Christmas 2019

Christmas is always a favorite time of year for us with the family gatherings, hearing “Jesus” in songs and the ease of speaking about Him who we truly celebrate this time of year, the baking and the joy of giving. I love seeing our children excited about gifts they receive, but I’m even more thankful that as they’ve matured they get great joy out of getting together with family and friends and creating and buying gifts for others. We are very, very blessed.

Post-Christmas performance at school. Leila has a small solo!

Fun play date with Sadie.

Putting the star on top.

Our annual MUMS Christmas Leaders Brunch at Cracker Barrel. I love these ladies and love serving with them.

Leila participating in the middle school sweater contest.

Who will win!?

Christmas Eve lunch with Nana who requested fried chicken to eat. Yum!

I sure love this lady.

During our Christmas Eve Candlelight service, we had a spontaneous Christmas pageant. Geoff was chosen as a wise man (in the black). Let’s just say he was quite entertaining and embarrassing.

Christmas Eve with Mimi and Poppy. Girl time!

So sweet.

Christmas morning with these lovely babes of ours.

We were able to share our Christmas tradition of giving before receiving with the Senters this year. We packed 3 boxes of farm goodies and gift cards to deliver to neighbors in need on Christmas morning. And this year we added something new by getting help from the Senters and Kells to provide gifts for 15 men living in an addiction recovery home around the corner from us (Bibles, toiletries and some specific clothing items were requested). Our kids get so excited about all of this. I love it!

After making cards and packing the gifts, we headed out in our PJs. Going to the recovery home really blessed us as they were so thankful and prayed for us when we wanted to pray for them. 

Christmas afternoon with Nonnie and Grandad. Such fun!

Santa brought Grandma and Grandpa laser tag guns. 

Uncle Mike came from Texas for Christmas festivities, which of course included sword fighting.

Benaiah loves his Aunt Keesha!

Happy 8th Birthday, Frazier!

Dear Frazier,

You are my tough and tender little boy, and we sure love being your parents. You are an incredibly patient big brother to Benaiah, and he loves playing with you. He started calling you Bubba just recently and says it as soon as he wakes up since you two share a room. You are very forgiving to your 2 big sisters who can get frustrated with your antics and retaliate. Two minutes later you are ready to play and offer something of yours to them.

Your teacher says you are a friend to everyone and always ready to help someone and make them laugh. You are excellent in math and have made great progress in reading. Anything you can create, build and redesign is right up your alley. Legos and Nerf guns are definitely your favorite indoor toys, and when you’re outside you want to be on the tractor with Daddy or zooming around on something with wheels. Your current career plans are to work with Daddy. Maybe you’ll continue the family business!

For your birthday we had an incredibly fun family day led by you. Donuts in the morning followed by watching White Christmas and playing with Legos. In the afternoon we went rock climbing at Peak Experience and then had dinner at Cracker Barrel. You ended the evening with more Lego building and eating your requested birthday dessert of snickerdoodles.

Thank you for being such a loving, thoughtful and caring young man. You are becoming a gentleman and taking after your daddy in caring for me so well. You still request my silly nighttime stories and graciously think my voice sounds lovely when I sing to you. It’s a joy to be your momma!

We love you,

Momma and Daddy

Lovely Lady

Wow, isn't she lovely? Leila had her very first middle school dance (The Holly Ball), and looked radiant. We went shopping for dresses, but she ended up liking one that was in my closet the best, so that's what she wore. YouTube helped me figure out how to straighten her hair well. And Daddy accompanied her to the dance as a chaperone. He was the only dad there, so he was in charge of taking cell phones when the students arrived and manning the bathroom. He was impressed with how respectful the kids were, and enjoyed laughing at all the awkward middle school moments. Leila slow danced with 3 boys and had been reminded earlier in the week when her history teacher gave them a tutorial on dancing to "make sure there was enough room for Jesus." She decided she wants Daddy to chaperone again at the next one, so we consider that a great success!

Sayonara Japan!

With a final stop to visit the Osaka Castle and have our very own “samurai” moment, we ended our incredible trip to the great country of Japan. We loved the hospitality, respect, honesty and kindness of the Japanese people. We enjoyed the cleanliness and order of the streets, metro stops and places we visited. The “peach water” and any ice cream was a hot item for our family. Leila and Geoff enjoyed the Japanese food the most with ramen, steamed meat buns and udon being favorites. Our children were fantastic travelers and learned a lot about traveling through major cities, honoring other cultures and their way of doing things and managed to keep up quite well on some of our very long days. I can’t think of one time they complained about hurting feet or being tired of walking and most days in Tokyo and Osaka we averaged 5-10 miles of walking, which included a lot of stairs. 

We cannot thank Drew, Jana, Carter, Kallie, Ethan and Emelyn enough for being incredible hosts. Our families got along so well, and we really enjoyed getting to know them and their current home better. We love y’all and are so grateful.

Benaiah - we’re coming home baby boy!! Thank you Nonnie, Grandad, Grandma and Grandpa for taking care of him so well. We are blessed!

The walls surrounding the Osaka Castle.

The beautiful Gingko trees.

This piece of stone and all the others around it were chiseled and moved in the early 1600s. Geoff couldn’t get over this given that they had no machinery!

Frazier inside the entrance.

Mary-Michael “holding up” Osaka Castle.

Watch out!

Hi-ya!

Universal Studios Japan

We had our best theme park day at Universal in Osaka. The lines were short, we weren’t fighting crowds, the Christmas atmosphere was lovely, the staff were super friendly and the rides and shows were loads of fun.

We’re here!

Universal’s iconic globe.

The Universal Studios Christmas tree.

Minions! We thoroughly enjoyed their caramel and banana flavored popcorn.

The Flying Dinosaur roller coaster here was quite epic. You laid down and spun all over, upside down and all.

Real “live” dinosaurs walked around the Jurassic Park area.

This momma jumped out of her seat on this ride when Jaws came out from the water.

I’m not sure this feels like Christmas...

There were many 3D and 4D rides at the park. This was definitely a favorite.

The live SING production was very entertaining. We’re so happy to have enjoyed all of these things with these two!

Harry Potter area. 

Hello Kitty has her own area, of course.

Cookie Monster love!

And some more...

And some more.

The beautiful Christmas lights that were set to Christmas tunes in English, including ones about Christ. We were some of the few happily singing along since most were Japanese.

So lovely at night.

Universal - we had a great day!