The Crafts

Six years ago on April 4th, one day before Easter in 2015, we welcomed our fourth daughter. She is spunky, smart, and fun. Spending time with Maddie is liking hanging out with a grey hound. She has boundless energy! And here she is six years later with bright blonde hair, long limbs, only one front tooth, and lots of thoughts to share. She loves spending time with people, dessert, reading funny books, watching the iPad (let's be honest here), and so many more things. We love you Maddie and we're grateful God trusted us to be your parents.   

We are in full swing here with basketball. Kate is play Iowa Prep red winter ball out of Cedar Rapids with travel tournaments several weekends. Middle school basketball starts tonight with Matt coaching the 8th grade girls. CJ's 5th grade basketball started last week, again with Matt coaching. And yesterday wrapped up Natalie's first-ever basketball camp. Maddie impatiently waiting for her turn to join a team sometime.  This is Kate dressed as James Harden from the Houston Rockets. She doesn't typically wear a beard while she plays though.  Kate is looking so grown-up. Then again she is in her last year of middle school. Random photo of Matt and Maddie. I'm pretty sure she was trying to sweet talk him into doing something for her. Halloween was warm outside which makes trick or treating that much more enjoyable. Kate answered the door and passed out candy dressed as James Harden and CJ took off with a group of friends dressed as a zombie soccer player. I prefer my norma...

 Rather than play catch-up, I'm just going to dive right in to where life is at right now. La Porte City has been reconstructing their Main Street and Wolf Creek Trail. Natalie, Maddie, and I love going for walks along the creek. We, of course, have to stop and pose for various pictures. These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago when you could comfortably go outside in short sleeves. Then again, Natalie can go outside in short sleeves longer than me. I'm too cold...all the time. We were lucky enough to celebrate our awesome Natalie when she turned 8 on October 7th.  Eight reasons why this girl rocks on her 8th birthday. 1. She is whip-smart. 2. Natalie has a warm, squishy heart for people, animals, and vegetables. 3. She is incredibly creative; she doesn’t buy doll accessories, she makes them. 4. She loves to read, especially Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Junie B. Jones. 5. Natalie has really fallen for sports, including soccer, basketball, softball, and swimming. 6. She looks ...

I haven't blogged since December 2018...last year. So I'm going to dump a whole lot of photos here and give little updates with each photo. There is no order to the photos. I'm just accepting them as Blogger uploaded them.  Easter was warm and beautiful. We wore no sleeves and played outdoors most of the day at my mom and dad's house. After such a harsh winter we got extremely lucky! Porch play time. Maddie with the tongue sticking out as always. I told you nothing is in order. Here is Matt snuggling with Maddie on the morning of his birthday. #41 Maddie wrapped up her first year of preschool. Here she is showing off the plant she started from seed at library story hour. We planted the bean plant outside but haven't checked on him in a good long while. Hmm...that can't be good. Again with the tongue. Family St. Patrick's Day photo before we hit the road for St. Louis. Spring Break road trip! A pretty CJ showing off her new glass...