A long overdue shout out to the Grandparents

Having a baby, then having a surgery and just having four kids is quite a deal better when there are grandparents around to help out. During all of our recent joys and dilemas, I have often called upon my parents and Jason's for babysitting, advice, trips to the store, kid watching, sleepovers, hanging out with the kids and did I mention babysitting? I don't know how I could do it without all of the loving support of our parents. So, here is a little montage to celebrate the wonderful grandparents in our lives. And if you are wondering, yes, my mom is wearing Esther's boots, and dad has on her necklace. And finally, it is worth watching the blooper I caught on tape of Mimi (a.k.a. "mean me") and Esti playing with Dita.

Potty Humor

Today is day 4 of a nasty little virus holding our family hostage. I am a bit stir crazy at this point. However, God reminded me that I should thank him in all things, even this. I laughed when I realized that had I just read in my devotional on Wednesday (the day before D-Day) about how God teaches us through sickness. I thought of a friend of mine who has been flying under the radar for weeks now recovering from a surgery. Well... little did I know that I should have thought of myself instead of her. Isn't that always our tendency to look outside of ourselves instead of applying things to our selves. Well, that encouragement was really a preparation for me to help me have a good heart and positive attitude as I deal with all of the bodily fluid clean-up of small children with the stomach flu. I am amazed both at the amount of clean up required and God's sense of humor. One thing that is always so helpful to me in hard situations is to be able to find humor in them (and potty humor has always been quite funny to me). Anyhow, not to over-spiritualize but it really speaks to my heart to know that God is laughing with me. In light of all of that, I wanted to share this wonderful video of Ezra laughing. What a joy. For him, I cannot help but be thankful.

Sledding Down the Plow Hill

For the first time since we have lived in our home (seven winters), we paid someone to plow our driveway. The result of which were some pretty massive snow plow hills in the back. Today, we went sledding down those hills, ate snow, and I discovered that there are some things that kids can do better than adults. They were able to climb the hills, I just sank. Hilarious. Anyhow, here is a video of our snow capades.