Christmas Letter 2012

I decided to put our Christmas letter for this year on our long neglected blog as some family members have requested that I continue to update it. I figured this would be a good summary and maybe I could move on to more consistent updates in the future. This also allows me to post more pictures than I would be able to put in a paper Christmas letter. We had a very busy, but exciting year. I am sure that several things happened before May, but last May our oldest, Scott, graduated from Georgia Tech. He majored in bio-chemistry and also received a minor in piano. Tech is a tough school and we are quite proud of him.

About a month after graduating, Scott married Rebecca Austin! They met at Camp Westminster and had been dating about two years. Becca is a lovely lady and we are thrilled to have her in the family. We were thankful that Eric's parents and twin brother could come all the way from Oregon and that his older brother could come down from New Jersey. It was a nice time with extended family and a beautiful wedding. Scott and Becca are currently living down at Camp Westminster and Scott is working for the camp as temporary facilities manager while looking for employment in his field. Becca is finishing up her Master's in Social Work at Georgia State.

Anna, Elizabeth and Grace were thrilled to be flower girls in the wedding.

We continued our family tradition of running in the Peachtree Road Race (10K) on July 4th.

We were able to go to St. George in August with Kim's parents. It was a nice relaxing time after the busyness of wedding preparation.

Amy and Katie are doing well. Amy is finishing up her last year of nursing at Emory. She has maintained a 4.0 GPA her entire college time and has truly enjoyed being in nursing school. Katie is in the middle of her sophomore year at Georgia State. She has decided to major in nutrition. She still has interest in photography and is the official photographer for Peter's football team.

Peter continues to love and play football. His team is still relatively new so they have quite a few challenges, but Peter has done very well. He won the award for Best Offensive Player and he was selected to the league All-Star team. Because his team is small he does play both offensive and defense, but his preferred position is running back.

Dance takes most of our time. Molly, Emily, Matthew (tap only), Anna, Elizabeth and Grace all take a variety of dance classes (mainly ballet and tap). Last summer (on the day Scott graduated!) Molly auditioned for Praise and Motion, a Christian Dance Company, which is based out of the studio where we dance. She made it on the invitational level and that has been a wonderful experience for her. However it does put us at the dance studio most days of the week.

Molly and Emily were still able to participate in the cross-country season. They run on a great little homeschool team and their team won 1st place in the state meet in their league.

Matthew is playing soccer on an Academy (stepping stone to the select team). He is a tough little player (having older brothers helps). One fun aspect of this is that Matthew plays on the same team with his cousin Dawson (behind him in the white headband). They also tap together. Matthew and Dawson were born only 2 days apart and it has been great to have the cousins able to do several activities together.

The dance company that Molly is in puts on a Christmas program each year called The Gift. This was a wonderful experience that we were all a part of (Eric and Peter were on the Tech Crew). Emily and Elizabeth were also (along with Molly) able to be in a minor part and is was a wonderful show.

Elizabeth is the second from the end without the shepherd.

Eric is still working at Emory. He was promoted to Associate Professor this year for which we are grateful. He was also elected elder in our church. I (Kim) continue to homeschool and juggle everyone's schedule. I picked up a new hobby this year - shooting. A good friend got me into it and it is a lot of fun. I even own a gun now! I still enjoy running. Amy and I try to run once a week out at Stone Mountain and that is one of my favorite things to do. And once again we ran the Atlanta Half-Marathon along with my sister.

We are thankful for God's great blessings to us over the past years and we look forward to 2013.

Another Elder!

Our big news this Christmas season is that we are gaining a new family member. Scott was engaged on Christmas Eve and he and Becca are looking to a summer wedding. We are excited for them and will very much enjoy having Becca as part of the family.

Another Teenager!

Earlier this month Molly became the 5th Elder child to reach that teenage milestone. Her birthday coincided with our annual gingerbread making day so her birthday turned out to be one big day of celebration.





Thankful for friends who help with the younger kids!


Later that night we celebrated with family.

And even managed to get her ears pierced in the midst of the busy day.

And then the next day, Amy took Molly to camp with a couple of friends so that they could ride horses. A good 13th birthday!

Misc. November Happenings

The ballet company from the place where my girls dance has a big performance each year called The Gift. It is the Christmas story told in dance. This year Elizabeth was able to be a sheep in this performance. I had great expectations of being able to post the video but even Eric, who can usually solve all computer issues, was not able to get the video to load (sorry Nana and Grampa). We did however manage to get a picture of her backstage in costume so that will have to suffice. Maybe next year we will do better.



Thanksgiving Day began with Amy and me running the Atlanta Half Marathon. We both had a good race and I enjoy being able to run with her.


We did host Thanksgiving dinner at our house, but failed to take any pictures. It was however a lovely time with family and friends and we always look forward to everyone coming over.

Church Hiking Trip

A group from our church went hiking recently on Signal Mountain in TN. It was a beautiful place, the weather was great and we had a wonderful time of fellowship while enjoying God's incredible creation.

Life in the Clan

Matthew had a rather rough day or so recently. On Saturday morning he was standing on a stool in the kitchen watching Eric make pancakes. Somehow he managed to fall off and in the process bit his tongue badly. It bled and bled and bled....we held rags on it but the blood kept filling up his mouth. So he just starting spewing all the blood into the kitchen sink and it just kept coming. We had a childless friend over and right when Matthew was spewing blood into the sink, Eric handed her a plate of pancakes and said "here your pancakes are ready"! I am guessing she will choose in the future to eat elsewhere. Hopefully she will still have children. Matthew then spent several hours on the couch too woozy to get up. Later in the day I heard a tremendous crash upstairs. I went up to find that Matthew had somehow fallen (the story was a little convoluted) getting off the toilet and had smacked his head on the toilet seat, breaking it (the toilet seat, not his head!).
To follow all of that up when we were coming in from church the next morning Matthew straggled in last crying, his hand and his head covered in blood. He said that a scooter had fallen on his head. I know enough of the laws of physics to know that scooters do not jump up off the ground and hit someone in the head. And, no, we do not have scooters hanging from the garage ceiling on nifty little hooks - we are not that organized. Actually we do have hooks on one wall for scooters, but the kids never hang the scooters up and the hooks have long since been blocked by large containers which are there to hold outside toys. I'm guessing these containers are empty. The scooters are usually laying scattered around the garage floor and mostly in the walking path through the garage. I could say that maybe the scooters are possessed and my children actually do hang them on the hooks that Eric spent good time putting up and the scooters jump off the hooks in order to sabotage family members that walk through the garage. But I'm pretty sure possessed scooters are not something that Christians believe in, so that is not an option however much I would like to believe that my children hang up their scooters and my life is organized. So all that to say that I have no idea how a scooter hit Matthew in the head. But he survived, we weren't reported to Family and Children's Services, and all seems to be well.
As we focus on giving thanks this month (and always) these incidents remind me to be thankful that my children don't get hurt nearly as much as they could and that all days are not like this.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth turned 6 this October. She is my fearless, can do everything the older kids do child. We recently had a church weekend out at Camp Westminster and Elizabeth wanted to do the climbing wall and the zip line - and she did...fearlessly!

This is atop the 30 foot climbing wall.

Here she sits calmly waiting...when I did this several years ago I was holding onto the pole for dear life.

Off she goes!

Okay, she shows a little fear here...

But quickly recovers.

Mission accomplished!

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!