Ladybug Farms: Finally Did It

Dying Easter eggs

It's been a busy week over here. On Saturday we welcomed a new nephew/cousin into our family--and he is really rather cute (I'm not in the least biased).

Hubs and our new nephew

Sunday we celebrated Easter with the family. We dyed eggs, we had yummy lamb (my SIL is the new official maker of lamb in our family), we celebrated Christ's resurrection; it was fun.

The beginnings of our garden

Wednesday our first batch of garden seeds starting sprouting and now we have our "weed" lab up and running, as Hubby likes to call it. We have four different types of tomato plants and some red pepper seeds growing. This weekend I will be starting some herbs to transplant, and I will do direct sowing of cool crops--spinach, lettuce and radishes. I can hardly wait to pick fresh produce out of my garden.

Fun at the zoo

Today we went to the zoo with friends. The kids always love the zoo, but this time was even more memorable because one of my other SILs (the lamb-roasting one) brought my four month old nephew to the zoo for the first time. He didn't really get it, but the kids enjoyed making him smile.

But for sure, the big news over here is that last night....Drum roll please........We FINALLY had our guest come over for dinner that I tried to have over last month. Yeah! I think along with God's message to me that it was time to start having people over, He also gave me a special grace to entertain without stressing out.

My usual MO for having people over is to stress out. I run through the house cleaning everything which involves lots of stern directives to the kids to pick up their stuff, stressing over what to make and worrying that it won't turn out, anxiety over what we will talk about over dinner, etc.

This time none of that happened. I even was crazy enough to invite two little girls over for a play date that morning. I cleaned up the house in under thirty minutes, had dinner all planned out without any stressing (and it all was ready right when she walked in the door), and I just let the conversation come naturally. I even talked and asked questions. Hubby will tell you that I sometimes have a habit of letting him carry the conversation because I'm a bit shyer than he.

Yup, I was definitely feeling a special grace last night.

Overall, we are generally very hospitable people and have guests over on a regular basis--we just always invite the same sets of people. In our almost eleven years of marriage, I can count on one hand how many times we have invited people over from outside that small group. Mostly because of my own fear--I will freely admit that talking to strangers or people who I don't know well has been known to cause me to skip events or be less than willing to open our house to others beyond our circle of friends. But part of this whole transformation thing God has been working in me has made me more open to meeting new people.

Today I sat down to have my prayer time and asked God, "Who's next?" Because it was kind of exciting to have someone new over.