The four of us at my cousing Niecia's wedding last weekend.




Thought I'd post some pictures of the adults for a change. Shocker! These were taken last weekend at the wedding reception of my cousing Niecia. It was a beautiful wedding and a great night out with the four of us. We've spent the majority of this week doing more finishing work on the new sliding door which should be 100% finished by this week. I'll be sure to post some pictures when it is. Let me just take this moment to say that my husband completely embodies the description "jack of all trades". Not only does he sing like an angel (i.e. this morning at SLWC singing "There is none like you" I told him afterwards that when he sings that like that I'm not thinking about Jesus.. TMI?); play the guitar, piano and drums like nobody's business; preach the paint off the walls every Sun. night; he can also drywall, tile, roof and just generally be our very own handyman. What can I say? I married the man of my dreams. Yes, 'tis true!
This last picture is just too funny NOT to post. What is it you say? Jay's best friend Micah came over a couple of nights ago. Let me tell ya, when these boys get together, get out of the way. Micah decided it would be a great adventure to take Zeke's Little Tikes car for a ride in the lawn at 1 in the morning. Problem, he got stuck. I'm not kidding. TRULY, stuck. I'm not sure I've ever laughed so hard.
On a bit more serious note, please keep our family in your prayers this week. Jason will be scouring all of Grand Rapids for a full time job, seeing that we CANNOT find a part time one that will bring in enough money. This will be a pretty big step for us, and we NEED to find a job soon as our paycheck from the church will be much smaller in 2 weeks!!! Love to you all!

It's a miracle!

WOW! This definately takes the cake for longest blog dry spell. A heartfelt "sorry" to all the faithful readers. Truth be told, the only real reason for my lack of posting - laziness! The digital camera batteries died and I was just to lazy to charge them. Pretty sorry, I know. Not that we've had a lack of activity here in the Grate household. Since my last entry, we've managed to build a new deck, landscaped the backyard, and put in a new sliding door in place of the old window off of our dining room. Whew! We've had an AMAZING amount of help. Thank you Dad, Jordan, Jonathan, and Jon! When it's all totally finished, I'll be sure to post some pictures. It really is quite amazing! We love our deck and backyard more than any place we've lived, hands down.
Well, onto less exhausting subjects.... It's officially summer break here. It really is a relief not to be living in my car taking kids to and from school. They've even blessed me with a couple of very late mornings; not getting up 'til 9:30! Ahh..... We've already spent one day at the beach, been down to Marion, OH to see the fam, and been spending LOTS of time in Josh and Shelly's hot tub. Today we spent the day at my mom and dad's to stay out of Jay's way as he was putting in the slider. Emmy, Zoe and my Mom had a girls day out today and attached is a picture of them with their Build-a-Bears. My mom is holding the one they made for Ava, since she would've been a big part of their girls day. They also each brought home a pink balloon and let them go "to her". Emmy's got stuck in a tree (of course!) and she said, "It's OK, she can see it. She's knows it for her." Funny how big a part of every moment she really TRULY is. All the kids have such an uncanny ability to recognize the things she's missing from.
Well, I've attached a bunch of pictures from our day today- hope you enjoy them!

Ezekiel tramped around in "Fwapa's" boots for like and hour. HILARIOUS!










Fun in the sprinkler!






















My tattoo- Ps. 34:18- "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."






A mommy and her boy.






Grandma and her girls.