100 Friends

Like last summer, our goal as a family is to have 100 different friends in our house this summer. We got a little head start during Sheridan's birthday party and then our Summer Bible Study and we hit 50 today when Lauren's friend walked in to ask her to ride her 4 wheeler! Yay!

Last weekend our cousins dropped in on their way up I-40. I love they way they act like they're very best friends from the first moment they're all together. It doesn't matter if they're together for 10 minutes or two hours, the noise level is high and filled with laughter. I love our family!

Easter

He is not here, He is risen, JUST as He said!

It was a wonderful Sunday in worship and in fellowship!

Last week was just so busy with 6 baseball games, 2 soccer games, 2 track meets, and 2 softball practices on the schedule. A few of those were rained out...and Richard and I split the out of town games.

However, we decided to be intentional about our one night at home, Thursday, during dinner. We read the REAL Easter story that evening and then participated in our own way in a church-wide fast on Friday. We also had a prayer vigil on Friday and Richard and I stopped by the church and spent time praying for our family and church family. I think the weekend ended wonderfully with family day in Conway (next post) and then Richard, Lauren and I participated in both worship services. Sheridan's children's choir also sang three hymns in the foyer between services.


We rounded out the day with 4 special guests for lunch. Melody and Anna are from Malaysia, Christina is from Arkansas, and Naomai is from Nicaragua. What delightful young ladies!

Ryan, Anna, Lauren, Melody, Richard, Christina, Erin, Naomai, Sheridan (l to r)

It was a treat for our whole family. God is so good!

100 Guests!

I encourage all of my kids to write out some summer goals so that at the end of the summer they haven't done "anything!" They all have different things on their lists like having certain friends over, winning medals in swimming, reading a certain number of books, etc. This year we came up with a family goal to have 100 guests in our house. Not all at one time.

Several years ago Richard was very impressed by the Holy Spirit that our home should be open to those we know, thus the dining table that seats 10. I'm a little uptight about the house being clutter free (OK "free" is a stretch) but clean before we have guests. However, I do like to have the kids' friends over and often we like to play games with families we know. So, I've tried to be better about inviting people to come over for any reason.

We are having our friends sign a notebook when they come over. Recently our student pastor and his wife and 3 kids came to eat lunch. They "signed in" and then he lamented that it was probably the last time they could come over this summer since we still had 50 other names to get! That's funny...quite possibly true...but funny!

We're up to about 60 at last count. Sometimes we forget to have our friends sign the book.
It's a great way for my kids (AND ME) to share the blessing of our house and yard and even our kitchen with dishes in the sink.

3 more weeks...it looks like we're going to have to have another party.