Merry Christmas!

This past year has quickly flown by in the slowest way possible. It seems like yesterday that I was writing last year's Christmas letter; it seems like it was years ago at the very same time.

In January, we found out that I was pregnant!  Our family was excited and happy, and discovered something together:  We are not a patient group of people!  For the next 9 months, we were often learning about Peanut's growth and talking about what we were looking forward to.  Compared to adopting kids, this process of adding a child to our family seemed painfully slow!

February went by in a whirlwind of nausea.  I'm not entirely sure what else happened that month, besides the fact that we ate an exorbitant amount of take out in effort to avoid cooking smells!

March came, and with it came Andy's 10th birthday.  Double digits for my boy!  Hard to believe, and we celebrated with a giant Angry Birds cake and a basketball game/concert combo featuring Jason Gray.

In April, we went on a family vacation to Philadelphia, New York, and Washington DC. We toured Independence Hall, saw Carpenter's Hall, went through museums, saw the Statue of Liberty, ate ice cream cones on the famous steps of the New York Library, ate pizza at the first pizza restaurant in the USA, saw the New York skyline from the Top of the Rock, napped in Central Park, mastered public subway systems with children in tow (totally different than just having to fend for yourself!), looked at the Declaration of Independence, went through George Washington's home, watched the Changing of the Guard at Arlington Cemetery, and looked at the White House.  Are you tired yet?  We were.  But we had so much fun, and many family memories were made.

May brought Isaac's birthday, and he turned 8!  His love for Star Wars continues to grow,
and so we celebrated 8 years of existence with a Lego-Mini-figure Luke Skywalker cake.

June and July were filled with many fun summer activities, and Dave continued to work at finishing our basement.  We went swimming, played at parks, took a road trip to Kansas City, and enjoyed time together.

By August, it was time to start school!  We are homeschooling again this year, and started early so we would be able to take some time off when Peanut joined our family.

Andy is in fourth grade this year, and doing well.  He has really had a chance to develop his own interests in reading, and has learned a lot through all the biographies he's read!

Isaac is in third grade this year, and his favorite subject is math.  He is blessed to be very talented in this area of study.

September rolled around, and I was ready to have Peanut by the first week of the month.  However, he tends to have his own schedule, and didn't arrive until September 25th! He has been worth every bit of the wait.

October was filled with sleepless nights that come with that newborn fog, but we enjoyed being a family of 5 as we made it to the apple orchard, watched football, and spent time with each other.

November and December have been a fun time of holidays and celebration, and a reminder to be thankful for all the ways in which God has blessed us.  I hope you have time this holiday season to reflect on the birth of Christ and find awe and wonder at the hope that tiny little baby brought to this earth on that night so long ago.

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