Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful day full of fun, worship, sharing, and enjoying gifts yesterday.  We had a great day of opening and enjoying gifts from family, going to church and worshiping , remembering the reason we give gifts--as a remembrance of teh gift of salvation given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord, and eating good food.  Then the kids went to bed and were asleep within five minutes!

We started by waking the kids, well, half of them already had woken Daddy and me up and were in our bed before six.  But, we gathered the kiddos in the school room to read Luke's account of the birth of Jesus before we began opening gifts.  Then we herded the children to the living room where the gifts were and began the day-long process of opening, receiving, enjoying, and sharing gifts from people who love us.  We began with our "Stockings with a purpose" for each child.  Where each stocking has a specific theme to teach them something about the Bible.

 Josiah's stocking this year was about the wise and folish builder.  We hope as he plays with his new tools, he will be reminded to build his faith upon the strong foundation of the Word of God in Christ.

 Talitha's stocking was of the Fruit of the Spirit.  Our hope for her is that as she grows the Holy Spirit woud produce in her love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.  She has been enjoying sharing her new fruit toys too.

For Hannah, we chose the book The Princess and the Kiss.  We pray she will find a man worthy of the gift of her kiss when she is grown and does not give it away to the first man because of his outward appearnace or actions, but that she would drawn to a man who has been waiting for God to bring the right woman into his life as well.  She has been enjoying acting out the story with her royal famil toys.

 For Nathanael, we wanted him to be thinking of guarding his heart from sin before it takes hold.  It is so hard to stop a sin before we do it, but self-control is important.  His stocking was about the book the Squire and the Scroll, about a squire who saves a kingdom by living by the scroll his parents taught him from beginning at birth.  This scroll teaches him to guard himself from sin and it becomes a mighty two-edged sword that defeats the evil dragon, just as the Bible states "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."
(Hebrews 4:12 ESV)

We enjoyed a modest feast for dinner, after having Aalderink quiche for breakfast with cinnamon rolls, and for lunch the neighbor gave us a ham from their family's celebration the evening before, which we ate with left-over breakfast.  It was fun to see their faces with a whole hen on each plate.

 Then, after a long day of enjoying new things and talking to family everyone was exhausted.  The girls got to sleep in their new sleeping bags, though Talitha did wake during the night confused about where she was, and slept the rest of the night in her bed.

We look forward to enjoying all the gifts we received yesterday and hope we can continue to remember the greatest gift of all, Christ Jesus our Savior.

Writing her name

Since starting the school year, Hannah has really come along in her letter recognition.  She also has gotten quite good at writing several letters.  Talitha is getting better at the names of letters too.  Mostly she is able to notice "T for Talitha" everywhere we go.  Lately, Hannah has been trying really hard to write her name.  So far she has not succeeded.  Her name is easy, only three letters to know, but getting them exactly in the right place has been tricky.  Until now.  Unfortunately, she was required to remove her first perfectly written name, due to poor placement choices.  Though in her defense, it was her own door.  If you look to the right, you can see Talitha's contribution too, a "T" for Talitha.

Little shadow

Josiah really loves his Dad and big brother. He wants so much to be like them too. This morning Nathanael was licking the yogurt off his spoon and Josiah was watching. He looked right at me and with a huge messy grin on his face and a tongue with cheerio crumbs all over he proudly started licking his spoon too.

At night, during tucking-in, Forest usually wrestles with Nathanael. I suppose it makes up for the girly kisses I like to give him that he promptly runs off. Now that Josiah finally goes to bed in his room with his brother he watches from his crib asking to join in. So sometimes he joins in on the big bed and gets to wrestle and do "guy stuff" too.

When Forest is relaxing at the end of the day or on Sunday afternoon, Josiah will lay down just like him. If that means his tiny arms are behind his head and feet propped up on the coffee table, he'll grunt till he gets it right. And he'll work till it is precisely as his daddy. If Dad goes outside, he wants to go too. It is so much fun to watch him imitate his brother and dad, as long as I can keep his brother from teaching him bad habits. (;