Happy Christmas Eve

We just wanted to send you a bit of Christmas cheer. We are thinking of you all and thanking God for each of you. God's richest blessings as you celebrate His birth.

Dricken

Evan has had this stick pony for a few years and it is a well loved toy. He named it Dricken, full name Dricken the Pony. (We have NO idea where Dricken came from, although we think it's the same place Brigid the Bunny came from.) Since seeing the rodeo at the fair this fall he loves to pretend he's in the rodeo riding a "bucking horse." He does this complete with very life-like sound effects and a great dismount/fall at the end of his ride. He has now reached the point that Dricken needs to sleep with him at night. His logic is that "horses should sleep in beds with boys, you know." Hopefully this dream of riding bucking horses and horses is bed is just a passing phase. :)

Buddies

One of the boys favorite people in the world is Ryan (The rest of his family ranks right up there too). I baby sat Ryan twice a week when he was in preschool so the boys got to know him well. The other day he got to hang out at our house after school a bit. I don't know why Evan was hiding under the stool but Hans thought it was funny to sit on it and trap Evan in "jail". All three of them were pretending to be various big cats- lion, tiger, cheetah, I can't tell who was which. Roar, Roar, ROAR! Hopefully your day was a little less wild. :)

Climby Climberton

Lydia has mastered getting up and down off the couch and several of the living room chairs in the house. Earlier this week she realized that the kid table in the dining room can be climbed up on too. I hope you climb your mountains just as quickly. :)

Huggy Hans

Hans is a very huggy boy but he always has a special hug for Jon, our Pastor's son. Jon is always wiling to be an extra set of hands to help with the kids while at church so the boys, especially Hans, have taken to him very well. This was a good-bye hug after the Christmas Dinner. We send you all great big hugs! :)

Maniac Magoo

Lydia is quickly catching up or even surpassing the boys in craziness, silliness, and zaniness. She is just a maniac all the time. This particular bout of goofiness may have been egged on by Dad. Hope you can find someone to egg on who gives you such a reaction. :)

Christmas Dinner

St. Paul's has an annual congregational Christmas Dinner the Sunday evening before Christmas. It is one of my favorite Christmas celebrations. We have a potluck supper-Yummo! and then head to the church to sing carols. Mrs. Free plays the piano, anyone can request a carol so we usually sing 15-20, and the final carol is Silent Night before which we all gather up around the Christmas tree in the front of church and the lights are all turned off except the tree lights. It is a simple and wonderful evening that doesn't involve any sort of prepared service or formality but just Christian fellowship and heartfelt praise. Hopefully you have a Christmas celebration that means just as much to you. :)

"Big, Big H"

Hans loves to practice writing, cutting, and, of course, to color. Last night while writing he made a "Big, big 'H'" on his paper. If you look at the paper you can see he did it. Now we're on to 'a'. Hopefully he stays this excited when school actually starts. :)

Definitely Our Kid

More and more often Evan "just can't sleep" during nap time. Instead he has quiet reading time. Since he has a lot of our books memorized he usually starts with those favorites. When those run out he has a few books on tape that he enjoys listening to while following along in the books. It isn't unusual for him to sit in the chair for an hour or more. Both of his parents are a little jealous-an hour of reading. Hopefully you're finding time to put your feet up awhile too. :)

Mmm, Yogurt!

Lydia is "feeding" herself more and more often. I guess the yogurt was so good she wanted to make sure she didn't leave any behind. This can only happen at supper when she goes directly from the table to the tub. Hopefully you enjoy your dessert just as much. :)

Snowy Morning

Yesterday and last evening we had a beautiful blanket of snow cover our world. It is that super light fluffy snow that is just glitters and sparkles when the sunshine hits it. Lydia was enthralled with it this morning. She stood at the patio door laughing, banging, and yelling at the snow. Pure childish delight. :)

Advent by Candlelight

Last Thursday evening the ladies of our congregation gathered for Advent by Candlelight. It was a very beautiful evening which included songs, prayers, delicious desserts, and ladies fellowship. My good friend Denise Smith (on the right in white) and I hosted a table together. The evening went so well I think it's going to become an Advent tradition. Hopefully your Christmas season is beginning just as brightly. :)

Another test - Sheesh!

This is another test to see if the problem is with the computer at home, or the blogger program. I'm not sure which it is but we shall soon see. - Nate

B-Ball Picture

 

Troubles

Well, I've been trying unsuccessfully to post pictures for the last few days. It seems like when the pictures actually work it was just a fluke. It's truly frustrating. The reason I chose to try to do this in the first place was to share pictures more regularly. When I started I simply clicked "blog this" in Picasa, the program we use to organize our digital pictures. Now the new version of blogger (beta is not better) and Picasa won't play nicely.... maybe I'd have better luck with them if they were a couple of kids around the ages of, say...1, 2 1/2 and 3 1/2, hmmm..... I actually tried to start a new blog today to just switch things over to but I couldn't even do that without problems. Anyway, enough complaining, I just wanted to explain that I might now get this sorted out for awhile. I'm sorry. I'll keep trying. And to Dave, from Mass. who tried to help me, thanks again. Hopefully all of you had more productive days. :|

Girls Basketball/Test

I'm doing a test to see what's up with this flaky blogging program. This is a picture of our girl's basketball team at St. Paul's. We had eight girls 5th-8th grade and our last game was Monday, so we took a team photo after the game. It was a tough loss, but you can see that the girls are still smiling. - Nate

More Christmas Tree Getting Pictures

The boys are big, big helpers. Lydia is just a sweety. And Nathan is Mr. Creative Picture Taker. Hopefully this works. :)  

Christmas Trees

Christmas Trees

Until recently I was loving blogging but I've been having trouble the last week or so. If anyone reading this want to start a blog just stick with blog spot don't bother with blogger beta until the bugs get worked out. The picture below this post is one Nathan sent just to test so I'll explain. Sunday afternoon we went up to the Hills to find two Christmas trees for home and one to decorate for the animals. We have the book Night Tree by Eve Bunting in which a family decorates a tree for the animal on Christmas Eve. Ever since Evan has wanted to make popcorn strings. So we added cranberry strings and pine cones covered in peanut butter and bird seed to create our tree for the animals. The boys think that birds, deer, turkeys, and maybe bears will come find the tree. It was a very neat family tradition to begin. Hopefully your afternoon was as fruitful. :)

Christmas tree test. 

This is a test. Hans is a cute kid. - Nate