Good Friday

Good Friday to everyone.

The kids put on the movie Jesus as I prepared breakfast this morning, and we all watched it. I asked them, as we watched the crucifixion, what Good Friday meant, and why in the world did we call it "GOOD"!

Bless her heart, Kylie was quick to reply, "Because Jesus saved us from our sins!"

My heart can't contain this amazing gift. Thank You, Lord.

Last night, we watched all of the special features for the movie Facing the Giants. If you haven't gotten a chance to see this movie, please do. I highly recommend it. After we watched the special features, we then watched the whole movie with the commentary on. Commenting on their film, were the two directors, two brothers. One of the brothers played the lead role as coach of a sorry little high school football team in Georgia.

As we settled in to watch the movie, Kody nosed open his crate and pulled out his comfy comforter and dragged it out to the center of the family room, and plopped himself on it. The rest of the kids thought this was a great idea, and brought out their comforters, too. Pretty soon, there was a hoard of cocooned creatures spread around the floor and couches. Konner went right to sleep, followed shortly by Kade. Konner went to bed when I woke him up, but Kade said, "No, I'm awake! I'm watching!" and promptly went back to sleep again.
After the movie, we all woke Kade up again to get him to bed, and he made it as far as the bottom of the stairs before collapsing into a cocooned heap, too tired to get up again. He is not one of my night owls.

Our heater went on for the second day in a row yesterday. Temperatures have dropped considerably after several weeks of the most gorgeous weather in the world. Rain brought the pollen count down into the 500s after being in the 5,000s. (Extremely high pollen count is 60-120!) Kids have been wearing jackets and shoes again to go outside. Even Konner came in a few minutes after going outside, saying, "I'm putting on some shoes!" So it must be cold! At Keith's work, the whole reservations building was without restrooms for three hours, because the cold had caused the pipes to burst. Burrrr!

Keri Lynn is doing her level best to bring me to the brink of insanity. All of her life, each year she has plotted and planned for the momentous day that is her birthday. It's only TWO MONTHS AWAY! So we must plan it now! Before it's too late! I'm such a last minute person, so I've always been a little chagrined at this daughter of mine who plans ahead. She certainly didn't get that from me!

Kathleen has been planning her birthday party, too, but it's coming up next Friday, so she should be nailing down final arrangements. She's going to be 11. She wants to have a tea party next Saturday. In lieu of people bringing gifts, we're going to have her guests dress up and bring something for the tea party -- a tea set, chocolate fondue, strawberries, sandwiches, etc. It should be a very frilly girly event. Kathleen at her finest!

But, as Keri Lynn has reminded me repeatedly, HER birthday party is going to be for her SIXTEENTH birthday. How did this happen? How did that sweet round-faced, bud-mouthed little imp get to be that tall willowy woman who likes to watch romantic movies with me? So her plan is also to invite her friends to come all dressed up, but not just in pretty tea dresses, but in formals. We're going to drive the young ladies to a movie matinee, limousine-style, in our van, then drive them back home for a formal dinner -- Olive Garden style -- with chine, sliver, in our formal dining room. They will also be asked to bring something for the dinner (in lieu of birthday gifts.) Keri Lynn would like Keith and Kristofer to help serve, while I cook. She wants a tiara, too. Her whole concept of formal wear and fine dining came from our recent trip to J.C. Penney, where we all ogled the pretty formal dresses there. Hopefully we'll be able to find something suitable at Goodwill that won't dent our family budget!

Things are going well as I continue to strive to be a healthier person. I've now lost 24 pounds! I didn't walk at all last week, while Ginny was here, but I did move around a lot with the painting and cooking and keeping the dog out of the painting and cooking. This week, I haven't walked at all out of sheer laziness. So now I need to get myself back into gear again. Yesterday, I did walk for about five minutes, but was stopped by a neighbor who wanted to know if I knew of any good babysitters, Hmmmm. Let me think. Uh, yes! So I went home and sent Keri Lynn to go to talk with her and meet her kids. This neighbor, who we don't know much at all, has a three-year-old and a one-year-old, with no family or friends in the area. She is desperate to be able to get out with her husband alone! I felt her pain! Even with family and friends in the area, it was hard to take care of two little ones all the time. I don't want to overwhelm her, but I'm hoping that she'll come for lunch with her kids some time soon, so she could have some friends close by again.

I'm rather long-winded today. Nothing new, I guess.

Yesterday was an interesting day in Blogworld. I finally figured out how to put up links on my blog. Kent, the one who introduced me to blogs in the first place, showed me last time he came to visit us, and then I forgot one of the steps, and then couldn't do it after all. That's the thing about most things computer -- if you forget ONE step, the whole thing goes down the toilet. But then I played around with the clickers on my mouse, and after dozens of failed attempts finally figured out what I was doing wrong, and now I've got a bunch of links on my blog to OTHER blogs. Go ahead, give it a whirl!