Preston and Ashten

These two can play like the best of friends sometimes.  I love that Preston will do things with her that the other boys don't enjoy as much, like play kitchen or something.  And even though neither of them takes lessons, they both love to play the piano, just like their older brothers!

 

Christmas through the years

It's fun to look back on the kids' pictures over the last 9 years and see how our family has grown, both in numbers and in stature!  I am hoping that next year we have a new face in the picture!

2012

2011

2010



2009

2008

2007

2006



2005

2004

2003

 

Missing you

I miss you baby girl. I wish you were home with us for Christmas because it just seems like someone from our family is missing. I wonder what you are doing tonight. Are you safe?  Are you warm?  Even though I can't tell you in person, I want you to know I am praying for you and wishing you a Merry Christmas.  I hope this is the last Christmas we are apart!

Christmas concerts

All the boys are in choir at church and Brayden is in choir at school as well, so we had a busy week of concerts a couple of weeks ago.  I love watching them sing though, since that was my extracurricular activity of choice growing up (and still is).

I just love watching preschool/kindergarten choirs.  They are so raw and cute.  Preston's choir did so good and most of the kids knew most of the words!

 

 

Brayden and Logan's choirs performed a little drama with their music.  Brayden and Logan both had speaking parts and they did so good at memorizing them and delivering them perfectly!  Brayden had a solo as well and he did AWESOME!  I didn't even know he could sing so well, he did great!  I am so proud of him and I hope this gives him the confidence to sing more.

 

 

 

 

Brayden's concert at school was the next night, but unfortunately I didn't get to go because Ashten was very sick.  Chris said he did really good again though.  Thankfully, both Chris' parents and my parents came, so Brayden had a full crowd of supporters even without me there!

 

Brayden with my parents (doesn't he look so grown up here?)

 

2012 ornament

Every year we try and get the kids a new ornament that has something to do with their year.  Either something they like or something they did or something they accomplished.  Or maybe it's just something that has to do with their name or something.  Our thought is that when they grow up and move out and have their own Christmas tree, we will give them all their ornaments from throughout all the years and it will be a cool representation of their life.

We also try to get a new ornament for the family or for Chris and I, something that reflected our year.  This year, it was a no-brainer, we wanted it to have something to do with Ethiopia and/or adoption.  We found this ornament on etsy.com and it was perfect!!  After I ordered it, I emailed back and forth a little with the person who makes/sells them and it turns out they are adopting from Ethiopia too and are just a little behind us in the process.  She is making these ornaments to raise money for their adoption!  So cool!

 

I love it, it so perfectly sums up our year and our feelings right now!

Ornaments

Logan has such a sweet, loving, others-centered heart sometimes.  I love that about him!  I can't wait to see what God is going to do with it as he grows and matures.

The other day, Logan came home from school and wanted to make some ornaments out of paper and then set up a stand outside and give them away to people. (kind of like a lemonade stand)  At first I really didn't want to have to sit and watch him, but when I saw how much he wanted to do it, I decided to let him.  He worked hard to make a dozen or so ornaments and then made a sign that said "free ornaments" and set up a table outside.  He would wave at each passing car, but no one ever stopped.  :(  I was so sad for him, he put all that work in. 

He said he had a good time doing it though, and it didn't seem to bother him too much that no one stopped.  The neighbor boy did come over for a little bit and Logan was happy about that!

I am so proud to have a son who thinks about others and who wants to do something nice for someone else even if it means giving up time watching TV and sitting out in the cold to brighten someone's day.

Update:  My sister, Clara, who is very tender-hearted and caring just like Logan, saw this post and felt so bad for him. So she requested he give her some and he was so excited.  He said to me "I didn't think anyone would actually want one!"  So he chose 4 ornaments and he put them in the mail to her today.  Thank you, Clara, for making Logan's day!!!

Choir

Brayden came home one day early in the semester and said that he would like to join the choir.  It is only open to 4th-6th graders and so this was the first year he was eligible.  I was surprised that he wanted to be in choir since I didn't really know that he enjoyed singing so much, but we had no problem with him doing it and thought it would be a good experience, so we let him. 

It meets once a week in the morning before school, so the time committment is minimal.  I am surprised at the things they are learning though, and he really seems to enjoy it.

In November they had their first concert, during the day at an assembly at school.  Brayden worked really hard to learn his songs and his voice part and the choir did really well!

Another reader in the house

Preston is officially reading now!!!  All that worrying that he was behind was for nothing, Preston is reading and learning new words all the time now.  At our parent/teacher conference with his teacher earlier in the semester, she said that he was ahead of most of the other kids in the class and offered to let us borrow some of the early reader books that they use in the classroom but don't lend out because they don't usually come back.  Preston has been working on one or two of those a day and he's doing great!

Way to go Preston, so proud of you!

More of Chris

I can't believe I forgot to blog about this because it's probably been the highlight of my year!  I guess I was so happy living it I forgot to get it down on "paper"!  Chris decided this past summer, after 9 years of coaching at least one sport, to step back from it to be able to focus more time on his family!!  This wasn't an easy decision for him at all.  First of all, he loves coaching, except for the long hours away from home, and he liked the girls he coached and the other coaches he worked with.  Second of all, while it wasn't much, it was some extra money every month that gave us a little extra peace of mind. 

I think what finally made him want to stop coaching was realizing how much more of a committment it had come to be lately and feeling like he was missing more and more family stuff.  (Example: The kids and I went out to NE to visit Chris' sister for a week and Chris came later and was supposed to leave earlier because of basketball committments.  While he was in NE, he got a text from the coach that she had messed up the schedule and he actually could have come with us the whole week.)

You want to know what is so cool, though?  About a week after Chris resigned from coaching, I got an email from a friend asking me if I would watch her son two days a week, and the pay from that more than makes up for what we are missing from coaching!  Isn't God just awesome? 

It has been so great to have Chris home more.  I used to totally dread the whole winter season because I was single-parenting it most of the week and I really missed Chris and the adult interaction.  We barely had time for the things we needed to get done, let alone any extra social activities or anything.  It has been so great to have Chris home before it gets dark out.  We have had more time together as a couple and we get to eat dinner every night as a family.  I've also noticed that Chris is a lot less stressed and has more time to prepare and plan for teaching.  He is always trying to improve and do better as a teacher (I love that about him), and by not coaching he has more time to do that. It's so awesome!

We ran a 5k!

We have been working out hard since the middle of August.  Like 6 days a week we're either lifting weights or doing high-intensity cardio.  Chris has always enjoyed working out, but I've really enjoyed it too.  It's very addicting and so much fun to see results. 

Since we both felt in a lot better shape and wanted to see how that would look out in the "real world" (i.e. not just in our basement doing a DVD workout), we signed up for a 5k.  We decided to do the Clement Park Gobble Wobble on Thanksgiving morning.  My sister came over and watched the kids so we could actually run instead of wrangling kids!  (Thanks, Monica!!)

I definitely wasn't super fast or anything, but I did run the whole time and wasn't even that sweaty or tired afterwards (maybe I need to push myself a littler harder next time?).  I ran it in 31 mins and 26 secs, which isn't great, but my goal was 30, so I got close. 

Both of us had a great time and we really wanted to do another 5k again soon.  Now we have a time to beat too, which is good for us self-motivated types!  This was such a fun way to start out our Thanksgiving day, I think it will become a tradition for us.