Raleigh Christmas

We woke up Christmas morning happy to be here!

It's a cozy place to cuddle :)

And so fun to open presents.

My dad has a big road trip planned with a stop at Truman's birthplace.  We bought him Truman biography so he would be well prepared for his visit.

Remote control vehicles, and even a helicopter, were a few of the favorite gifts.  There is nothing like a remote control car to capture the interest of a little boy.  Except maybe laser tag guns, ha!  or maybe a build-your-own human skeleton.

We ate delicious meals,

and baked cookies,

and ate cookies too.

It was a little brisk but nothing compared to the temps we had left behind, and there was lots of football to be played.  Granddaddy, John Paul and the girls vs Matt, Isaac and Luke.  They played so hard and so long and it's really fun to watch them.

And our Christmas Day was over and the big event was on the horizon!  The arrival of Stephen and Jen and their boys.  These guys were eager for cousins, and the time has not disappointed!  more photos to come ....

hitting the road

Well, the dreaded last day finally arrived.  And there were many hard goodbyes to be said, for all of us.

I'm thankful for teachers who take pictures of classroom moments that I would otherwise have missed out on!

Oh, and John Paul brought this gem of a recipe (part of a class project to make a recipe book).

And then we went to the Life House one last time.  And hugged Grandma and Grandpa one last time. And we loaded in the loaded van, turned the van south, and started driving.  We had a long way to go and planned to get to the Minneapolis area that night.

Day 2 on the road and we woke up to Julianna's birthday.  It really was a sweet ride, we hung a birthday banner and opened gifts on the road and stopped for dinner too.  (Stopping is a treat when we road trip - we are of the "don't stop often, and only stop briefly" variety.)

The entire drive we were blessed with terrific weather - after years of saying "next time we should avoid Chicago" we did choose an alternate route (mostly prompted by snow and sleet and freezing rain south of Lake Michigan).  So we headed south, and south, and south some more, not turning eastward until we hit St. Louis.

Maybe next time we will stop and visit the Arch?

But this time we were in a hurry.  Late on the 23rd and we were still 9 hours from Raleigh, and due to loose an hour when we entered EST.  argh.  So we slept hard and woke to a Christmas Eve day on the road - with a car top carrier and North Dakota plates we figured everyone we passed realized we were not yet home for Christmas.

Thankfully this day, the one where we tend to loose our marbles, was smooth as silk and we entered the NC mountains and blue skies shone.

a few hundred more miles eastward and and we pulled in the driveway oh so happy to leave the car behind and let the good times roll.  And they did!

good-bye Kindergarten, good-bye 1st grade

Today Matt and I helped host small good-bye gatherings in each of the younger boys classes.  Isaac wasn't interested in help, so we bought some treats and he ran his own show in his classroom.

John Paul's face tells you everything you need to know about his experience.  My boy was excited to be the center of attention! ha!  His classmates asked really great questions ("How do you say unicorn in Chinese?") and he's had a great semester with these buddies.

and Luke!  I wondered if he was too young to start kindergarten, and honestly we thought about not enrolling either of the little guys, but I'm so thankful we did.  And Luke is rocking the whole deal!  He has just thrived in this place with these people, and his teacher is more than I could ask for!

I also got to pop in and thank the cook who has provided breakfast and lunch for my 5 every day this fall.  Y'all, that's 50 meals a week she served to my kiddos!  You better believe she's one of my heroes (and also the State of Minnesota, which funded the eating! ha!).

I had a long sweet lunch with friends and then picked up the kids, one teary-eyed and red-faced already, and it was just the next-to-last day.  Tomorrow will be a doozy.  Bye to school, bye to Grandma and Grandpa, hello to the van for the next few days.

Even though these departures just get harder as the kids get older, we will cling to the truth, that it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.  And cling to the ultimate Truth, that we were created for eternal relationship, and that painful goodbyes point us to the one who will never leave.

Christmas program

This school continues to be a source of tremendous blessing for our family.  To think this is the second time that our family has received such a gift!  And now we'll start talking about "next time" and wonder who will be in what grade then :)

But first, the Christmas program.

Our elementary schoolers had been re-living the program practice for weeks so I wasn't surprised when I recognized the music, and even the specific lines in the program!  They were all just so excited to be up there performing.  Isaac (who detests a shirt with buttons and was tempted to be ornery about it) beamed the entire time.  When it was over he told me, "I just couldn't stop smiling from my insides."  Pretty impressive for a night in a button-down shirt, huh?

All four of ours are up there, see them?

Then after a brief intermission, the middle schoolers took the stage.

They were so good!  I loved hearing them sing, and mostly I love that these people were such a significant part of Julianna's fall.  To transition to middle school is no small thing, to do it in a new country and coming from a home school context is a pretty big leap.  And she has just rocked it, in many ways thanks to the amazing support of her teachers and classmates.

It is a K-8 school, but they do a great job separating the middle school from the littler ones, and Julianna is heartbroken to leave this place.

At the end of the Christmas program I got this picture of Luke with his prayer partner.  Luke ADORES his prayer partner, seriously adores him.  And it's such a sweet relationship to see blossom. I think the highlight of Luke's Tuesday was that he got to ride in the same car as his prayer partner to the Christmas program rehearsal :).

I have a picture of Julianna with her prayer partner too, but I'm missing the other kids.

Surely in the next few days I'll have a post with a huge photo dump of all these precious people!

Sunday night birthdays

Last Sunday night we celebrated Julianna and John Paul's birthdays with the family.

Huge treat that Andy and Kristi were able to drive up and be with us!  There are tears at the goodbyes but we are overwhelmingly grateful for all the time that we do get to be together - what a gift!  

My little guys will probably always think these big boys are rock stars :)

When present opening rolled around John Paul was asleep on the couch, sweet little guy had been battling a fever (and really I think most of us have had a touch of something this week), but Julianna was ready to celebrate!  John Paul did rally for the gifts, but it wasn't much of a rally.... sigh.  

And we said our goodbyes, and started in to the final week here in ND.  Full of many amazing people and events - it was going to be a biggie!

Saturday Dec 16 (our family Christmas, and then afternoon fun too)

We set aside yesterday morning to celebrate Christmas as a family.  And I'm so so glad we did.  In the midst of all that is swirling around us, it was a sweet gift to have a long slow morning (that lasted till 2pm!) to just be us, with some gifts, and a lot of time to play together.

First gift this year was for mom ;) a badly needed new wallet that I'm so glad to have!! 

and this is always my favorite part of Christmas - watching them with the gifts they pick for each other.  The little guys are still solid Dollar Tree shoppers, but there are a lot of treasures to be bought there, and they do a great job with limited resources!  And the older kids are learning to pool their resources when they need to, and investing a bit more in sibling gifts and really picking up some perfectly-tuned-to-the-recipient gems.

Lydia and Isaac knew the colored pencils they bought were exactly what Julianna wanted!

and Isaac is probably 100 pages into the 2017 Nat Geo Kids Alamanac - he cannot keep his hands off this gift from Julianna (that we both knew he would be addicted to!)

Matt (new hat) and the gift-ers :) 

Star Wars hats for the little guys (yay Lydia!)

We spent the rest of the morning opening every package and putting together every craft and it was so fun.  

And I loved having this centerpiece at our lunch table as something a little extra special!

Matt and I went out to do a little shoveling and Luke was the only kiddo who could rip himself away from his gifts to join us. He LOVES this snow pusher and did a number on the driveway, the sidewalk, and the neighbor's driveway and sidewalks too.  

Then it was out to the Snyders and we filled their house and yard with kids and laughter and boy will I miss these people something fierce. 

The temperatures have been perfect and these kiddos play outdoors for hours!  

Two John Pauls in a snowy tree house!

I think the ski goggles are snow ball fight eyewear protection? 

And these may be the snow ball fight instigators?!? 

Hungry and back inside for dinner.... the girls, 

and the boys.

Sweet sweet families that we delight to call friends.  

a party for an almost-12 year old

So Julianna has a knack for celebrating all month long when her birthday rolls around :)  And she's worth all the party too!

This year she'll spend her actual birthday riding in the car - I'm not sure how we've managed to schedule it this way, but over our 4 most recent cross-country drives we've hit John Paul's birthday, my birthday, and now Julianna's.  And you know, it's not the best way to spend a day, but we are all together, and that's pretty special.  So we will have gifts wrapped and packed on the top of the luggage heap, and I've tucked away a little birthday banner to hang in the van too.

Still, we needed a party with friends before we hit the road - she had a going-away celebration with her youth group friends on Wednesday night, then a school friends party on Friday.  For a girl who hasn't been in town long, she's managed to collect quite a few friends - and she's helped by the fact that these little ladies were in her life 3 years ago too, it helps to return to the same church, and same school.

She has adored being in youth group, just loved every single minute.

And her school too, such a sweet spot.  Friday afternoon I picked up 7 very excited 6th grade girls and we headed for home.  I had arranged for the school's beloved art teacher (and also the leader of the art club Julianna's been a part of) to come do mini-make overs for the party.  Mrs. E is a make up artist who does weddings and her work is beautiful!  The girls had a blast!

The girls treated Mrs. E like a rock star.  They hovered and marveled and just adored every second with her.  It was awesome.  

and then we drove to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner - and they bounced out of the van, "We feel like princesses"... luminaries on the walkway, fancy plates at the table, sparkling juice for their glasses! 

They played pass-the-present, decorated gingerbread men, talked and laughed and giggled and talked some more.  

And we had birthday cake too.

This is a really sweet group of young ladies and it seems like lavish blessing that Julianna got these months with them!  And a birthday party too.