I can relate!

After talking to myself and telling myself for sure that I was going to start another blog entry today, I sat down to read my friends' blogs (as I do most days) and lo and behold....my friend tania was saying how she was a bloser (blogger+ loser)! Hee hee......I can relate, my friend. I feel like I have really been slacking here in this department. Short on time some days, short on material others. Believe it or not, even though Isaac says something funny about every day, I can't bring myself to type half of it! He is rated PG-13 sometimes with the things he comes up with!

Today as he was feeling his butt cheeks, Isaac said, "Hey...wouldn't it be cool if my butt ate food? Like a fish?" WHAT?!?! Seriously...that kid has a fetish of some kind. I hope he doesn't carry it through to adulthood!

Yesterday I went to prison to visit my sweet friend Mary. We talked for 3 1/2 hours. I didn't want to leave. I haven't been able to see her for about 5 years. We laughed and she cried several times. I know it made her happy to have a visitor after so many years. I feel so blessed to have her for a friend. She had asked me in a letter before I came there why I was so good to her, in her words, "a convict." I have never thought of her as a convict, and today in a letter I told her that. As I was sitting there and talking to her and watching all the other ladies with their friends and families, I realized I don't think of them as convicts either. They are people who have made mistakes and gotten caught. But for the grace of God, I could be in there! I have driven drunk and could have killed someone like some of the ladies there serving life sentences. I am no different. All of them are flesh and blood, with hurting hearts, just like any of us. Some choose to lash out in anger due to that hurt and even now that they are behind bars, they use that to protect themselves in there, but on the inside, they are all alike. Human beings created with a purpose. I can't wait for Mary to be released and finally get to realize the potential that God created her with. She gets out this October after 20 years behind that razor wire.

Yesterday while I was at the prison, Maddie came up with this awesome idea to play Tic-Tac-Toe with pillows! She got a blanket and put it on the floor and told my mom she could use the red couch pillows as X's and that Maddie would use the bed pillows as O's! It was so cool to hear how creative and inventive she continues to be. It comes so easy for her. What a blessing both of the kids are to me.

After mom left yesterday, the kids and I bundled up in coats and gloves and went out front to use our toboggan sled. Maddie and I took turns pulling Isaac all around the front yard in the sled and then I pulled them both as fast as I could. It was so fun! I said, "Let's go over to Mike and Cindy's and ask them if they want to come out and play!" "YEAH!!!" was the response! When we got there and they saw the sled and the fact that there was only a dusting of snow on the ground, they looked at us like we were crazy! Oh, what fun it was!