Smile!

"I feel a blog coming out of you" ... that's what Steve said after we snapped these pictures of Karlie. She obviously had had a great nap because she had a fabulous mohawk hair do (or should we say don't) !!



It's been a while since I posted because life has just been cruising along and I couldn't get out of the boat to catch time on the computer, not to even blog for a little while. It seems like every time (even now) that I have tried to blog there has been a kid running around me asking "Mommy, can you _________ " you fill in the blank. Yep, been busy, but thought I would try to catch up.

Two weeks ago, we went to Oxford for 2 nights. We stayed with Steve's family and managed to leave Hudsonville before yet another snow storm. Oh, if your wondering.... we are going to hit a record amount of snowfall for this season. We have about 3-4 ft of snow in areas of our yard (some of it is from drifting, some is just because we have had a TON of snow... no kidding!). Who would have thought that moving about 130 miles due west of Oxford actually gets you closer to the Artic Circle??! LOL. We had a good trip, and Steve was able to get his east side meetings taken care of without having to drive back and forth with the snowy weather. I was excited to see some good friends who are definitely Godly mentors - very encouraging!! Then we got to have lunch with Steve's Mom, Aunt Betty, Aunt Alice, and Janice Lynn and her kids - what a great time.... went by too quick, but it was great to see everyone!!!




So, that was 2 weeks ago - last week we got more snow and then some rain. We had some friends from Fenton out this past weekend, and we went up to the Double J Ranch in New Era, MI. It's actually only about an hour and 10 minutes north west of here, so it was an easy drive. They have a huge indoor waterpark that you can actually get day tickets for instead of staying the night. We had a great time - David's still not a fan of "cold" water to swim in. He loved the hot tub and started calling it "tubby toast" which was very cute - didnt' resemble anything from Teletubbies but a very creative description for the little guy. He'll still tell you that the "tubby toast" was his favorite. Nathan LOVED every minute of the place. He would have stayed longer. He was an inch over the height requirement for 2 of the 3 slides, so he had a blast! He was very brave... it's very surprising how weak he is for food but how brave he is for slides & rides..... but you shouldn't compare apples to oranges, right?! Karlie stayed at home with a babysitter, our next door neighbor's daughter, and had a great day. All-in-all it was a very fun time!!

In the middle of these 2 big events (Oxford trip & Double J), we have done school, MOPs, Church, play dates, laundry, cleaning, eating, sleeping, shoveling, snow blowing, exercising, paper work for taxes, Bible studies, skyping, emailing, etc. I think that about covers it - oh yeah, don't forget all the whining & complaining! Oh, you thought I was talking about the kids - I've done my fair share, too. On the bright side, I'm so excited about American Idol season 7!!! I watched the top 12 guys last night and they were all very good. Obviously, some stood out above the crowd but this is going to be another big year, in my opinion!! I'm hoping Steve's going to surprise me one year and actually send me out to CA to see the show in person - wouldn't that be a blast!!! I think so.

I do have a few prayer requests... We are still waiting for our Oxford house to sell - we haven't had any showings in a while so if you would pray with us that God will send the next owners soon we would really appreciate it. Praise God that He's still providing for us to cover the expenses of both houses! Pray for Steve, he's home today with the flu. He started feeling bad last night and feels worse this morning. Pray that he recovers quickly and that the rest of us stay healthy!! My last request is for my cousins... Andy, Kelly & Hoey are all police officers working to clean up the mess from the suicide shooter at the NIU college campus last week. Andy is apart of a K-9 unit for the DeKalb County force, Kelly (Andy's wife) is a detective for the city of DeKalb and Hoey is a police officer for city of DeKalb. They were called in right away and have been working hard on the case. What an awful thing that happened last week - please pray for them and all the families involved. May God comfort all the families affected with His peace because there is just no reasonable explainations for this kind of tragedy, in my opinion.

Hope you have a great day!! The sun is shining here right now, and we shouldn't get anymore snow for the next couple of hours!! LOL :-)

Love,
Nikki