From one extreme to the other and just maybe we found the Holy Grail

Sundays are tricky in the Burton home. Church doesn't start until 2:30pm for us. That is too late in the day for my kids to behave themselves well. Who am I kidding, my kids don't behave well at any hour, but the closer we get to 4pm the closer we get to impending doom. Does anyone else have children who seem to hold reasonably well together until 4pm, and then have all H-E-L-L break loose? Hmmmmm.... On weekdays, this is when my children's hands all become magnetized to their siblings' throats and they try to kill each other, they are all crying or whining or tattling, and what was left of my patience at 3:59pm has now completely eroded to nonexistent. I am forced to summon all my will power to keep myself from doing something drastic, something that instead of reading on my blog, you would have been able to read on the little ticker line on CNN or MSNBC the next day. To keep my sanity, this is when I distract myself by calling Ben and begging him to leave the office on time and get home as fast as he possibly can. When it is 5:30pm, the time that I would be reaching for a bottle in a brown paper bag if I were any other kind of woman, I instead call Ben for a play by play, real time estimation of how close he is to home. It goes something like this, "I am going insane. Where are you now? No, what specifically are you passing? What does the tree look like? OK, well, now where are you?"

Anyway, in an effort to keep Sundays a little calmer around our house (i.e. no battles over the remote, tv show, etc) we have placed a ban on watching tv before church on Sundays. Andrew has tried to wiggle around this rule by asking if he can just watch "The Jesus Channel." I don't know if that is even a real channel, but if it existed, Andrew would know.

While I was preparing my Relief Society lesson, I asked Ben to do something together with the kids so that A) they didn't turn on the tv, B) they didn't interrupt me, and C) didn't do anything to themselves or each other that would involve a trip to the ER (I have better ways to spend my money...)

I could hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD (that I purchased in attempt to bring a little more calm into the day) playing down in the kitchen. The rest of the family seemed to be having a great time downstairs.

About 20 minutes later, or so, I hear a little tap-tap-tappety-tap on my bedroom door. It was Andrew. He had the need to check in on me and to inform me that they had learned to play a new game with Maddie's Bunny cards. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I figured it must be some card game that someone gave Maddie for Easter. I was impressed that Ben and the kids were having some good quality family togetherness time downstairs. It was encouraging that they were all getting along and that the tv was off, and that Ben was teaching them that there are ways to have fun as a family while still keeping the Sabbath Day Holy.

I went downstairs to get something a short while after Andrew had gone back down. There they all were in the living room. Mylie was diving off the arms of the sofa onto the sofa cushions and having a grand time. Andrew, Zack, Maddie and Ben were each positioned at different sides of the square coffee table and they each held cards in the shape of a pink Easter Bunny head. Everyone was smiling and laughing, and I was once again very encouraged that perhaps as parents we were finally doing something right.


Maddie says, "Look I found my pink bunny cards! Aren't they awesome!"
Andrew says, "We're having so much fun. Dad taught us how to play this great game!"
Zack says, "Yeah, it's called Black Jack!"
Ben gives Zack the evil eye.


So, their quality family togetherness time that I had been so thrilled with actually just involved my husband teaching our kids how to play Black Jack with pink bunny cards on the Sabbath.

Hey, maybe next Sunday Ben, his evil eye, and I can take our four little kids to Sin City and watch'em put those new skills to good use!

On another religious note, today I found this in the car:


It is a who-knows-what that Jessie got on a spring break years ago when she was in high school and she went on a cruise with my Dad and Josh. It is a little hot pink cup or candle holder or something that has a Princess Cruise logo on it. Just another piece of junk that Maddie must have considered treasure when she looted Jessie's old room a few weeks back.

Anyway, I was asking Andrew to help me gather up some trash from the car as we were getting out of it. Among other things, I picked up the cup thing.

Andrew, in a pained and shocked voice breathes, "Not the Jesus cup! You can't throw away the Jesus cup! That isn't trash!!!!!"

I am trying to process what he is talking about and look at the stuff I am holding. I still have no clue what he is freaking out about.

He grabs the hot pink mini-whatever it is from the cruise and holds it like it is exceedingly precious.

"MOM!!! This is NOT trash!!! This is one of Jesus's cups from his party! You know, from that big dinner party he had, when they took that picture!"

Hmmmmm..... I suppose that dinner party Andrew is referencing may have been, in fact, the last supper. This must have been the picture that was taken at that party, according to Andrew:


However, upon close inspection, you will notice that there are no cups of any kind in this image. Perhaps this was a later cover up by the Princess Cruiseline to throw people off their trail? Here is an image of the Grail before Princess Cruiseline got their hands on it, sprayed it hot pink, shrunk it and defiled it with their logo:


How do you suppose Princess Cruiselines got a hold of such a sacred item?! Better yet, how much do you think I can get for it on eBay? Maybe I'll just take it in my suitcase when we head to Vegas to exploit the kids new card skills and sell it directly to a casino so they can keep it on display...