Thursday, December 27, 2012

Merry Christmas!

We've started into the Christmas season with First/Western/Catholic Christmas on the 25th. (Here is my explanation of terms last year.) It was a lovely day for us.

Finding Baby Jesus in the nativity scene
"Ляля!"
A book and pistachios before breakfast
Christmas breakfast
Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus
(Bogdan liked the candles!)
I didn't know they were trick candles until they started relighting, but they were perfect for getting lots of pictures. And then we went sledding....

White Christmas (happy!)
On the way home, Bogdan was so tired that he was nodding off while sitting up on the sled, so we had to carry him. He recovered long enough to warm up with hot chocolate when we got home, and then took a long nap.

Hot chocolate with Baby Jesus
While the younger half of the family napped, the older half read, cooked, and prepared a sermon. Then there was a family Skype call, a quick dinner, and out the door for....

Tea at church
Bogdan and I lasted at the tea until his bedtime, and then I brought him home, while the others stayed for the rest of it. As I carried him in the snowy, foggy dark, he signed that he was "all done" the whole way. And then he collapsed into bed, very happily.

We have many more Christmas pictures, even just from this one day. You can see more here.

Now we have New Year festivities, a winter VBS, and "Second" Christmas to look forward to next!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Choir concert

We just got back from the music school's concert. Here is Jaan's choir group singing:



Monday, December 17, 2012

Fall prayer letter

Here it is. Please come read and pray for us!

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Advent JOY

I guess I skipped over posting anything for Advent LOVE, but we had a wonderful week of it. And now it's time to light the pink candle for JOY!


The sweetest moment of today was when I asked everyone what brings them joy. Jaan said, "Bogdan!" and then he turned to Bogdan and whispered, "I'm glad you were born in our family."

(Will is a really good sport!)

"Behold, I bring you good tidings of great JOY which will be to all people."

Sunday, December 09, 2012

Weeks 8-9 (and 4)

How's that for a confusing title? I've missed a weeks on my school summaries, and Jaan and Raia are working at different points in their separate years.

Raia is finishing up Year 1, Week 9 now. Shakespeare and Russian history are her biggest favorites, after Bible. She mostly just flies happily through everything.

Jaan did Week 4 of Year 3. He has experienced an Advent miracle with handwriting. After several years of just not really getting anywhere with it, now he wants to write pages of words in cursive. That's usually in the evenings, while they draw/write/paste/color in their Advent journals about the names of Jesus.

And the rest will be pictures. Since they're each worth a thousand words, here are 3,000 words for you:

Advent journals
Getting ready to go OUTSIDE
New pets

Sunday, December 02, 2012

Advent HOPE



"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."