Thursday Thirteen -

Here's my Thursday Thirteen -the Thirteen things I would have blogged about had life not interupted lately.


13. Alex went on his first sleep over on Friday night the 4th. Yes my baby went on a sleepover. I had a really hard time with it, but he had a total blast. He went to his best friends house and they stayed up too late, and got up too early. Hence a very tired boy that day. However, he's already planning to do it again. HOw can they grow up that fast?

12. Palm Sunday - Alex's choir sang with my choir for services on Sunday morning. He's loving singing in the "big" kid choir. It was fun to sing him up there singing his little heart out.

11. As is usual for holy week I was in church Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, and Sunday. What a week! Alex sang for the Maundy Thurs services. Of course on Thursday morning he woke up with a nasty cold, but he was not going to miss singing in church on Thursday.

10. Good Friday. For GF we do a Tenebrae service. It is a service of candles and reading. It's based on the 7 last words of Christ and for each word we have an old testement reading and a new testement reading, then a hymn or anthem. After the end of each word one of the seven candles is blown out and the lights are dimmed. By the last word the lights are completely out, my co worker Karen and I sing Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Pie Jesu" An exquisite, and extremely difficult piece of music. After that with all of the lights out the pastor slams down a book to symbolize the closing of the tomb. Wow! It is so powerful and I cried my way through both services (yep there are 2) This year we took the boys for the first time and they really enjoyed the service, especially ALex.

9. Easter Vigil on Saturday night. Another very neat service. This one starts in the dark and we light the Christ candle and I do this whole long chanted thing all by myself (pretty poorly I might add, but it has no accompaniment so nobody really notices). Then we turn on the lights, put out some easter flowers and move to Easter.

8. Then of course we had Easter. I did 2 services 7:30 and 9:00. Trumpet and choir. I love Easter and our church does it up with all the formality and pomp that I'm used to from growing up.

And my first picture is of our family on Easter Sunday in front of the stained glass windows.

7. The Easter bunny also visited the boys and brought them bags of candy for the trip and snorkle sets for the trip to Hawaii.

6. Oh yeah did I forget to mention that I woke up on Easter Sunday with a nasty cold. Hmm guess who shared? Then we got into the car at 10:30 on Easter morning. Just me and my boys to head to OH for some much needed RR. It was a long trip since I was really sick, but we got here safe and are now hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa.

5. Easter Egg hunt. Mom had hidden eggs all over the

front yard. The boys had a blast hunting and it helped them to burn off energy from being cooped up in the car all day.

4. Shopping! Mom took me shopping on Monday night and dad kept the boys. It was nice to get out and mom bought me a bunch of new stuff for the trip. Yippee!

3. Babysitter. Mom got a babysitter to watch the boys last night so I could go to rehearsal for their concert this weekend. My folds are singing in a community choir (a very good group) It was nice to see them sing and be away for another evening.

2. Naps, naps, and more naps. It feels so good to be away from home and have a break this week. I've gotten several naps, the boys have slept in and so have I, and until tonight I've been going to bed early. I actually feel rested for the first time in weeks.

1. Help with the boys. It's been so nice having mom around during the days to dealwith some of the stuff with the boys and giving me a little bit of a break.

So this is some of the stuff we've been up to. Hopefully tomorrow I"ll get some current posts done. Happy spring break!