I love Fridays ...

Fridays are definitely my favorite day of the week. I look forward to Friday afternoon all week long ~ because I get to spend the next 24-28 hours with a few of my grandchildren. We enjoy each other's company very much and have settled into a very comfortable relationship with each other. They are good for me ~ they keep me on my knees before the Lord throughout the week, and they keep me young as I try to keep up with them while they are here. I hope I am good for them too.

I slow cooked a 6 pound chicken
with vegetables for our Friday dinner 

 We stopped by the high school and watched the football team practicing for a little while. But it was a COLD and windy Friday afternoon ... I'm not much for cold and wind! We didn't stay overly long, but the kiddos are really into the Panther spirit and want to feel a part of their Comstock Park community.

We paid a brief visit to the public library so that the children could check out some books of interest. I already had a very full basket of library books at home, but I had neglected to get some titles they seemed very interested in ... so we checked some of those out as well. 

I had picked up a pair of pom-poms for Emma that were on sale this week. She is an aspiring cheerleader. She was very pleased to practice her cheerleading with them. 

Emma played with my "Think-it-Through Tiles" made by Discover Toys. I have had these since my boys were about Emma's age. She enjoyed herself for a little while, at least ... but this is a very educational toy and I think it reminded her too much of school (!) ~ [and WHO wants to think about school on a Friday night?] so she put it back on the shelf.

Matthew enjoyed my latest LEGO Magazine that had come in the mail this week. He and Christopher have a running list of what they want me to order them for Christmas from LEGO.com. Every single week (without fail), they change their minds and make a new list and file it away in my Gift file for safe keeping. 

Emma and I played quite a few rounds of dominoes. I really hadn't played for so long that I had forgotten HOW to. Emma was a very kind teacher.

We studied The Prodigal Son from Luke 15 and had a really good time discussing the story together after dinner. We read from two different books ~ first, we read it directly from Luke 15 (New Living Translation), and then we read it Sally Lloyd-Jones' version from the Jesus Storybook Bible. There are so many interesting things to think about with this story Jesus told about how He loves people and has come to rescue us.

We snuggled up nice and cozy at bedtime and watched "October Sky" together. I just love that story. The kiddos were SO into it! True stories can have such an impact, and this one is just full of relationships, hard work, tough times, friendships, heartache, reconciliation, and victory. And even though there is a lot of sad stuff in the story, it has a happy ending.

I think the children were all finally sleeping at around 11:30ish. After our movie is over, I turn on their favorite bedtime CD: "Sleep Sound in Jesus" by Michael Card and they drift off to sleep listening to the beautiful lyrics and music. Very thankful for another wonderful Friday.