It's been a while again. I apologize. I always have something in the back of my mind to blog about but I have a hard time finding the time to do it. I have a bunch of miscellaneous things today.

First off, my grandma (mom's mom) just passed away this week. Keep my mom in your prayers and my grandpa. It's never an easy thing but God was gracious with making it smooth and quick. She's in a better place.

I have a correction from my last blog. Mark read my post on him and was going to leave a comment to correct but I told him that I would do it in my next post. HE CAN TOUCH THE BASKETBALL RIM. That's the correction. He just can't "grab" it any longer. My hubby recently went rustic on me and grew a beard. I thought he was looking very manly. Surprisingly, I really liked it (Josie did too!).

My boy has got the biggest heart and he's a class A listener and rule follower. (He comes by all this honestly-his daddy! Not me.) One morning Isaac was ready for school very early. He was doing this for several days so he could get some Wii time in before school. However, the Wii time was distracting his sisters from getting ready for school so I had to get rid of it the privilege. Isaac started whinning, "What can I do?" I jokingly said in my hurry, "Make my bed." A while later, I ran upstairs to start my morning regime and noticed that he had taken me up on the suggestion. I'm a little anal about making my bed and, honestly, I noticed the imperfections first...and then I stopped myself and said, "Nope. You are going to leave it as it is for today as a reminder of what a blessing your son is." I had to take a photo to remember this...especially when he's a teenager and wants nothing to do with me!

And my little one has a gapping hole in her mouth. She lost her two front teeth. She is my last one to have this beautiful smile and I'm very very sad about it. It was very funny because she lost one a day before the other and looked like a full-fledged hillbilly. I was grateful when the other one fell out. There's nothing that makes me smile more than this smile...

Josie's the characteristic last born. Doing things at age six that my first born didn't do until age 10. That's just the facts. She's in Kindergarten and learning how to write her name in cursive. Her teacher will probaby hate this since I'm not a good teacher at all. Hope I'm not messing it all up.

On March 8th, we had a little warm up in Michigan. It always cracks me up when Spring hits our area. You see people wearing flip flops, shorts, and short-sleeved shirts well before any human being should be wearing them. It's all relative. And relative to our cold winters, we joyously start our summer festivities when the temps finally reach the 40s and 50s. So on this day, we grilled out, wore flip flops, and started jumping on the tramp (while Mark threw snowballs at the kids). Had to share some pictures of this phenominom.

And my last little tidbit today...Let me show you the picture first.

This picture was taken by Madilyn. She was working on a photography badge for GEMS (a girls club at a local church). The kids volunteered to have their picture taken, stood still, made no silly faces, no complaining, no poking, no crazy eyes. Just, like civilized humans, graciously had their picture taken. This NEVER occurs for me. I have to yell, stand on my head, run around, entertain them like toddlers, yell some more and then hold my breath that in the craziness I actually got something usable. This summer I did take a picture of my kids that I adore. I had it made into a beautiful canvas and it hangs in the main part of my home to be cherished forever.