Church Bags 2.0

I don't know about y'all, but I have found that bringing my children to church every Sunday is both immensely rewarding and incredibly challenging, all at the same time!  My parents raised me in the Catholic Church, and we attended Mass pretty regularly.  My husband was raised in a "church for Christmas and Easter" family, so he was used to going to church, and he always attended with me once we started dating.  Throughout our (almost) 10 years of marriage, we've gone through droughts when we didn't make it to Mass regularly... but since we had kids, we've really made huge strides in our individual Faith Journeys, and both prioritize parenting with our Catholic faith as the central focus.  And while I feel so confident that we are making the best choices we can, I have to admit, it can be frustrating when I'm trying to pay attention to the Liturgy, and the kids are loudly distracting me & everyone around us!

Luckily, over the past 6 years, I have discovered a couple things that work for our family (everyone is different, I know!), some common sense, some surprising.  Snack are a must, of course - I think every parent in the world knows the immeasurable value of a pack of gummies ;)  We bring a water bottle & a container of dry cereal for each boy every week, and we get a lot of mileage out of that!  We also bring Catholic-themed coloring books, a pack of crayons for each, and some books for them to read/look at.

A surprising technique (to me at least), is sitting up front.  We spent many years sitting in the back, so that we could make a quick escape if the kiddos started acting up.  But once Aidan got old enough to have an opinion, he asked us to sit in the front of the Church - and we were amazed by how much more he paid attention!  Now, it seems obvious to me that he couldn't pay attention when he literally couldn't see anything... but, ya know, hindsight is 20/20...

But no matter where we sit, we never go to Mass without our "Church Bags" - personalized tote bags that the boys carry their supplies in.  These help us keep all of the "stuff" we bring organized and ready to go, and it keeps the boys from arguing about which items belong to which kid (most of the time, anyways).  I had made their original totes back when Leo was just a baby, using iron-on letters from the craft store.  But there was an unfortunate incident involving a mug of coffee and a sharp turn on the road to work one day, and... well, I needed to make new ones.  BUT - now I have my Cricut, so this was a whole new ball game ;)

I bought new totes bags at AC Moore, and I picked a nice, bright red iron-on vinyl to put on them.  I cut the boys' names in my current favorite font, as large as I could fit it on my Cricut mat.  And, since Daniel & I bring our "Minute in the Church" books, missals, and Mass Journal with us each week, I designed a quote to put on our adults' bag, too.

The next step is SO.  MUCH.  EASIER now that I have my Cricut - I just peeled the excess vinyl off the liner, placed the design on the tote bag, and ironed it in place.  I will admit, my font choice for the Bible quote was, like, a disaster, and I will never do that again... but I love how it looks now!  Lol.

 

The boys used their new, coffee-stain-free bags at Church yesterday, and they were super excited that Daniel & I had one just like theirs.  And now all 4 of us are ready to "grab and go" on those early Sunday mornings :)