How do you do it series...entertain so much (how do you keep an active social calendar)

I love to entertain and since John and I have been married we have kept up a busy social calendar!  Just because we have kids doesn't mean we don't get to share our lives with our friends anymore, it just means it's a little bit less and much more enjoyable because the kids get to meet so many new and wonderful people.

Our family teases us and says they have to "get on our calendar" when they want to see us (which is totally not true since we try to see the grandparents at least every week, on birthdays, on holidays, and we pop over just for fun sometimes to get a change of scenery).

Recently my Uncle Mark (cancer survivor and new senior pastor of a church) , who lives in California with his wife Marie and 18 year old son Paul, (he is very special to us not just because of his love for the Lord, but because his boldness and friendship allowed John to see that their are "cool" men out there with a passion for Christ!) visited us for two days, and although it was busy, the kids adored seeing him, I baked a ziti which kept us happy and fed, and Mark had no problem playing in the snow with the kids and watching kid movies with us.

Judah and Julia last year during the 2010 Mission's Conference

This weekend, even though My Marky has stitches and Julia has a cold we will be entertaining again with some missionary friends.  Christianne, Grant and Judah will be sleeping over and going to our church all weekend for our Missions Conference.  I grew up with Christianne since we were itty bitty at SW...and her son Judah is only a few months younger than Julia.  Mark is doing better than well, and Julia's spirits are high and she is excited to see Judah... I did warn Christianne that Julia had a cold, but she said, no problem Judah did too, this is just how life with toddlers is, they get colds and life still goes on!  (Although we will be keeping our germs to ourself in our house and not spread them at church on Sunday...only Daddy will go since he teaches sunday school).

Entertaining and having people over is what we do best.  We love to host and have guests because that's just how God created us.  There are many weekends when it's just family time but at least once or twice a month on the weekends we have company.  And during the week we love play dates with friends and going to special places to meet new people!  Hanging out with our friends and family is like medicine to our souls...no really!  It makes us happy to share a few hours with them and sharing our home and space and our lives with others is what matters.  Building relationships takes time and it is a commitment and sometimes a sacrifice, but it is worth it.