Color my world!

The girls colored Easter eggs for the very first time today and loved it! Luckily, they love boiled eggs too, so they will also eat them this week! We then hid eggs in a path towards their hidden baskets. Jon and I will never forget how excited they were and the look on their faces when they found their baskets. Priceless. Since we've had the girls, we've done baskets on Saturday for a couple reasons. First, so that Jon can enjoy the fun, since he is normally at church so early on Sundays and also for us as a family to focus on the true meaning of Easter on Sunday instead of on our baskets.
We're excited to be able to have some friends over after church who do not have family around and give them the hospitality and love that we got so homesick for in Virginia. I remember that holidays were the hardest days to be away from family. Now that we can see family anytime, we hope to extend love to our friends so they will not be as homesick as we used to be!
Happy Easter! Thank you, Lord, for not staying dead in the grave! We have so much to be thankful for!

Tag, I'm it!

Okay, so Ali has tagged me to share ten obscure things about myself that y'all (I've kept a little Virginia in me!) may not know. Like Ali, I may not be able to get ten. So here goes:

1. I love the smell of a freshly painted room.
2. I get really nervous before some interpreting jobs and sometimes make myself sick on my way there.
3. I love to eat hot tamales and popcorn together (in the same bite).
4. When I was little, we had a cocker spaniel (Joy!) and I would let it lick my ice cream cone...one lick for her, one lick for me. Ick!
5. I'm a really deep sleeper and sometimes don't even hear my own girls cry in the night (where's motherly instinct?).
6. I hate doing laundry and usually I actually forget I'm doing it and will end up with wet clothes in the machine the next morning.

And there's probably not much you don't know about me since I'm pretty open with everyone in my life and I'm not too obscure either! Now, I tag Pam, April, & Marty.

Butterfly Exhibit

The girls at the Frederick Meijer Garden butterfly exhibit. They talked about the butterflies on their bellies for days. They were in seventh heaven!

Update

Sorry about the blog drought. I have actually been working a lot and I've gotten out of practice with this full-time working stuff!
The great benefit of living in a bigger town is more opportunity. So last week I did a training with Sorenson Communications and am now taking hours weekly working for them. If you are unfamiliar with the deaf world then you have probably never heard of Sorenson. A brief explanation is that they provide video relay services, where deaf people call through a video phone, talk with the interpreter who then speaks to the hearing person on the other line. It really is an awesome way for deaf people to communicate with the hearing world. I'm honored that they approached me and asked me to join their team at Sorenson. So far it has been a very positive interpreting experience.
Last week when I did the training, the girls went and stayed at my mother-in-law's house and they had a blast. Oh, the joys of living close to family!!! When she brought them home on Friday, they went to Frederick Meijer Gardens for the butterfly exhibit. I was so bummed to miss it, apparently there were hundreds of butterflies and they would even land on you! The girls had so much fun. Grandma got some good pics and I will post them as soon as I get them from her.
Today, we had an encouraging doctor visit for Makenzie. Before Christmas, she had a bladder infection so our doc had some tests run since this is rare for her age. The first test did not work out, so we had to get another one done two weeks ago. Today we had the appointment to find out the results of the test. Kenzie's bladder and kidneys are both working perfectly! No problems! Praise the Lord! We will just have to go back for an ultrasound in 6 months for a follow-up.
Things have been going well with Journey Church. The last few weeks we have had several new families and some have continued to come back. We have had more kids in JourneyKids the past two weeks than any other Sunday (except for launch day). We started a Random Acts of Kindness push and gave everyone an envelope with money and ideas of what to do for acts of kindness. We've been getting lots of cool stories of how people have been showing God's love to our community. It's really contagious and has been fun coming up with new ideas. Jon and I started a young married life group and host it at our home. We have really enjoyed hanging out every other week with these very young couples (all the couples together have not been married half as long as Jon and I, and some of the couples have been married less than 9 months!). It's fun to see ourselves from 12 years ago and be able to be an influence in their relationship. There are about 6 other life groups at Journey that are doing very well also. Exciting things happening in Caledonia, Michigan!