Sunday again!! The days just fly by don't they! That means we are busy and blessed! This week we did finally do some Valentines Day stuff though it was cut short pretty early on in the day. I"m pretty sure I did not get to it till Thursday. I left the kids bags of goodies at their seats in the kitchen so they would see them when we came down in the morning. They loved them! Grace had no idea what was going on and I just showed Tyler the calendar that we'd missed "Love" day and so we were doing it that day. He didn't care, he got candy. He'd celebrate Christmas in April if it meant presents and candy. He's 4. What do you expect!? I got them each these really cute Winnie the Pooh science/discovery books at the Dollar Tree. They each got two and I need to get ahold of the other ones so we have the complete set for Easter. I also got Tyler a Mickey Mouse clubhouse puzzle from dollar tree and stickers (Dora for Grace, Thomas for Tyler) and a bag of candy hearts for them to share. I had some valentine pencils packed away still from a couple years ago when my mom gave them to me so I sharpened them and put them in their bags too. They were so excited to get stuff and it was too cute. Not bad for $8!! I was a bit irritated though on Wednesday when I went to the Flower Factory in Canton and saw the SAME stickers for only 85 cents! I overpaid at the DOLLAR TREE!! Don't worry, i got more at Flower Factory. Easter's not too far away. :) SO I made the kids toast and was going to cut it into heart shapes and put jelly on it... well, i can't find my heart shaped cookie cutter anywhere! I really think I used to have 3 and now i can't find any of them. As I write this Gary's at Walmart wandering around looking for one. I hope being after Valentines Day he'll find that they are on sale... if not i'll add that to the FF list for future trips. :) So since i could not make heart-shaped toast, i could also not make heart shaped pancakes, sandwiches, or cookies so we pretty much ended the festivities with post-breakfast heart-shaped candies. (Tyler had insisted on using a cookie cutter on his toast so we had stars. It was stars or Santa's and I put my foot down on the Santa's. It's one thing to be still singing Rudolph but quite another to have Christmas shaped toast in February. Even for me.) I gave Tyler 4 or 5 candies and Grace one to see if she could eat it. I was RIGHT by her and watched her very closely and must have said 40 times, don't swallow! chew it up! They are very hard. She did fine but I did not give her more. They went off to play, I cleaned up and played with them a bit then decided to check my email. I was in the Living Room on the chair with the laptop when Tyler yelled "Mommy, Grace is touching the candies." I said "Push them back on the table where she can't reach them." He said "ok" and i could hear him moving them back. They were in zip locks. I said something to the affect of -did you do as i asked? and got an affirmative answer. So a few seconds later Grace walks by me and i hear this strange sound, like a crunching. So I said "Grace, what are you doing?" She turns around and her cheeks were completely bulging on both sides. I leaped out of the chair and had my finger in her mouth before she barely got turned around and I proceeded to pull out not one, not two or even four, but SIX heart shaped candies from her mouth. Yes, SIX. Take six out sometime and see how much that is and imagine it in a 21 month old girl's mouth. *sigh* of course it registered very quickly what was happening and so she tried to eat them quicker which meant she bit me! Ow!!! I told her NO and that she was not to touch the candies, and not to put things in her mouth without asking mommy. I told her also NO BITE and sent her to time out. She's a pistol that one. So our new thing is when one child is in time out (the bottom step) the other has to be in another room completely otherwise the time-out child will peek around the stairs and they'll play or talk and just get each other in trouble... or one will go visit the other and then before i know it they are wrestling on the time out stair. SO I told Tyler to go in the playroom, i rescued the laptop from where it had been not-so-gently placed when i took my flying leap off the chair. I give her about 2 minute time-out's because she can handle it and she's almost two and since this was a pretty strong double offense i decided to give her about 3. Well, a minute into it isn't Tyler back in the Living room sitting on his little chair in front of the window. I was keeping an eye on him ready to bust him for bothering Grace. He looked over at her and i was JUST about to tell him to go back to the playroom and leave her alone when he looked over at me. "Excuse me mommy, but Grace is taking her clothes off in time-out." Stifling a laugh, and picturing her with her arm out of her sleeper, i said "Grace, come here." She comes around the corner and is holding her entire sleeper in one hand. She'd unzipped it and gotten her arms and legs/feet out completely. I just burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. There she's standing in just her diaper and onesie holding her jammies looking SO proud of herself. I wish I had taken a photo. I told her to put them back on and she tried for a good 5 minutes! She's so stinking cute! Gary would wish me to assure you that we are most definitely going to put a very quick stop to Grace's stripping. :) I think it's great she's so independent about it because Tyler to this day won't take off his clothes on his own without threat of consequence. Grace on the other hand puts on her own "mits" and hat, and helps with every other clothing item. She's been pulling her pants down around her ankles and attempting pulling them back up awhile now so while this didn't surprise me, it certainly took me by surprise! It was a fun 3 minutes that still makes me smile. Wednesday I was blessed to have Connie come up for the day and scrapbook with me! I'd recently been given a most generous gift (thanks Melissa!) of 6 Creative memory storage containers and had re-organized all my stuff. It was a lot of fun to get to use everything and know where everything was like that! It took a bit to get used to but I did get 3 layouts done that day. I think that's pretty good for starting around 10:30 and finishing around 5 with kid interruption and of course visiting with Connie! :) I'm not good at conversing and scrapping at the same time. I've since done another layout and a half and have I think 3 more to finish the event i'm working on. I hope Gary will be able to find and purchase within some budget whatever it is we need to get our computer working! I can't access my photo's right now and the memory card on the camera is full. I deleted a few pictures from January to make room for the kids opening their valentine stuff but now I'm stuck. I hate being without my photos and being unable to even take more! For someone who has taken several thousand in some months, it's very hard for me to be without my camera for weeks on end! Friday I got to go with Steph and take the kids to pap's house where we did some deep cleaning. The kids showed increased signs of getting colds and came down with them for sure overnight into Saturday. Saturday was possibly our last trip to the cabin (and NO CAMERA!!!!!!!AHHHHHHHHH). We helped with some packing and got a van-load of stuff loaded to take to their house. We took a walk all together down to the lake and threw rocks, even Grace. She loves it too but they don't go far. :) We can recycle the rocks she throws b/c most of them don't even make it to the water from her stroller. Most of the lake is ice but there was a few feet of water on the edges. Steph had her camera and got a couple pictures, i really pray they come out well. We went to see Sydney play basketball at 1 but the kids were losing it quickly after the first game (which we only saw half of b/c we were a few minutes late and they started early! What tournament starts early!?!). The bush's stayed but we took the kids back for naps. After naps Grandma and Pops took one last walk with the kids down to the lake. We have a lot of great memories there but the memories truly have nothing to do with the actual cabin- it's just where the memories take place. The treasure is in the time we've spend there and the special things Grandma and Pops have done with the kids there. It's the rides on the boat, the walks and hikes and go-cart rides, the movies and campfires and get-together and throwing rocks in the lake. It's the things we've all done together- time spent- that is the treasure. Not where we did it or how much it cost, it's the time. That won't change. Grandma and Pops will still take time out to spend with the kids, play with them and do things they love- the treasure of Time. By the time we got home the kids were both coughing pretty bad and had runny noses, tired eyes and were just miserable. Our church did a ministry last night showing the movie "Fireproof" and Gary went to be available if anyone needed someone to talk to. He then had a 10:00 soccer game. I fed the kids and they were pretty much ready for bed even though they'd both napped and then sat an hour in the car. I kept Grace up till 8 which was incredibly difficult with the crying and whining. We played and read some books then watched some shows. I let Tyler watch a couple extras. His new favorite is this british Racecar named Roary- it's done by the same people who do Bob the Builder so it's that clay-mation. He's obsessed with that and the Fireman Sam-which takes place in Wales and they drive on the "wrong" side of the road- definitely a british show. Very cute though, and only 8 minutes an episode! These sprout on-demand things where we don't get the regular shows so we can only watch the same 5 on demand episodes over and over and over again. Which we have. :) I like that he still enjoys these slow paced shows, he's very easily overstimulated so we monitor his tv shows pretty close. He gets kind of scared when fires happen on the one but i talk through it all with him. We've done a lot of fire safety this month! :) He went to bed around 8:30 and from about 9:00, slept hard all night only waking a few times. They both coughed quite a bit through the night but seemed to do it in their sleep. Not wanting them to infect the other kids at church I kept them home. I've got a head cold too so I stayed with them, and Gary went to church. I also made a huge pot of Broccoli Cheese soup! yum!! I'll be eating it for a year b/c Gary does not like this kind of soup. I hope the kids do b/c they will be eating it once a week or so till summer! or longer! Gary's home... no cookie cutters. Boo! Oh well, i guess another trip to Flower Factory is in order!! I"m praying hard for just the right person to take with me... can you say FAIRLAWN!!!!

I can't believe we just completely missed Valentines Day. The entire past 9 days have blurred into one. I'm very thankful that Gary had today off because we needed this family and rest day. Gary's just the greatest in the world, i have to tell you. He let me sleep in this morning, got both the kids up and fed and dressed. I was awake around 9:30 but was able to lay in bed relaxing, read my Bible and roll out of bed just after 10 to shower and get dressed. He also picked up the toy room and vacuumed the downstairs. I"m amazed! Gary's not one to sit ALL day so we did head out to Target to get our monthly stash of Target band diapers and Luv's for night. I was very excited that we also got light bulbs and i got a cheese grater. The simple things huh? I got pretty expensive one and already feel guilty but I promise to use it a lot. We all took a nap today when we got home and now we're watching HGTV and playing. Why we torture ourselves watching these people buy million dollar homes i don't know. :) It's almost time for a kids show. :) I have a few things i got the kids for valentines day that I think I will do for them tomorrow. I never made heart shaped cookies or sandwiches or valentines or anything. I spent Monday with my mom and then we had that meeting to go to, and Tuesday everything began with Grandma. My mom brought me these great valentine decorations and I had window decals for the door and just never put them up. :( This past week was very emotional and difficult-more so than i anticipated. Grandma was in very poor health and was unable to enjoy her family there at the end, it's best for her to be done with her earthly suffering and at peace and renewed in Heaven. Even having that assurance of her salvation and place in heaven, letting her go was so hard. Seeing the family we love letting her go was even harder. I cried most for Pap. That man loved his wife in a way that is rarely seen in our society anymore. He loved her with his whole being. This was the first time in our marriage to deal with something of this magnitude. We were both very close to Grandma, i loved her as i love my own grandma's. It was harder than I expected to be there for Gary and deal with my own grief on my own. We handle grief in completely opposite ways. Gary needs to stay busy with simple things as he reflects and grieves on his own, and at his own pace. I like to talk things out, reminice and cry a lot. Gary's relationship to them was clearly deeper and it was difficult to know how to support him best. On top of that we had the children to think about. I'm so very thankful for the people who were willing to step up and take such good care of the kids while we needed to be gone. They were in someone else's care Monday, Tuesday, and Friday evening, out with us away from home on Thursday, and with my mom during the funeral saturday. She brought them to the luncheon and by then we were both more than ready to get to see them and spend time with them again and let the rest of the family enjoy them. We were also very tierd and so were they. I am ever so thakful to have children who can be in someone else's care so much and not be adversly affected. I will say we all need a fast/junk food detox! We also did our best to support Gary's brother, Lia, and especially Stephanie and Gary too. We're blessed to have family like we do and I'm so very thankful to my parents and brother. They sent flowers and covered us with prayer. My mom's help was HUGE and my dad came to the viewing to show his support as well. Having them in my corner means the world to me. We also had friends pryaing for us both which we appreciate greatly.

SALEM-Evelyn M. Kandray, 77, of Columbiana, died Wednesday at Blossom Nursing Center. Born Nov. 17, 1931, in Wilkinsburg, Pa., she was the daughter of William and Grace (Swarner) Wagner. Mrs. Kandray was a homemaker and a member of St. Jude Catholic Church. Survivors include her husband, William Kandray, whom she married Oct. 20, 1951; two daughters, Stephanie (Gary) Bush of Alliance and Lori (Bruce) Foraker of Durham, N. C.; four sons, Michael (Stephanie) Kandray of Winston Salem, N. C., Mark (Mary) Kandray of McHenry, Ill., Bob (Carrie) Kandray of Marienville, Pa., Dan (Tammie) Kandray of Gnadenhutten; a brother, James Wagner of Butler, Pa.; 18 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Services will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday at St. Jude Catholic Church in Columbiana with the Rev. Thomas Ziegler officiating.Burial will be in Columbiana Cemetery. Visiting hours will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at the Seederly-Mong and Beck Funeral Home in Columbiana. The family suggest that material tributes be made to St. Jude Catholic Church. Friends may visit www.seederly-mongandbeck.com to view this obituary, sign the guest register or send condolences online.

3:12... finally getting around to watching the Grammy's. My DVR says it's 3 hours 30 minutes...i predict i can cut 2 hours of it out with my favorite button FF ... i really should be cleaning up the house and working on laundry which seems to mass produce itself. I remember a time when I looked forward to these award shows for weeks. I find it incredibly boring and strange now. Am I really so old? I still love music and like a large variety, music feeds the soul in so many ways. It seems somehow to be just a lot of lights, glitter, too-short-skirts, and lame jokes. Enjoy my running commentary because the laptop keeps me warm. :) * Jennifer Hudson, just love her, and loved her speech. Too bad she left her dinner napkin on as a bib... who dresses these poor women? She's gorgeous, why would she wear that?! *Love Al Green. Add in a little JT and it's a good thing. yay. *coldplay... i just don't get it. *Carrie Underwood! MAN that girl can sing! Not loving her dress/shorts/whatever but she's one of those girls that looks like a 10 with no makeup and a burlap sack. *Seriously I can't take these clothes... skirts 12 inches above the knee and a crowd of crazy people standing below them... i always wonder, what kind of underwear do these people wear?? *Coldplay, still don't get it... are they trying to recreate the Beatles? People must like them... *Taylor Swift and Miley! how fun! Not wanting to be 15 again i'll tell you that! *Hudson's performance dress is much better. God bless her. *JB...the new N'Sync... yup, it's official. I'm old. *YAY Kenny!! *blah blah blah *OH MY GOSH no offense, not being a hater, but rap is NOT my cup of tea... especially with a woman 12 months pregnant wearing a polka dot bikini... sorry. *blah blah blah FINALLY!! JT!!! bummer.... looked like it might be real music but then more rap. :( Oh well, it's still worth watching! Something about the way he puts together a performance always impresses me. I may not like his music all the time but the man has style and he's a true artist. *love me some MOTOWN!! I'm looking at these adolescents in the front mosh pit area and laughing because i know they have NO idea what these songs are these men are singing. *Neil Diamond! his voice is so sexy, better to just listen than to look at him, he's gotta be pushing 70 by now. Oh, what happened to music? The subjects are the same, love, drugs, sex, heartbreak but it's what's behind it that has changed. Makes me sad. Sweet Caroline... what a classic! *legends, it's always sad to see who's passed. It always surprises me how many of the older generations i recognize names for. Bo Diddly was really before his time wasn't he? Talk about innovation and being an artist... *Robert Plant, who'd've thunk it...excellent ending. *oh, can't forget Stevie... I'm a rock star at the FF button!! 4:32!! and that's WITH typing!! *I've never even heard of half of these people. Unless you're born overseas or in Memphis you are not likely to ever win a Grammy. *I'm starting to wonder if you can go back and watch Grammy's from 1996. That I might enjoy a little more. As they say in L.A... Peace out!

We appreciate prayers for our family as well as the Kandray family.

Evelyn Kandray passed away yesterday morning.

Family is traveling in today,

the viewing hours will be Friday evening,

and the funeral Saturday.

We know she knew the Lord Jesus Christ as her personal savior

and is in Heaven today.

We pray for the family and that above all else,

God would be glorified in her death as he was in her life.

Happy February! The kids are playing nicely together so i'll attempt to recall some of the things i wanted to record. I tend to think in the middle of housework or a cute kid moment, "i should write that down!!" and then i sit here to do so and can't for the life of me remember what to write. :) I had such a wonderful time on my girls day out Saturday. We went to P. Graham Dunn and I got TWO paintings on sale! It was so much fun to see all the beautiful things they make and get a tour of the work area. I'd really like to go back and take Gary and the kids and several other people who I know would enjoy it. Gary took the kids to get a car wash which is like an amusement park trip for Tyler. He went on and on and on and on some more about it. They also went to Burger King as you saw from pictures posted this weekend. Tyler was very sure to tell me numerous times that they had SIX cheeseburgers and Daddy even let them get desert!! Sunday morning when I bathed him before church I found chocolate on his ear so i'm assuming he enjoyed it fully. They love daddy days and Gary's so good about taking them out. I find it ironic that when i plan a day at home Tyler wants to go somewhere and when we spend all day out and about and get home late (like 9:30 last night!) he is crying because " We didn't even get to play at home!". We're gearing up for Valentines over here. I'm not sure what exactly i'm going to do this week but I've been trying to gather things since Christmas. :) My mom brought me some things to hang around the house, we can't hang them on the windows because we covered our windows in plastic.... hmmm. I got a couple little things at the $tree for the kids and hope to make some sort of bag for them to do valentines just us with. I've got doilies i've had oh, probably 10 years or more... they may have even come from my parents house to my house. I also have construction paper and other junk they can use. I almost got valentines at the $tree too but figured it was a waste. They didn't have any kids that stuck me as something the kids would love. I hope to make some heart shaped cookies for the kids and friends to decorate this Friday but we'll just have to see how motivated I am! Today is rainy and just feels like a good day to curl up on the couch with a good book. Last night we attended our first ever Elders meeting. It'll be my last till another time with the wives comes along, i believe only once a year. It was a very good time actually! We worked on church goals for the year and some are pretty specific which I think is good. I was very surprised that the wives had such an active roll in this meeting, i was expecting we'd all eat and then the wives would go to another room and visit while the 'men got down to buissiness'. :) That was not it at all!! Gary's grandma had a stroke a little over a week ago and has not been doing well ever since. It's so sad to see the drastic changes in her each time we go. I'm so thankful we live close by so we can go visit her as often as we like. She's been such a blessing to the other residents there, they all love her and pap and steph who visit often. The staff love them too. Even as her physical body grows ill it's such a wonderful thing to know that she has the Lord Jesus in her heart and knows him as her personal savior and someday we can serve Him together in heaven, for eternity! It's a very sad situation but there is hope ahead. We have no idea when the 'good Lord' will call her home but we're appreciating every moment we have with her. My prayers go most for Pap... to have to truly let your most precious loved one go and leave them in God's hands and be left here without them must be one of the most heartbreaking things a person could ever go through. There are many other things going on which I don't want to take the time to get into, but I do want to share some things about the kids, my reason for sitting down here after all. (what time was that I wonder? how many interruptions ago?) Grace is all girl and Tyler is all boy and I love it. It's so so fun at this age to see them do things that make us say "Just like daddy!" or "Just like mommy!" to each other. Grace's favorite toys are shoes. She will wear any shoes in the house if we let her. My fear of her breaking her ankle limits it quite a bit but she can even get her own shoes on most of the time! Tyler went through this phase too but what sets Grace apart is that she likes to choose what shoes to wear when we go out. If I sit her up on her changing table and get her dressed and let her choose she'll always choose the one that matches better and repeat the color of the shoe while pointing. Her favorites are her new brown flower shoes, which were supposed to be spring shoes but she wears them all the time, and her pink tennis shoes. Oh! and her "bippers" for during the day of course. Tyler wants to do nothing more than run from the front door to the back door pretending he's a race car all day long. My mom came to visit yesterday and the kids did nothing more than run. They played really well together so she and I could visit which was nice. Grace's new sayings I want it that's why big lovey (with hand motions- no idea where she got that!) love mommy, love daddy, love lovey, love Jesus, love pops, love mamma, love papa When I check the Kelloggs blog she gets all excited and dances around then runs over and yells JOSH! ACKEE! FAFF!! josh josh josh baby faf ACKEE!!!!!! She points to the pictures and then Tyler comes over and mimics her. too cute. She's named one of her baby dolls Faf and it's the one that has to be in bed with "melmo" and "baby aamy" (her lambie Lori got her for Christmas). I try to let her play with them downstairs and purposely leave one or two down there so she does not become attached and need all of them when we travel. That happened with Tyler. He had to have his "kiki", binky, and like three animals and it was a royal pain to wean him off of each one. :) She calls her blankie a "baby" which makes it very confusing when we are playing babies! :) She likes to feed them, put them to bed and then lay down with them and say "nigh-nigh!" She and Tyler pretend to nap in the empty toy bins with pillows, blankets and books. I find that to be highly amusing b/c the quiet moments are so short and they don't get books in bed (except Tyler on 'rest' non-nap days). Well, i've been on and off of here trying to post something that makes sense and is slightly interesting for several hours. Nurses called from the nursing home to Steph telling her to get there as soon as possible so she left work to go and after she called me, I called Gary and he too left work to go be there. We appreciate your prayers. God bless!

Grace in her new sweat shirt

Tyler putting his crown at BK

Grace putting on her crown at BK

Today Heather got a much needed break and went out with some girl friends. She was getting to go to P. Graham Dunn (click the link to learn more) workshop and gallery. They make Inspirational wood carvings. She is really into this type of thing. I have no doubt she had a great time. In fact, she has not returned yet so it must have been fun. This means that I got to watch and entertain the kids all by myself. I had a great time and they were very well behaved. As always, when I am by myself, I took them out to eat. We ended up at the Burger King in alliance after getting the car washed. We tried the new mini cheese burger six pack combo and we loved them! While there I took pictures of them both with their crowns on. I hope to post these pictures soon. When we returned to home watched a couple of episodes of Roary the Racing car (click the link to learn more). This has become Tyler's new favorite. It is a pretty cute show. Well, I need to get going.