About a week ago, two friends of ours from church/school, offered to watch our children so we could have an evening out.

All of our children.

Overnight.

For those of you who have met my children, you know there are four of them, and they can be a rowdy crew. Yet these two selfless gals seemed happy to take them so we could go out to dinner and have a night "off" so to speak. Our evening was quite wonderful - good food, good conversation, and an oh-so-quiet house. In our nine years of parenting, we have never been in our house without the children overnight. It was oddly silent.

The generosity of these two friends was hard for me to accept. I think they wanted to do this for us since our new baby is coming soon, and they knew it would be awhile before we were able to be alone again. Regardless, such a gift was hard to accept. These gals both have children of their own and probably do not get out alone with their husbands too often either. Yet they were willing to give of their time and energy for us.

It made us realize how blessed we are, to have friends who are so kind to us. It made me want to be that kind of friend to others.