Anna Learns to Ride a Bike!

Eric took some time off work after the holidays as he ended up working quite a bit over them. One of his goals during this time was to get Anna to ride her bike without training wheels. Fortunately this was the week before the huge snow storm hit. Anna's physical therapist really wanted her to ride without training wheels, but I was highly doubtful that she could do it - she is still so weak physically and her balance is not good (this is what the bike riding will hopefully help to correct). Eric worked with her each day with the training wheels (took her to a big empty parking lot near our house) and then the last day he had at home he was able to take the training wheels off and she could ride around the parking lot. She cannot start or stop her bike. This however turns out to be a good thing. Once Eric gets her going she has to ride until he stops her -which is much longer than she would choose for herself! Maybe one of these days we will see some muscle on her legs.

Katie Turns 18!

Well my third child became an adult today! I told her she wasn't allowed to, but she did anyway. I love my adult children and they are a lot of fun to be around, but boy do I realize how much time is flying by. Katie is a lovely young woman - we have enjoyed the last 18 years and we look forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for her life. Happy Birthday Katie - we love you!!

World Magazine Story

Back in the fall, World Magazine did a story on the Rosenows and their ministry, The Shepherd's Crook. This is the adoption ministry where we found out about Anna. World wanted to do some follow-up stories about some of the families that had adopted through the Shepherd's Crook and so we were asked to submit our story. This we did and got a nice thank-you, but no indication that they would be using it. I figured they were using another family's story as we never heard back. But then on Monday we get an email that they were going to use ours! And then a phone call saying, "Can we send a photographer to your house today or tomorrow?" This "today" happened to be the day that I was taking down Christmas decorations - so there were boxes all over the house and decorations in various stages of being put up. It was also the day I was trying to get all my school stuff ready to start back on Tuesday so there was also school stuff everywhere. And of course laundry - which is always everywhere. We went into frenzied cleaning mode and by Tuesday had the house at least somewhat presentable. The photographer came out and took somewhere between 500-600 pictures! He took pictures in the girls' bedroom, in the schoolroom, in the family room, outside and in the kitchen (notice there were not many areas in the house that we could skip cleaning!) We had to put food on the table and pretend we were eating dinner at 3:00 in the afternoon. It was an interesting experience. I don't know what issue the story will be in and I don't know if we will just be a little blip of a paragraph, but the kids all think it is pretty cool that we will be in print. I will reserve my judgment on the coolness of it all until I see what they actually put in!

Snow Time

We did not get blanketed by snow like most of the rest of the country, but anything here in the south gets the kids out. It was the first white Christmas in Atlanta since the 1880's!

I like the dog in this picture.

This particular person mostly looked like this.

Which made sledding a little more of a defensive sport!

Even his mother was not immune!

Anna did sled twice, but then went in before the camera made it out. She doesn't handle cold particularly well.