March

Kai and Stephen sledding together, when did they get so old?

Indeed

Those glasses make him look like Grandpa DeMaster (when he was younger)

Goofy kids

Family dinner at Logans restaurant

Hard at work

And there is light

Easter party- why doesn't he take normal pictures?

We caught the Easter bunny! (And we released him)

Coloring eggs

First Easter

The girls

How the kids usually look

End of the day Easter picture

The grandkids. "We're from MI, we don't know what to do with sunshine on our faces." 

First dentist visit, he did great

Lexi and Keira

Ninjas

So, what to write about March?  We celebrated Julia's birthday, I'll do a separate post for her. We didn't have any sports going on, it was nice to have our Saturdays and weeknights mostly free.  We had gym night with our church.  Someday all of our kids will be old enough to play on their own so Nate and I can enjoy events like gym night. We took turns watching the littles so we could each participate in some of the fun.  We also had family fun night for the kids school.  It is kid fun night, not parental fun night.  And Nate conveniently had to work a day shift so he couldn't come til later, mm-hmm.  Thankfully he was able to take the youngest two home early because they were not having fun.  The older three love the carnival games and picking out prizes at the end.

We attended the local foster/adoptive family Easter party.  Lexi was pretty excited to walk around and pick eggs up.  She was more excited about the candy inside the eggs.  Dallas and Keira were also at the party.  We tried to get a picture of them with Stephen and Lexi- unsuccessfully.  None of them would stay put for a picture.

Caleb and Julia began orthodontic treatment.  They both have an expander to make more room in their mouths.  We have to turn the expander every night, which can be a frustrating process.  I foresee many years of orthodontic visits in my future.

Caleb had a band concert.  Nate and I are very impressed with the caliber of the music program at Holland Christian.  The concert featured the 5th-12th grade bands and at the end of the concert, all of the students played a song together.  Band concerts bring back so many good memories for me.  Caleb also began lacrosse practices at the end of the month.

For Easter we went to our church and then drove to my parent's house for lunch.  Tim/Jenny and family were there as well.  We tried to get some nice family pictures, we got the general idea.

Spring break began at the end of the month.  I took the kids to Hastings overnight.  The older 3 kids and I went to see the movie Zootopia with Cardale.  The older boys also spent time at Cardale's house that day.  We are grateful we can still see Cardale.  He calls us his first family instead of foster family, it's cute.  And Julia is convinced Cardale is her cousin.

We had parent teacher conferences and got glowing reports from all of the teachers.  We are so proud of our kids and how hard they work in school.  We are more proud of their character and how they live out their love for Jesus at school.  Our kids are pretty awesome.