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Yes, the mom was given legal notification that we were motioning for custody.  This displeased her, and she then arrived at our home with a police officer stating that we had to give her the kids then and there.
We contacted our lawyer and miraculously found my son.  My son signed a document saying that he wished for the children to reside with us, and the lawyer got a ex-parte order executed which had a very short time frame before expiring.  He ordered an emergency hearing prior to the expiration date, and it was determined at that hearing that we would have temporary custody until other areas related to her being able to regain custody were looked into.
It's reached a point where it now feels like we've somehow been co-opted into going forward in this action (which has as its over-riding theme the notion of the BM "regaining custody" looming large), and that we're just supposed to be trusting of the process and stand by and let it play out.
I worry about the signals I give off because I happen to be a very sympathetic person, and there are moments that I find myself wanting so much for my ex daughter-in-law to triumph over her problems and reach a point where she is capable of giving the kids what they need.
I think that she does love them.  I'd love to be able to persuade her that she would still be their mom and be given ample time with them, but for the time being this plan seems really ill-advised, and couldn't she just consider doing this somewhat differently.

Thank you everyone for the good advice and encouragement.  I've emailed the GAL to re-iterate my concerns and we have been documenting, and will continue to.

she has. on june 26th, 2009
we did too, on April 28th, 2009

I think she's barely stable; that's how I'd put it.
She's got to work hard at keeping it together.  Our grandchildren are with her as I write this.
She supposedly works out of her home. She answers phone calls and takes orders, etc. for her dad's lumber business is what I've been told.  She's got her 9 month old baby boy there, and now my 2 grandchildren.  I think her younger sister could be there too.  She's on permanent disability because she's mentally impaired and has other health issues too.  Also, their other granddad is probably around too.  He also is on disability.
This is the first week-long visit with her in Kentucky.  Before this, the visits were for weekends.

the mom was into drugs.  She didn't show for hearings.  She then went to prison for a while.  Before going in to do her time, she signed a memorandum of agreement which gave custody of the older grandchild to my son.  My son had already been granted custody of my granddaughter in the divorce decree.  This older grandchild, a male, is not my son's biological offspring, and my son wasn't yet yet married to his mother at the time of his birth.  There is no father's name on his birth certificate. So my son, in effect, became Johnathan's "psychological" dad beginning with Johnathan's birth until he was almost 4 years old; at that point my son fell off the wagon.  That's when both kids started living with us, and it'd only been about 1/2 year before that time, that their mom had resumed contact with them after a fairly long hiatus.  We continued with the weekend sleep-over visits (with their mom) which had begun in the middle of July 2008.

I am resigned to the fact that the BM will eventually get custody.  Right now there is a guardian ad litem involved.  We are now trying a different visitation schedule which gives her longer visits.  She'll take them for a week at a time, and she'll get them every other week. 
It's not an ideal plan in my opinion, but the GAL thought it was the best way to gauge whether she could handle them, and said it was better to find out sooner than later. For the time being she is the responsible party for the transportation.  We'd been doing alternating weekends before now, and this started about a month and a half ago.  She moved to Kentucky at the end of March.
Her boyfriend is now in jail for a drug offense related to meth.  She lives in a house on her dad's property with her most recent baby who is now about 9 months old.  She has two older children from another marriage.  One was adopted by her biological dad but now lives with her ex-step-mother.  Her other child, a boy around 15 years old lives with an ex-in-law. 
I think she's trying to re-connect with those children.
Her dad has hired her to work for his business which is on their property in eastern Kentucky.  It's a lumber mill I think.
Another bit of background information is that we have never disrupted the children's out-of home child care arrangements. Those were created when our son was working and was eligible for childcare benefits from the county in which we live.
The kids were fortunate enough get into a very highly regarded day care/pre-K. facility.  They have absolutely thrived there. They are exposed to all sorts of wonderful programs including swimming lessons.  It is an additional expense for us, but we're managing to afford it, at least for the time being.  We haven't told the center about the latest visitation schedule, but we hope they'll be understanding, because it will affect the continuity of their respective programs.  The eldest child, our grandson will be starting the pre-K program.  He will turn 5 on December 11th.
I am 58 years old and my husband is 70.

Our former step-daughter who did not have custody of her 3 and 4 year old  (our son has sole custody of them) is attempting to get custody now.  Our son is missing (we believe into drugs) and we've been raising these children for about 7 months.  Before that he was.  She has moved to a new state, but since they're hers, she's trying to change the custody.  We are letting the kids visit with her every other weekend, but she wants to get custody because our son is now "out of the picture".  We have temporary custody, but she's asking for longer visits.  Do we have any chance of getting permanent custody?