A cousin of Ladger's came by one Sunday with a plate of baked goodies for Christmas. And I started to invite them in even though I was in my pajama pants and the house was a disaster zone but then we couldn't because Rory had started to break out with chicken pox and they hadn't had them in their family. I had been working so hard on getting Christmas music ready for that morning's service that everything else seemed to be coming apart at the seams. And I was so exhausted that I just lounged around in my pajama pants for the day deciding to rest and tackle the house first thing Monday. Isn't life funny? I never lounge around the house in pajamas but on the one day I do.... I must have looked a sketch because I still had on the top I had worn with a skirt that morning. It cracks me up to think of it.

So finally I've invited them over properly and I'm looking forward to a great time getting to know them better this evening. And this time my house won't be falling down around my ears, I won't be wearing pajama pants and no chicken pox.

Boys, blood and hammers....

It's time for the boys to hit the sack but it's the spring break this week and I've been wanting to get caught up with reading some of my favorite blogs. And to update my own.

Ladger, Rory and I played "Settlers of Catan" this evening and Rory won for the first time....with lots of help from me, admittedly. By the way, he did realize that boredom is not so much fun the other day. Neither is getting your tongue stuck on metal in cold weather. I don't know why he licked a hammer outside today...but he did and panicked and pulled it off. Ladger saw him first with blood on his face, holding the hammer and thinking something terrible happened. I'm just glad he saw it and not me. I just got to baby him a little after he'd already been cleaned up a bit.

But now it really is time to get those boys off to bed.

Work, work, work!

We've had some plagues visit our house. That is, we have a little hard-hearted rebellious pharaoh and just as there were ten plagues in Egypt, we have ten plagues here too. We've already packed up every single toy and removed them from our house. The DVD's are next to go. And today, that little guy is singing away in his exile in our room. I wonder if there is a change of heart coming.... He's singing "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus".

This morning in his usual complaining with everything we ask of him, we talked about how God created Adam and Eve and then gave them a job and that was before they rebelled. Work is not a punishment and it's not given to make our lives miserable. It's the lies that we believe from our enemy that makes it seem that way. Work is wholesome and necessary to our well-being. I told Rory that there is much worse things than work. So today he's been spending some time in 'exile' with absolutely nothing to do. I hope he gets it - there are much worse things than a little work.

The other day we heard something like this on the radio describing our roads in Saskatchewan: icy with freezing rain, pavement frost in places, hard-packed snow with drifts and blowing snow. Is it really possible that all these conditions can be true at once? Yes, it was all true. The weather has turned milder but the road conditions have been nasty.

Wow! Has it been that long?!!

I can hardly believe how fast these days are flying by. I sent Rory off with cupcakes and valenties for his classmates. I'll have to take his skates and helmet for skating lessons myself as the poor guy was loaded down this morning. But I'm sure he'll really enjoy the valentine party today.

I was just realizing today that even though with wind chill, it feels like -32 degrees celsius, spring is not too far around the corner. Now that takes a measure of faith. It's time I started some of my flower seedlings.

I have spent many spare minutes over the last week practicing an arrangement of the classic "The Lord's Prayer". It was challenging to practice it as well as the extra challenge that my keyboard doesn't have nearly enough keys to play the song as written. And it has such a different feel from the grand piano I'd be actually playing on. It was a duet with a violinist and we practiced Saturday together for the first time and I couldn't get my part of it nailed down the way I'd wanted. So I went home and practiced for another hour that evening (after the boys were in bed). And then the adrenalin kicked in and we pulled it off - better than we had played it to that point. I was thrilled - I'm sure I was grinning from ear to ear.