The countdown

The kids will be home in 4 1/2 days! I cannot wait to get them on Sunday morning. I have to serve in the nursery on Sunday morning at church and then we are heading out to get them. It's going to be SO nice having them home. I think we have our small group bible study on Sunday night but they will enjoy that too, because I know they miss all the SG kids. After that, we're renting Spiderwick Chronicles and vegging out for the night. Of course, they will have to adjust to life without being spoiled rotten. They've been taken bowling, out to a few movies, out for pizza, Chuck E. Cheese's, to the park several days, a few baseball games, you name it. Not to mention, they've been shopping with Meemah & Poppa and have obtained several new toys. **eye roll** I can guarantee you that I will hear, within a few days of them being home..."Mama, why don't you take us to MisterDonalds all the time? Or to Chuck E Cheese?" Ahhh I can't wait to get revenge on them with their children (well actually, yes I can wait, they can't have kids for at least another 20 years!!!!).

Empty nest syndrome...

Well, I took my kids down to IL to spend two weeks with my parents this past weekend. They were done with school last Wednesday and were definitely ready to start their summer vacation. This is a tradition..to spend the first two weeks of summer vacation with my parents but I miss them terribly! While I'm sure they miss me, they are far too busy getting spoiled silly to bother missing mom & dad too much.

The house is so quiet. And clean!! It's amazing how clean a house stays when you have no children to mess it up. Last night all I had to do was go to the library, make dinner, do one load of laundry, dishes and watch a movie (Griffin & Phoenix..very sad). Tonight I have NOTHING to do...how absolutely wonderful. At the same time, it just makes it more obvious that my kids aren't there when I'm not busy. I think I might start the biyearly overhaul of the kid's rooms. I try to go through them twice a year to clear out any broken toys (garbage) and clothes, toys or books that they've outgrown (Goodwill). It's always so much easier when the kids aren't here to do that. Otherwise I run into things like "Oh I LOVE that toy" nevermind the fact that they haven't even picked it up for 8 months!

I hope everyone is doing well. God bless!

Blessings

The Lord is truly wonderful and amazing. We are so blessed in so many ways and this weekend really brought some of those ways home to me. Saturday morning the kids and I went to watch my best friend's daughter play soccer. It's hilarious watching a bunch of first graders play soccer...half of them stopped when the ball came near them with expressions on their face like "What do I do now?!?!?" Saturday afternoon two of my very good friends threw Jimmy & I a "post wedding" shower. It was so much fun to just hang out with our friends and eat yummy Greek style food.

Sunday morning I took my daughter and her little friend Savannah, to church. As usual, the service was amazing and I felt so uplifted when I left church. Jimmy & I both are so happy that God pointed us in the direction of KCC. We spent Sunday afternoon cleaning and then we hosted our small group bible study on Sunday evening. While we were all visiting and eating dinner, I was struck by how blessed we were to have this group as friends and as partners to help us learn more about ourselves in Christ.

No matter what I don't have, the things that I do have are the most important ones. A healthy and loving family that puts Christ first, friends who do the same and who want to help us in our walk with God in any way that they can. Thank you God for things like this.