The Blessings of Family

I cannot express the joy FAMILY brings to me and my children. I don't know if it's because we homeschool or that God's just given us this appreciation for each member of our extended family soo much! There have been so many things I've wanted to blog about, but time is one of the things I have in shortage around here. So I want to take some time to share some of the sweet memories we've had in the past month or so.

My sister, Charissa, and I have gotten together about every 2 weeks since Jake was a little baby. We had lived up near them in Grand Rapids at that time and when we moved away, we were determined to stay close and to give our children the opportunities they needed to be close as well. So it has been a tradition we've kept for going on 12 years!

A few weeks ago, we spent the day up at their house and tackled the project of making bible covers for my husband, my brother, and myself. If you've never met Charis, let me share she is amazing! She can do anything she sets her mind to and this was something she decided she could make. We worked all day long until about 7p.m. hammering holes and attaching rivets, cutting and sewing the leather, and then dying it.

They turned out beautiful!

While we were doing this, the boys were playing guitar and having nerf wars, while Chaney and Maddie played games and made muffins together. My children just adore their cousins!
This visit was followed a few weeks later by a visit from the Townsends during their spring break. They spent the night and we had so much fun! Our time consisted of everything we all love - music, pictures, James Bond, Memory, Suduko, Spongebob Uno, guns, knives (okay those are things the boys love), listening to Chaney play the Thunder song on the piano, Jake singing his Transformer song, adventuring out in the woods and freeking our neighbors out about the "boys walking around with bb guns" (okay - another thing the boys love), making calazones together and enjoying them with delicious slush and Madagascar 2.
It was just a precious time of building relationships and memories together. I know Chaney and Landon are both growing up so fast and maybe always hanging out with their "little" cousins isn't always fun (like when they are doing the automatic deoderant to you and won't stop), but the love and laughter we share is priceless.