I've been feeling the effects lately of two handicaps to my blogging creativity: one, being sick all last week (which I am blaming on the dog/chicken episode of the Friday before), meaning that most of the time when I was not absolutely required to be vertical (and some of the time when I should have been) I was relationship-building with my pillow.

Second, while I was gone to Red Deer a few weeks ago, I had Jason reformat my desktop computer and rebuild it. He finally installed Windows 7 (which I have already been running on my laptop for a while, now), and now my photo-editing software is too old to work with it. So. That means that I have no pictures until my new version comes in the mail.

I didn't realize how much I now rely on photos to blog with--but since most of my blog-fodder these days comes from the adorable antics of my three boys, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, I don't consider it "cheating" to save time typing by just posting photos.

Anyway, although the software still isn't here, I am feeling much, much better today, thankfully--there are way too many things on my "to-do" list that have now been carried over from last week, which I am less-than-thrilled about. However, I'm going to take a few minutes and see if I can make up for the lack of photos with actual text. Ha!

So, here are a few stories that have not been typed out, that had no photos to go with them, anyway.


On our last night in Red Deer, after having been away from home for ten nights, I was saying prayers with Jabin and Noah. "Thankful-fors" are everybody's favourite part.

Jabin: I'm thankful that we're going home tomorrow. I miss my big yard.

Me: I bet it misses you, too!

Noah: I'm thankful we're going home tomorrow, too. I miss my Xbox, and it misses me, too!

Me: Ah.



On Saturday night, Jabin was stalling before bed, which sometimes actually brings up the neatest conversations, like this one:

Jabin: Mom, you know what I wish? I wish that there were no bad dreams.

Me: That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Jabin: And I wish God didn't make people be sick.

Me: God doesn't make people be sick. Sickness came into the world when the first person sinned--it's because of sin we get sick. And someday, when God makes the Earth new again, we won't have any more sickness and no more bad dreams. Cool, eh?

Jabin jumped up and down, doing a rocker-type "Yes! Yes!" with clenched eyes and arms upraised and pointing.

A few minutes later, he comes back and asks, "Mom, in the New Earth, will it ever be dark?"

I was surprised at the thought that went into this subject by a five-year-old. Smiling, I answered, "In the Bible, it says God will sit in the middle of the Holy City and his glory will be so bright that there will be no darkness in it, it will be light all the time."

"Cool!" said Jabin, and ran to get his pajamas on, singing God Is Bigger Than The Boogeyman.

I sat thinking about his question for a few more minutes. I like looking at the stars, and the feel of a summer's night when the mosquitoes have all gone back to bed. God made so many wonderful night-time things to enjoy, I bet we'll still get to enjoy them later, too! I'm thinking that the Holy City may be everbright, but I bet we can still go to the other side of the planet to enjoy a night of star-gazing-- sans mosquitoes, hopefully! That's what I think, anyway.

Stay warm, friends, and hold on--spring is coming!