the Christmas letter

Merry Christmas!

sorry about the lack of effort on our cards. but this way you all know the blog exists and can check in on us at your leisure. :)

it has been a fun year...

the first 4 months was spent working on our house. when we first moved here 3 years ago, i was pregnant with ky. we did a ton of work on our kitchen, master bath, toy room and laundry. it was chaos, but all done "before the baby" came. it brought back memories of pregnancies in our old house - me installing a kitchen floor or redoing a bathroom... so this time (aka this pregnancy), we "finished" all that we wanted to do. - is it ever really finished??? - but honestly the inside of the house was all beautiful "before the baby" came again.

during those months, our kids each got some quality time with their grandparents in phoenix. this was a nice break for us and a treat for them. their favorite things to do at grandma's house are climb their mountain and swim in their pool. the pool is truly theirs - inside their fence. the mountain is just outside their back fence, so really they share it with a few neighbors - as there are houses all around it. but the kids LOVE to go climb new routes and enjoy nature. the grandparents also love to treat them to trips to the zoo, science center, parks, historical places and other fun adventures.

May brought the birth of #4. little sy is such a joy - super easy going. the older kids all love to hold and entertain him.

the "older" boys who turned 4 & 5 this year had a dramatic change midsummer!

this happened the day of kiki's birthday party and some of our "newer" friends had never seen the boys without hair and didn't recognize them. here's a fun shot of jojo mid-cut...

4th of july i thought i'd try to be a photographer. we didn't have grass (only dirt) so we did a little photo shoot on our neighbor's front lawn. the best photo was the FIRST of about 30 tries! go figure! then i wanted to be creative and the children suffered, blinded by the sun. it worked better indoors!

we had some friends (a family of 4) come stay with us for a couple days. the dad is currently serving in the military and was a friend from high school in oregon, so it was fun for the men to reminisce and to hear a first-hand perspective of what's going on in the middle east.

in august sy made his first ever 6-hour journey to grandma & grandpa's house. the drive was fairly uneventful. the "vacation" was great! it's amazing how much more fun it is to sit around in somebody else's house! (not that that's all we did, but it was satisfying for me!) here's a couple photos of the trip - the kids in the pool & grandpa's birthday "party" (we went to a diamondbacks game - it was so fun!)

september could have been the beginning of a new adventure as jojo is 5 and traditionally would begin kindergarten, but (as you see on the blog) we're homeschooling for now. so we actually started in january to take this first year slow since we'd have a new baby in the house. kiki is eager to keep up with jojo in all he does, so they learn almost everything together. they are such good buddies! what a blessing! here's our class baking cookies.

we had more friends - another family of 4 - come stay with us and it was such a treat to hang out with them as they have now moved abroad.

i really can't resist sharing... FINALLY, just before the 4 month anniversary of losing our front & back lawn (on purpose), we got new grass!!! so here's the before and after! (this particular "before" is actually "after" the BRONCO tore down the right side of the wall that you see to the left of the front door - also on purpose)

besides all the fun things we DID, we've learned a lot this year. it's been a struggle to have patience and faith "in the moment" sometimes. we ultimately know that our troubles are "light and momentary" (2 Corinthians 4:16-18) and this is truly what allows us to have hope. we've been "doing advent" every evening this month. we currently have two candles going - hope and preparation. it has been a blessing to gather as a family and testify to the hope we have in our Lord - because He came and we can have life through Him. and also to daily pledge to continually to prepare our hearts as we celebrate His birth, but also as we give our lives daily to Him.