I knew I wasn't going to get around to mailing anything this year, so I thought a brief photo history of our year would have to do. I thought we would start with family pictures, so you can identify my kids in the latter pictures. They are growing so quickly that some are unrecognizable otherwise!
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| Michael is now 14 and growing like a weed. He is now 6'3" and wears a size 15 shoe! He loves his animals but most especially the pigs. He also loves playing sports including soccer, basketball and he may give volleyball a try this year. |
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| Joshua, 13, is not far behind Michael at 5'11" and is enjoying wearing his dad's hand me down size 13 shoes. He enjoys soccer but mostly sports are for fun. He loves doing things with his hands and built his very own computer this year. He loves to build, create and anything to do with computers. He has been taking some web design classes and loves them! |
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| Jacob, 10, is a fun mix of big kid and little kid. He love playing sports with his big brothers (especially soccer), but also loves playing with the little kids. He and the littles can be found on many kinds of adventures roaming throughout the house. |
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| Hyrum, 4, is such a little man. He is my only shy child, so if you don't know him very well, you are not alone. He loves learning and has been working on learning to read and doing some basic math. He also loves to color and can be found coloring almost any time of day! |
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Simon, 2, is everything you would expect from a curly haired red head. Mischief is his middle name, but he is just too cute to stay mad at. He is finally learning to speak, so hopefully we can get him in a big bed and get rid of diapers once and for all! He loves to help mom and dad with anything and everything they are doing.
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Michael has been working on his Eagle Project this year. He built some great
doll cases for the library. They turned out great. He will get his Eagle as soon
as the paperwork goes through! |
Now that you got to know us a little more here are some fun pics from throughout the year!
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We get lots of snow and the boys love it! I think snow time is the
only time I am guaranteed to get the kids outside to play! |
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| Having animals has been an adventure. The chickens are doing great and the littles love to feed them grass! |
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| Piglets are just the cutest. This reminds me why people buy baby animals! |
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| They are not so cute when they get older, but they make great bacon! |
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I don't usually include myself but this year I got a teacher of the year award
at APUS where I teach math online. It was a great honor and a fun trip to DC. |
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| In addition to animals we had an amazing garden this year. Can you identify all of those vegetables? |
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We enjoyed having an exchange student from Spain for about 6 weeks this summer.
It was a lot of fun and a great experience. Jon was Michael's age and loved soccer, so he
was a perfect fit! He even became a pro at collecting eggs! |
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| They boys had a lot of fun playing soccer together for the Christian school. My favorite was when Joshua was on defense and Michael was in the goal. Joshua was a fierce defender heading the ball to help Michael out in the goal! |
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| Michael is also learning to use his height for good as the center on the basketball team. He hasn't had a lot of experience, but he is learning quickly! |
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| I can't let them have all the fun, so I ran a 5K with my friend. We did great! My body is still trying to settle in after baby 5, but we will get there! |
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| The boys favorite thing to do with dad is to work in the kitchen! They love making dinner or baking goodies! It is fun seeing my littles watch and the bigs learn to make real food! |
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Simon is just too cute, but living on the farm is a very different life. They
love going for rides in on the mower and helping with the animals! |
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Joshua enjoyed ordering all of his parts and building his machine! It is always fun
to get mail! |
James has also had a great year professionally. He will be the new Associate Dean in his department next year. He also received a teaching award for innovation. We had a great year and were greatly blessed. We love all of you and hope you had a great year as well. We loved the challenge to turn our advent calendars into calendars of service. It has been a great month full of service. It really made this Christmas season more meaningful to me and I hope it had a great impact on my kids! Merry Christmas to all!
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