Easter

Why, oh why do all the thunderstorms have to hit my town between 11pm and 4am???

I mean, don't get me wrong, I usually love a good storm, but honestly.

Yesterday, I was like Buddy the Elf: "I got a full 45 minutes!"

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but still. When they say everything is bigger in Texas, that includes the storms. Saturday night, I was up at 11, 2, 3, and 4:30, and never fell back asleep after that. Despite the fact that we'd been up half the night, with thunder and lighting and power outages, we had a great Easter. Seeing as some of us don't like ham very much, we ended up having fajitas and enchiladas. And, the younger kids had to do the Easter egg hunt fairly quickly, since some of the eggs were filled with M&Ms and would melt under the Texas sun. My brother just came in saying how we just got about 4 drops of rain.(There were severe storms all around us). Of course! It's daytime! How could there possibly be any storms?! I don't mean to complain, it's almost funny. Almost. Now, if all the rain around here would move west to all the wildfires....
Anyway, aside from the storms, we had a fantastic day yesterday, the most important day in our faith. For some reason, the Resurrection has been more important me this Easter. As I get older, the significance of Easter has been more clear. I grew up knowing that "We celebrate Easter 'cause that's when Jesus died on the cross and rose again so we can go to heaven!", just as every church-going kid will tell you. Last year, I really realized that having nails put through your hands(among other things) would hurt horribly. And that Jesus did it for me. I'd always known that, but it just became more real last year. This year, the Resurrection was extremely important to me. That was better then jelly beans and bunnies to me.
How was your Easter? I'd love to hear about it. Leave a comment and let me know!

He's Alive!

Happy Good Friday Eve!!

Last night, we read the first part of the Easter story as a family, Starting with Judas agreeing to betray Jesus and we stopped at the end of the Lord's Supper. As my dad finished reading, I looked down to the next section's title:Gethsemane. I realized that just reading the word made my stomach flutter. Gethsemane, the exciting, edge-of-your-seat begining to the story where my GOD'S blood was spilled for ME. He had to hang, suspended by his arms with nails, for the times I'm unkind to my siblings. For the times I don't obey with a cheerful heart. For any time I've ever sinned...."He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" Issiah 53:5. I think the most haunting part of that verse is "The punishment that brought us peace was upon him". My punishment, your punishment, our punishment, was upon him, who was sinless and deserved absolutely NONE of the torturous punishment he deserved. I mean, seriously: would you take someone else's punishment of having a crown of thorns pressed down onto your head, be whipped multiple times with a piece of leather embedded with metal or bone, have your hands nailed to a cross, have to drag that cross to where a bunch of cruel soldiers told you to, have more nails through your feet, and be mocked? Of course not. I wouldn't. You wouldn't. No one would. But Jesus did. And then, on Sunday he rose from the grave. He conquered death. He truly rose from the grave, being seen by hundreds of people(500 people can't hallucinate the same thing at the same time). The angels at the tomb declared to Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Johanna "He is not here, for he has risen!" The disciples didn't steal his body, the guards would have killed them for sure. What other explanation is the but the one true one.....that He Has Risen!

Homeschooling

I love homeschooling. Homeschooling, the only place of learning where the kitchen is the cafeteria/science lab,meaning you occasionally have to eat your sandwitch next to someone's science experiment. Homeschooling, where baking cookies and playing with babies counts as Home Ec. Homeschooing, where Wii Fit is gym class on rainy days. It's my personal opinion that homeschool is about a milllion times better than public school. For one thing, you don't have to move at the pace of the rest of the class...I'm taking 9th grade Language Arts, but still working through 7th grade math. That's unheard of in public school. I have hours of free reading time. School usually only takes me about 2-3 hours, instead of 7 hours of public school, leaving me with much more time for reading and sewing and other things. I don't have to get up nearly as early. I don't have to take the bus(unless you count our van...the license plate says it's a private bus). See? What's not to love about homeschooling? :D

A Crash, a Boom, and a Bang!

We certainly had an interesting evening yesterday.

At around 4, my dad and I were in the kitchen, and my mom in the living room. We heard tires screech, and my mom exclaimed "Car accident in the front yard!!". We ran to the window, to find a (very nice, may I add) black SUV, with the left corner smashed in, and get this, our neighbor's brick mailbox looking like it exploded all over his yard and ours. My parents went out, and my sister and I ran to the front window. Our hearts were racing. A young man came out of the car. He claimed to be going 10 miles an hour, and swerved because an animal ran out in front of him. Later, that story changed to 15 MPH, and he was reaching for his glasses. My mom called the police. Turns out the guy lived down the street, and was able to drive the car home. My dad, 3 of my siblings went out and helped the neighbors pick up all of the bricks(like I said, the went everywhere). We had pulled our trash bins out the the front yard, and piled the bricks(and metal and glass from the car) into the bins. Then we had the issue of getting them back around the house. The weighed a ton! We were so thankful for a few things....

No one was hurt

We hadn't parked our car out front

It was 4 o'clock-that is usually the time my mom and my aunt are buckling my cousins in the car to go home, but thankfully, they had stayed home yesterday.

Like I said, and interesting evening!