Awesome teenagers

I have a very special privilege pretty much every day of my life... Because of working with teenagers for so long and because of my husband's position as a youth minister and because of my own family of mostly teenagers, I get to be blessed by the "cream of the crop" of teenagers almost every day . I am constantly amazed at the way they are willing to be used by God and I am also constantly blessed by their good attitudes. One of my "eye-witness" accounts of their great attitudes took place last Friday night. I invited youth from our youth choir to come over if they wanted to help me with reading through the script that I am writing for them so that I could get their feedback and their advice and also so that I could hear the parts read out loud instead of just as voices inside my head. No one had to come, but about 20 of them showed up. They laughed when they were supposed to and they gave me some good suggestions and then I divided them up into groups to make up dances to go with some of the songs...It was a very productive night and all evening long I kept thinking of how honored I feel to work with these incredible students......Fast forward two days and I get to have another house full of teenagers, but tonight it's all boys.
As I sat here writing this, I got to watch this house full of boys go from wrestling in the back yard to making a movie of fake fighting to them hilariously doing all of the dancing parts (guys and girls parts) in a dancing game on the wii. The whole time I sat laughing at how cute they all were. In a world where a lot of teenage guys are struggling with peer pressure to travel down roads that would take them far away from the Lord, I get to see young men who just like to have good clean fun. I am so, so blessed! Thank you, Lord.

Chick-fil-a

As I've said before, my family has a lot of things that we take part in that have kind of become rituals. One of those rituals is Chick-fil-a on Tuesday nights. We have eaten there once a week for a very long time. On those rare occasions when we are out of town or unavoidably detained and can't make it there, we all begin to crave it. Not only do my kids crave it, they begin to talk about it and wish for it more and more as the days go by that they have to do without it.  I think they might actually put an additive in the food that makes it addictive. Last week, when we were snowed and iced in, we had to miss our Tuesday night ritual. It was heartbreaking...Tuesday was the first of many ice days for us, so there was no Chick-fil-a until...Friday! Oh, wonderful , glorious Friday when the roads became clear enough to move about a little. My sweet husband ventured out of the house to pick up my daughter and grand daughter to bring them to our home so we could all have the pleasure of each other's company when, lo and behold, they passed an open Chick-fil-a! Joy was heard throughout the house!!! Wishes for Chick-fil-a were being granted, but alas, poor Bethany and Hunter, they had just gotten home from having their wisdom teeth taken out that very morning and were unable to actually eat it:( Like I said... missing Chick-fil-a... is...heartbreaking!

Snow days for homeschoolers

Well, the last couple of days have been quite interesting. Texas has had temperatures that we are really not used to. It is sooooo coooold! The public schools have been closed, but there really is no such thing as a "snow day" for a homeschooler. After all, we don't have to face the weather in order to get to our schoolwork. It causes quite a dilemma. Do we stop doing school work because everyone else gets to, or do we keep working because we can?  Tuesday, we chose schoolwork. Wednesday, we chose to work on home and family relationships by hanging out together. Family time is always worth it and as a mom of a pretty big family, I gladly choose to have my family all together even if a little chaos rules the day. Yes, I said it. Being all together is sometimes very chaotic, but hopefully the memories we make are worth it. We started the day late, but quickly went outside to make the most of the sunshine and ice combination. I learned an important fact about playing on the ice. I learned that the freezing cold is only fun until you can't feel your fingers anymore and then the fun must subside until you have warmed up. The cold weather is also more fun if you have all of the right accessories-such as waterproof gloves, warm hats and thick coats. Unfortunately, my family doesn't own very many of those things, but we do own ice skates, so today we ice skated up and down our street. It was a pretty awesome thing to do. Hunter even put duct tape on the bottom of our shoes so those that didn't have ice skates could still slide on the ice. Nothing stops Hunter from figuring out how to have fun in every situation. The fun just didn't get to last too long because of the lack of accessories....Along the lines of the cold weather; my children and I have all decided that my husband must have a very special relationship with the weather man. While the kids are all on their phones or ipods texting their friends all day, John was constantly checking out the weather. It has been pretty funny to watch.

Staying up late...working on projects

I have my two biggest projects of the year coming up very soon so I have been working and working on the plans for them. Actually, by working, I mean staying up all night typing and retyping.  My ongoing "biggest" project is writing the next musical for the youth and children's choirs at my church. I absolutely love the feeling of getting the thoughts down on paper that God shows me to write about.  I love how He shows me things to add or take away and how He gives me the ideas to write about in the first place.  I love how He shows me in my mind what I'm supposed to get across to the audience. It gives me a joy that I have only recently realized that I receive from it. The play this year is going to be about spiritual warfare and the songs are incredible. They are all written  by some really talented songwriters. It will touch on some very important issues that affect us all in one way or another such as relationships, divorce, loosing our way and the struggles to lead our families the way that we should. As I have been choosing songs and writing on the script, I've been thinking about how intense the material is. At moments, it seems like I should pick material that isn't so heavy, but then I remember that God led me to the ideas that He wants me to address.... Life IS hard more often than it is not. Life DOESN"T always turn out the way we think it will and life IS going by quickly, so we must not waste the few years we have on this earth. I hope the play will speak to the people that choose to come to it. If only I could get it finished, then maybe it wouldn't consume my every thought. My other big event will be the  decorations and activities for the upcoming D NOW  at our church. I can't wait to tell you all about it, but a lot of it is still a secret, so I can't yet (just in case any of the students ever read this). I'm so thankful, by the way, that both of these things bring me such joy!!!! I'm sure I'll tell you  more about both of my special projects in the weeks to come because both of them sort of consume me.... Oh, well, I guess I've taken a long enough break...The script beckons me....I must go...

Thanks for reading. I hope you all have a blessed day:)