Tents, Birthdays, and Entertaining

        Their laughter and screeches woke me up at 6:00 this morning and I knew they had made it through the night outside in the tent. In all my thirty-something years, I cannot recall a time when I would have, or even could have slept outside in the month of March. I do not think the temperature went below 47 degrees last night, but to some, that would be way too cold-not for my two oldest and their best friend, who had plenty of sleeping bags and blankets to keep them warm! Now comes the test to see how grumpy they are after getting only a few hours of sleep last night. Hopefully I will not regret our decision.
        This time of March is a busy one for our family, seeing that we have four birthdays to celebrate in two weeks time. Susanna turned 8 last week and Caleb will be turning 11 next Wednesday. The children's cousin, who was born on the same day as Caleb, will be turning 3, and Joe's sister has a birthday on the day after Caleb and his cousin's. I decided we should combine the birthdays and we would have one big family party today. It is often too hard to get everyone together more than one time in two weeks seeing we all lead busy lives and live some distance away from each other. Needless to say, that was why my boys were in the tent last night. In honor of Caleb's birthday coming up, we allowed him one friend and that was how they decided they wanted to start off the birthday celebration. 
        I am looking forward to having a house full of people tonight. I love entertaining and having people over. In my opinion, we do not do it often enough and would love to have more families over for dinner. Time is hard to come by these days, but I think I only need to look ahead a few weeks and schedule it in before something else comes along and takes up the white space that still shows through on the calendar. I know we have a large family so not many people can afford to invite us over and feed my entire family, but my desire is to have more people in my home. I want my home to be a place of friendship and sweet fellowship that is uplifting, clean, and fun. Would you like to come share dinner with us sometime? Oh, please do not be scared off by previous posts about strange dinner conversations and wacky 'chicken-boxing' stories - life is always an adventure around here, and you may get a good laugh. Remember, the Bible does say laughter is good medicine! Have a blessed weekend, everyone, and happy birthday to the family!