1/14/2010~~Happy 10th Birthday Hope!!

I can hardly believe it! Hope Elizabeth turned 10 years old! She is such a blessing to our family. She celebrated her special day with a day off of school, lunch out, and a "Walton's" marathon of season 2, at home with her family. We had a special candlelight dinner and a white cake with chocolate frosting!! There are so many things that I treasure about Hope. Every year I am reminded of how God gave us "Hope" after we lost "Faith". She is truly a reflection of His love and mercy to us. I treasure the way she can make a room light up with her beautiful smile, her gentle honesty, her thoughtfulness of others' feelings, her tender heart~ especially towards animals and the way she encourages me in my walk with the Lord. For being only 10 years old, she has a profound way of being very insightful. In my book, she is way beyond her years with her passion for the lost, the poor, and the orphaned. I am so proud of her. She is my little ray of sunshine on a gloomy day, my little, big bucket of water in a desert, my sweet little peach.

Hope~we love you so much! You are truly a gift from God! We are so blessed to call you "Hopie". You enrich our lives, touch our hearts, and keep us smiling! I pray that you will continue to walk with the Lord Jesus all the days of your life. Your "hope" is found only in Him. We treasure you and count it a pure privilege to be your family! Happy Birthday Peach!! We love you!

Buddies~even under the weather! 1/10/10

Hope was battling a fever and some general aching when her faithful companion decided to keep her close company. A faithful dog makes everything feel better!

Sledding Fun!!

This is a real hum-dinger of a picture of Greg & Joe being pushed down the sledding hill by Jenny. What a fun time it was though!

Here is a little video clip of us sledding down a hill at Bittersweet Elementary School. Come along for the ride with us!

New Year's Eve~~

On New Year's Eve. we went to our dear friends house for a night of food, games and fun. Dressed in our party hats and noise makers, we rang in 2010 watching Dick Clark and the ball in NY drop. The adults played a game of charades and we are all pretty competitive. Each team tried to doop the other with strange and outrageous words or phrases. It was a wonderful way to spend ringing in 2010 with our friends! May 2010 bring you into a deeper relationship with Jesus and may you be blessed!

Snowman with Dad

December 31st meant snowfall and winter weather which lead to building a snowman. As I looked out the window, I discovered Greg & the kids making dear old "Frosty". They were finishing up the head when I grabbed a carrot out of the frig. and an old scarf and hat from the tote of winter clothes. They found rocks for the eyes, mouth and buttons. He is quite handsome for a snowman. His little arms are made from cut off branches from the front tree. As I write this, he is one week old already. He has lost his hat & scarf but still stands guard in the front yard.

No teeth!!

Jonny lost both of his front teeth in the same day. The first one was a dangler. He had messed with it off and on for sometime. It finally was just a dreadful mess to look at. So he yanked it out. He then noticed that the other one was pretty loose. What I mean by pretty loose, is that it had quite a ways to go. We are talking weeks to go yet. But knowing teeth equals cash, meant he was determined to get this one out too. He worked on it hard, all day long. By evening, he had tortured it relentlessly and it too gave up it's residency.

More Christmas.....

We have lots of family get togethers over the holidays. We spent a little bit of time with my Mom & Dad before they headed back to Florida for the winter. We celebrated Christmas, after Christmas with some of our other family members. We are so thankful that our times together are filled with joy and laughter. Lots of laughter in some instances. Blessings to you and your family over the holidays!

Christmas 2009

We were truly blessed this year at Christmas! We love watching our kids appreciate the great generousity of others. We celebrate something far greater than the next new thing, but the birth of our very own Savior Jesus Christ!

Christmas Eve 2009

We spent Christmas Eve with our dear friends. We celebrated Dominic's birthday and played cards. We had a ball! We love having, not only dear special friends but special parents of those friends. We went to Jenny's mom & dad's house to celebrate and play cards. They are a precious couple who lovingly embrace all of us.

Birthdays! December 21, 2009

My mom and I have the same birthday. Unfortunately, she had to give birth to me on her special day many years ago! We had a nice quiet dinner at home fixed by my husband! Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!

Cleveland Clinic Dec. 15

Greg has been having health problems for a long time now. We headed up to the Cleveland Clinic, in hopes of getting down to the bottom of a very long, lingering health issue. This is a lovely picture of Greg hooked up to a device that recorded all the information from the little tiny (capsule endoscopy) camera that he swallowed. He had to wear this gear for 7 hours. At that point the capsule should exit (what goes in has to come out). The camera showed that everything came back absolutely normal. Which was a good thing, but it didn't give us any answers to what his health problem is. We have ruled out all the major things, which indeed is such a blessing, but still needing to find out what the problem is and how to either correct it or know how to adjust to it. Unfortunately, we had a Dr. at the Cleveland Clinic who was not very thorough and didn't seem to give a rip. So we will take our business elsewhere, in hopes of finding out what the problem is.

Christmas Program Dec. 11-13

The kids sang in our Church's Christmas Program that we do as an outreach to the community. The kids are each in their respective choirs. They sang beautifully! Of course, I am not partial!! It was a wonderful drama presentation with lots of great music. Praise the Lord for His perfect gift of salvation!