Not what we planned

Yesterday was supposed to be a great day...we were planning to go to church in the morning, then the kids wanted to go roller skating in the afternoon at the school's skating party. We also had small groups for church that we were going to try to fit in, but we weren't sure if that was gonna work out. So, we headed to church in the morning and it was an AWESOME service! We started a new series, called The Me I Want To Be, and its all about how God made us to be the people we are, but we must be the 'best Me' we can. After church, was Kidstuf and Khloe danced with the Kidstuf dancers...she really seems to enjoy being up on that stage and we love watching her up there. After church, we came home and went on a mad cleaning frenzy! We are in the process of refinancing the house, and we had appraisers coming on Monday so we needed to clean up a bit. Brad made sausage, pepper and onion sandwiches for lunch and the kids had leftover pizza. Tif came for lunch, but Andrew had to work, so it was just the 7 of us. Around 2:30pm, we decided we had better at least go to small groups for an hour, then we'd go skating. Went to Merry and Ryon's, and Melanie and Dru were there but Tim and Tamarickia weren't. Was disappointed that we didnt get to see them, but we all sat down to watch a parenting series by Dr. Gary Smalley  http://gosmalley.com/seminars/speakers-bureau/gary-smalley and it was great! It was all about different parenting styles and what type are you? Well Brad and I decided that we are the Dominant and part Neglectful parents...which sounds awful when you write it down but it actually means that we are strong on rules and also tend to be a little permissive ('go ahead, i don't care') type of parents. What we need to strive to be though is the lot of love, very attentive kind of parents. When you have 6 kids, it can be hard to give them lots of individual attention but its something we both want to work on.
Anyway, we watched the movie, then it was time for us to leave for the skating rink. As we rounded the corner, Paetyn was sooo excited, she was about to jump out of her seat, and then we saw it.......the line that went AROUND the building, the line of cars waiting to pull in to the parking lot, and the parking lot next door almost filled! What you need to understand is that this isn't the year 1978 when roller skating was the rage!! This is 2010....NO ONE goes skating anymore....at least we didn't think so! But apparently the promise of free admission and ALL of your friends going is enough to get everyone in New Philadelphia out of the house on a cold February Sunday to go skating! Well i knew this wasnt going to end well...Brad is not one who is big on crowds, I really didn't want to go in there and try to skate with that many kids around, and where in the world would be even sit?? I slowly turned around to look at Paetyn's face and knew she was about to be disappointed...Brad and I looked at each other and he said..'um, maybe we shouldn't do this today..' and the tears started to fall. She was so upset, as i'm sure the other kids were too, they just aren't as verbal as Paety is! She kept saying it wasn't fair, and she'd look at me and just sob. We turned around and went to Walmart, because we needed coffee and we also wanted to try to figure out something else to do...and everytime we'd look at her, the tears would just roll down her face. I knew she was disappointed and i felt so bad for her, and when we were almost out of the store, her daddy had a great idea...he whispered something in her ear and she smiled so big....
She looked at me and said 'daddy said we can go to Grinders for desert'!!! Well in our kids minds, that is just the next best thing to roller skating!! We NEVER get desert when we go out to dinner (just too expensive usually with 6 people) so to actually be able to go and get desert was huge to her! We went to Grinder's and she ordered a hot fudge sundae..and when it came to our table it was huge! The other 3 ordered mouse munchers or something like that, and theirs was ice cream and oreos...Brad and I each ordered a brownie sundae and it was wayyy more than i needed but it was soo good!!
And last nite, right after he kissed Paetyn good nite, she looked at him and said 'thank you daddy for taking us to Grinders tonite for desert'....in the sweetest little voice ever....and he looked at her and said 'you're welcome honey'.....
and so our not what we planned on day ended up being a pretty good day after all.....