It's almost February!!

February is right around the corner and Emily is counting down the days until her 1/2 birthday! (we're a weird family!!). Anna is absolutely thrilled with pre-school and tells us several times a week "I'm a BIG girl, I go to pre-school!" We've been having fun (and making lots of messes) doing art and fingerpainting lately! The boys had fun dressing up in Kevin's old Air Force uniforms for "soldier of the Lord" night at AWANAs. Emily is never found without her doll (Faith), they dress alike whenever possible and Emily takes very good care of her! ( . . . she even requested that we hang a stocking for her on our mantle at Christmas!)

Anna starts pre-school!

Our kids attend an enrichment program one day a week. They offer a pre-school program also and Samuel has been attending there since September. When we moved, Anna had remained at the Joy House day care center, where ALL of our kids have gone (for at least one day a week) since 2001. We recently decided that the drive was really very long (especially in snowy weather) and a spot opened up at Samuel's preschool . . . so, Anna enjoyed her first official day of pre-school with Samuel last Monday! She was very excited and Samuel was a wonderful big brother and watched over her all through the day ("a perfect gentleman", according to their teachers!). We think she was most excited about her lunch box, but the arts and crafts and books were a hit too!

Happy New Year!

As we all knew it would, Christmas break has gone by entirely too fast and we resume school tomorrow. We have enjoyed spending many hours with the kids, watching movies, playing games (Yahtzee is the current favorite) and trying to beat them at "speed stacks" (cup stacking) -- they're getting much too fast though! We have fresh snow outside right now and I'm guessing sledding is in our future for this afternoon. We've also enjoyed our daily trips to the mailbox, seeing new pictures and receiving updates from friends (which is, for me, one of the best parts of this season). One of our special highlights of the past few weeks was praying with Samuel as he asked Jesus into his heart (after a discussion we had while making Christmas cookies). Emily and I enjoyed a trip to the Nutcracker Ballet with "Auntie Penny" (and our good friend Patty). The kids were indulged in (again by Auntie Penny) a fun night at Chuck-E-Cheese's, while Kevin & I were able to sneak off for a date--which was 1 part dinner and 2 parts homeschool planning--but it felt like a date nevertheless! With enough sleep (and a little caffeine tossed in!), we're excited about getting back into our "school routine" and looking forward to what 2009 has in store. The pictures below start with Emily's worship dance performance a few weeks ago, as well as cookie making, Christmas Eve candlelight service & Christmas Day.