Top Ten: Christmas

I guess it's about time I posted some pictures of Christmas. Of course, there were so many great ones, but I forced myself to keep it to my "top ten" favorite pictures of the holiday season, 2009. Hope you enjoy!

Although we celebrated the holidays with my parents in Michigan, we decided to put up our own tree in Nashville. It provided a good opportunity to weed through some of our ornaments and other Christmas stuff in preparation for our move to Angola. It's weird to think that the next time we get this stuff out, we'll be celebrating our first Christmas in Angola (Lord willing).

The boys enjoyed watching the electric train go around the Christmas tree with Daddy.

After we got to Michigan, we spent a morning decorating sugar cookies with Uncle Matt and the lovely "Miss Janille," soon to be Aunt Janille!

We had our traditional lamb dinner with Hayward and Sandra Burton, a.k.a. "Grandma and Grandpa B". This sweet couple has meant so much to our family through the years!

On Christmas Eve, we went to the Henry Ford Museum to see the Lego display, which was totally cool. Alex agreed to sit on Santa's lap for a picture when he found out that Santa was giving away Lego sets to all the kids!

On Christmas morning, Santa surprised me with a Kindle! As you can see, I was thrilled!

And Stephen received a stocking handmade by Nyanya!

Alex enjoyed learning how to use Nyanya's new Wii Fit (with Daddy's help, as you can see).

The boys made music on the piano...

... but Matt and Janille's duets were definitely nicer to listen to!

It was such a special Christmas, full of lots of special moments that will live in our memories in the years to come. I'm thankful for all the years we've gotten to spend Christmas in Michigan because I know once we are living overseas again, our holiday seasons Stateside will be few and far between.

December 2009 Newsletter

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Okay, okay...

... so I know we aren't exactly IN Lisbon yet, but we will be soon!

And, it's a New Year and a time for fresh beginnings.

And, I was getting incredibly bored with the blog's design.

And, I needed an excuse to put off a hundred other more important things that I should be doing, like packing.

All that to say, the blog got a face-lift tonight! Let me know what you think.

Nyanya's Quilts Are Special

One thing my mom has started doing for her grandkids is making each one of them a quilt. She uses the same pattern each time, but different fabrics, and she tries to have at least one of the fabric choices reflect where that child was born. One of the fabrics on Alex's quilt, for example, has fish on it, since Alex was born in Japan (where the carp is a symbol of children, especially boys). One of the fabrics on Stephen's quilt has cars, since he was born in Detroit, the capital of the American auto industry.

When the Marcums visited us in Nashville recently, Julie and I made the happy discovery that we had all five grandkids and all five quilts together under one roof! (Julie likes to travel with her girls' quilts because they are large, and at the same time light-weight; plus, it is something familiar from home to make going to sleep in a strange place easier.) Not sure when we would have a photo-op like this again, we lined all five kids up on our couch with their quilts for a picture.

I didn't share this picture before because I was waiting to surprise my mom with a framed copy of it for Christmas. Now that Christmas is over, I'll post it here for all to see!

Our Nyanya loves us!