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I love birthdays.  I love giving gifts, doing fun things at the request of the birthday celebrant, and being surrounded by family.  It's always a good time. Ethan came home for his birthday--a week early, but home nonetheless. He was allowed to pick everything.  It was Highway Pizza on Friday night, followed by Chili's in Altoona for Saturday lunch (after Glo's PMEA Regional Orchestra concert).  Chicken Roll-Ups were THE dinner item for the actual party, followed up by cheesecake (versus the traditional sponge cake). We watched both The Martian, and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.  Too, I believe we ended up playing over ELEVEN board games over the long weekend.  Yep, Ethan's idea of a total party (and the rest of us were happy to oblige)! With the recent release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and with Ethan's persistent love of all things Star Wars since he was a little boy, it seemed only fitting to have a Star Wars themed party. While I wrapp...

Have you ever heard someone use the phrase "Praise Jesus"?  There are variations on it:  "Praise God", "Halle-LU-jah", "God is good" and "A-men" with the accent on the "A". I can remember when I used to help my grandparents deliver Meals-on-Wheels, meals prepared by a company that helps low-income and sickly people.  We delivered mostly to low-income, elderly black people in the downtown area of Tallahassee.  My grandparents were so good to those people, always stopping for a minute to chat, or to show pictures of their grandchildren despite the abject living conditions that surrounded them.  It was hard as a child to see anything past the poverty and the smell and the poor health of the people, but my grandparents never treated the people poorly because of any of it.  I remember that often, when my grandparents handed over the prepackaged boxes of food, the elderly individual would take the box so humbly and say to my grand...

It's never too late for an old dog to learn new tricks.  Or to come up with some himself. Growing up, I can't remember one New Years' celebration.  I do believe that I just went to bed at the normal time (sans fanfare) and woke up the next morning to a bowl of cold cereal. When I married John, he expected to do something on New Years' Eve.  Until we moved to Germany, that something was to grill a steak around 8:00, followed by watching a movie on TV. When we moved to Germany, New Years' became an EVENT.  Germans go all out for fireworks at midnight.  All kinds of fireworks--the ones that stay on the ground, and the ones that shoot into the air.  There's nothing at all illegal about them, and because Germans don't believe in easy litigation, no fear for safety either.  It's fantastic! John and I decided to throw some pretty awesome New Years' Eve dances and parties while in Germany.  It involved renting a hall and a deejay.  Or rentin...

Over Thanksgiving, everyone was home, and on Sunday, I had Mark and Johannah joining Glo and me in the pew at church.  There's a feeling of safety in that for me; something about knowing that I have a micro Kennedy army of my adult children to protect me from people who don't treat me very well.  As a result, I felt safe attending Sunday School, being surrounded by my lovely children. During the lesson, the teacher was trying to make the point that when our young children come to us, asking a question, if we let them figure it out themselves, they will generally come up with a different, but better solution than we could have given them.  She then asked the class, "Isn't that true?" While I wasn't trying to literally answer the question, I shook my head "no", and she caught the nod.  She then looked straight at me and asked, "You disagree?" Oh boy.  Deep breath. Without really pausing (again, it's like I gain superpowers of brav...

Sunday, December 27, 2015.  Anneliese Margaret Kennedy's blessing day.  Another happy day in the Kennedy annals. Ethan and Rebecca decided to bless Annie in Rebecca's home ward in Hancock, Maryland.  John was on call, so he got someone to cover for him for five hours.  Just enough time to drive the two hours there, sit in sacrament meeting for an hour, and drive the two hours back home.  None of us were too happy about this, but the ox was in the mire, so we did what we had to do. Annie was wearing the blessing dress that I had made her.  It was a bit big, but it's not like I could measure her when Rebecca was seven months pregnant :-)  That dress meant a lot to me, and as I saw her in one of the three white dresses she'll wear during important moments of her life, I was glad that I could contribute one. Rebecca was only missing one brother, but the rest of her family was there.  Thankfully, we once again had the Morans.  I'm always so ...

Something I am beginning to appreciate more as I age:  you just never know what kind of impact you will have on a life. Sometimes, an impact can be seen instantaneously.  That's a nice feeling.  Like when Glo texts me and asks me to pick her up after school because she's so tired.  And on the way home, she falls asleep in the seat next to me.  I know right away that I did a good thing. Most of the time though, I find that you won't know what kind of impact you've made until a while later, or perhaps never.  However, that doesn't negate the good you've done.  After all, we shouldn't be serving in order to be seen.  We should be serving in order to bring ourselves closer to our Savior. I had heard of miraculous stories from the service of missionary children.  Stories where a non-member family member joins the church while their child, or niece, or parents are serving a mission.  Miracles of health where a father's health is prolonge...

Oh boy, it's Christmas card picture time again.  Always a cause for a bit of worry on my part.  Trying to figure out the color scheme alone leaves me awake at night.  And the location.  And included with that is the weather. Turns out this year, the biggest snag was scheduling.  Trying to find a time when all eight of us were together, during the day, was a challenge. As it turned out, we found about 30 minutes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to take the pictures.  John rescheduled a surgery so that we could hurry out the door and take them before he had to leave (and drive like the wind). No joke, there's something about that kind of pressure that leads to some of the best family pictures we've ever had....and some of the funniest. I present to you the Kennedy Christmas card outtakes from 2015: Baby Annie.  She doesn't like the cold. Refusing to allow "squinty eye" in the picture. I seriously never know when Glo is going to ...

While some of us may think of priesthood blessings as a more modern ordinance, used mostly in this dispensation of time, priesthood blessings have actually been performed since Adam and Eve were first placed on planet Earth.  While I am no scriptorian or authority on doctrines of the church, in my own mind there are two key elements to any priesthood blessings being successful.  Think about any kind of priesthood blessing:  a patriarchal blessing, a blessing of healing, a setting apart, a father's blessing.  Those two things that I mentioned before:  proper priesthood authority to give them, as well as faith.  Faith on the part of the giver of the blessing, that he will be in tune with the Spirit to know what the Lord would want to bless us with, and faith on the part of the receiver, that what will be said in the blessing will come to pass. The scriptures record many notable blessings given from the patriarch at the time, including Abraham, Isaac and J...

Where has the time gone?  26 years of being married?  It feels like John and I are still newlyweds, figuring out this whole marriage thing. Okay, not really.  We've added too many inches around our waists to be newlyweds, and our taller-than-me children remind me that we've definitely figured out some things :-)  However, I'm thankful that our marriage still feels fresh and full of love. We take a picture every year! In fact, both John and I will agree that we love each other much more now than we did when we were first married.  There's something about having each others' backs for 26 years that lends itself to feelings of loyalty and trust that we can't get anywhere else. This year, we returned to Grand Cayman for our anniversary trip.  It sounds exotic, but really it's become a rather comfortable and easy destination for us.  We trust our most excellent dive master, Mac, we know the restaurants where we like to eat, we understand the layou...

29 months, five pulled teeth, an expander, and more stupid rubber bands than we can count LATER... Glo got her braces off!  Oh my goodness, the ordeal.  However, seeing her cute smile now (and feeling thankful that she doesn't look twelve years old anymore), it was all worth it. Dr. Ray is THE kindest woman on the planet.  She was so encouraging of Glo throughout it all, and was genuinely proud of her when she finished.  I will miss seeing her! The obligatory, in-the-car-afterwards picture :-)