family dinners

You read and hear about family dinners everywhere.  They say that families that eat dinners together end up a lot stronger and kids grow up with a lot bigger sense of family.  I can see just from the time I was young until now, it is less and less common to eat dinners at home together as a family because everyone is so on the go and some family members are either at a sport, activity or other outing.  And I do understand there are many families where husbands and wives have to work opposite shifts because that's the only job they can find and many other reasons people can't do it.  But we are not one of those families and so finally this year, Ehren and I decided to start our little family tradition so we don't slip into that mode of never eating together.  Weekends are usually pretty crazy for us since that's the only time I can go out and do some shopping or visit with friends or have someone over or whatever.  So besides the weekend I thought we need to make a use of our nice dining room and have special dinners together once a week.  It has been a few weeks now that on a Tuesday night, I make a nice home-made meal with dessert and everything and we all eat together and talk.  It's funny how we got so used to just eating in our kitchen since there is plenty of room for all of us but doing this once a week it makes it special to eat where we usually eat only for special occasions.  The kids get excited now when we have our nice dinners in the dining room and I have to say it is a nice little break from the usual quick dinners.  And it's not that we don't eat together the rest of the week, most of the days we still do but because of some activities and things that come up, me and the kids usually eat before Ehren is even home from work.  But on Tuesday night, we have nothing going on and we just spend the whole evening together as a family.  I'm really enjoying it even though some of the times I just sit there during dinner, listen to the kids talk about their day and really, my head is a mush from a busy day so I barely say anything (as Ehren pointed out the other time:)).  But I don't think that matters because really, I just enjoy the time with all of us at the table and Ehren not using any tech gadgets for a night.  It is one more thing I added to my list to simplify my life.  Because it is time devoted to just our family.  I really hope we can continue this tradition as the kids grow older and more independent from us.  Because our family matters to God and it matters to me.