The silver lining

It amazes me that every morning God choose to paint a new portrait as the sun rises. I am constantly awed at His creativity...thought you'd enjoy this view from the past week.

 We had quite a timecard last weekend with lots of visits from grandparents and were also able to attend a passion play in Woodbury. We are excited to have a church we've been enjoying the last two weeks and anticipate celebrating the resurrection at Canvas Church tomorrow. Last week, Madison and Breanne were excited to go to church and for whatever reason, they were way into wearing scarves. So, here's what Madison looked like by lunch time...and then later, while eating chocolate frosting for dessert:

Grandpa Verlyn and Grandma Barb were by for a couple visits between celebrating their 33rd Wedding Anniversary with a night out on the town. Aliya conned many into reading her "LaLaLoopsie" book from the library. I actually refused to read it because I had heard both grandma's (my mom also stopped for a short visit on Saturday) and Derrick read it so many times during the weekend. Later in the week, we had a "LaLaLoopsie party" after school where everyone needed to bring something to Aliya's party.

 

 On Monday, we were bummed to hear that Micah was admitted to the hospital in Rochester. (Follow his Caring Bridge website.) However, as my very wise older sister shared on Monday night, "God is always good!" So behind every storm cloud is a silver lining! We got to have four Sechler cousins spend a couple nights and days with us this past week.

Aliya and Abigail are inseparable! Both three (well, Abigail's almost 4) they have so much in common and besides eating Madison's gum and getting into my jewelry...they were pretty fun to watch. I have a picture very similar to this one of me and my cousin, Jennifer when we were little.

 When I asked Daniel if everyone in their family like popcorn and smoothies, he said yes. I explained that Breanne and my favorite meal is popcorn and smoothies and asked if we could have that for lunch one day; we was tickled. It must have seemed like a novelty to eat snack food for a meal. You should have seen the floor...it looked like it had snowed in my house..covered in white puffs. Caleb was hilarious, shoving in handfuls of popcorn into his mouth before returning outside.

Our aunt Deb, Alyssa, Kyli and Riley came to spend Friday afternoon with us. Riley was amazing with the kids. They all loved him. They played games outside and the Easter Egg Hunt game seemed to be the biggest hit of all.

 Six of the kids would wait in the front yard while one of the kiddos would hide the easter eggs in the backyard with Riley. This went on for hours...until they threw the eggs into the tall grass...apparently those eggs were harder to find.

We constantly lift these kids, Micah, Mike and Traci in prayer as we wait for God to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we can even ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). Love you guys!