfully they said had a great time (Liam LOVED being in the castle) and both could tell me the story for the week verbatim, but there’s no way I would do that to them every week. BUT, I do have to say that having my own kids affirm the environments and ministry I help create each week is perhaps the best compliment I could receive!

Having a weekend full of exceptions was nice. I’ve been having a great time focused on enjoying Liam and Ellison. They continually made me laugh and challenged me to keep up with them. We even did a Thanksgiving CRAFT! (That’s right; I put my elementary education to work!) They were absolute troopers keeping up with me and treating them to movies and restaurants was my absolute pleasure.

I’m still set on keeping the rules; after all, that makes the exceptions all the more fun.