Christmas 2009

I apologize for not getting our blog updated since school started. It's been a crazy 4 months. Here's what's been going on in our neck of the woods!!

Perryn is still doing quite well in kindergarten, she can read, but doesn't like to take the challenge to read on her own without lots of encouragement. It seems like she doesn't have confidence in herself that she knows the words in her brain and they can appear ANYWHERE and she will still know them. We both absolutely love Mrs. Gunn her teacher and she is doing a PHENOMENAL job!!!

Teagan is doing well. He is really trying recognize his name, so anything that he sees that starts with the letter T is his name even if it's the word 'the', it's his name!! He is still very big into trains and cars. In fact, we all pitched in (grandparents) and got him a second hand Thomas the train set and table!!
Gabe is still doing well at Scott and White!! We moved at the beginning of Decemeber and we now live 3 minutes from the hospital!! In my opinion it's the best move we made next to moving back to the Austin area. We get to spend more time with him before he goes to work and he often gets to go get Perryn from school with us and we all take him to work!! His shoulder has been healing from his surgery that happened over the summer, but he is having to deal with some painful scar tissue that has broken off or something..this is making his shoulder very tight and painful.

I'm doing well too. My best Christmas present from Gabe was allowing me the opportunity to quit my job and come back home to spend time with Teagan. God has provided what we need in order for me to do that. I am looking forward to getting back into my card business and expanding to do more of my cakes. I MISS my students terribly, but have already made promises with lots of them to be able to have play dates frequently!!
Our Christmas this year was grand. We focused on Jesus's birthday and even sang to him and had made him a giant cookie cake for the celebration. We did get to do stockings and even got to have breakfast with Santa.
We got to participate in an old tradition at Gabe's grandmother's house of decorating cookies for the first time this year. It was a BLAST!! Perryn (especially) and Teagan really loved getting to decorate the cookies that Omie had made for them. Then the best part was they got to pick some of decorated cookies out to bring home with them to eat...they loved it all around.

We once again gave our annual handmade Christmas ornaments to our families, but we went a step further this year and gave money on their behalf to help orphans and the least of these over in Africa. We have some friends that started the Hopemongers Cooperative so that we can help fund some of the needs in Africa with a little bit of money...meaning we got give what we could afford and see exactly where it was going. We got to choose who we were helping and often see it be delivered before they Hopemongers team left Ethiopia!! That was the COOLEST part ever!! Here's where we helped this year on the behalf of our family:



We got to help give a diaper shower for 35 babies at the Kebebtshey orphanage in Ethiopia.

We helped with hair care and staff supplies at the Kebebetshey orphanage as well.

We also got to help fund a nice Christmas dinner at the Leper Colony.

And...we got to help fund getting mosquito nets for the orphans at Emmanuel orphanage in Ethiopia.

Each of our families got a card and a picture of where we donated, so that they could see exactly where our gift for them was. I am hoping that God will allow me to team up my card business with the Hopemongers team so that if/when people donate and they want to do it as a gift for someone, I can help with a card and a picture.

Please pray that God will continue to bless our family in 2010 and that He will bless my little creations business as well. I would love for it to take off and it be able to fund little things like adopting our next child. Enjoy the end of 2009 and may God bless your family immensely in 2010!!