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!