Anna gets Baptized

Today, Anna was Baptized. We were all very proud of her wanting to publicly show her faith in Christ and go before our church and get baptized today. Since our church is associated with our school, the students are allowed to pick two people who they feel have meant the most to them spiritually. For Anna, she chose Jeff to baptize her and Grandma Mary to pray for her. Grandma Mary was with her five years ago and prayed with her to receive Christ into her heart so this was special for Grandma Mary.

Here she is with Dad in the tank.

Grandma Mary said a very nice prayer for Anna at the end.

Anna's wonderful teacher, Ms. Allen, came and sat next to me. She presented Anna with a gift on her "spiritual birthday."

Here are all of the students who were baptized today. Five Seniors and one third grader- our Anna! She was presented with a certificate that she has already framed and placed by her bed.

Jacob's Birthday

Today is Jacob's 11th birthday. He is now entering his second decade-wow! Here are a few more pictures from his friend birthday last weekend. Tonight he and Anna are away at an AWANA retreat. Boy is it quiet around here!

Jacob opening up his presents with all of the boys in his class. We had a real nice afternoon and sat outside.

I love the contrast of the blue sky in this picture.

Joshua enjoying some swing time in the sun. He had fun at the party too.

Pure excitment

Okay, so we celebrated Jacob's birthday one week early. Mainly because this was our only free Saturday until the end of May. I will post more later on his party.

There is something special about watching a toddler react to different things. As adults, you tend to get a bit cynical with special events and suprises. Sometimes it is good to take a lesson from a toddler and appreciate the little things in life. Here is a picture lesson provided by Sarah yesterday as she participated in Jacob's birthday party.

She enjoyed sitting in her high chair outside watching the big kids run around her. She really was in her own world choosing to focus her energies on those colorful balls on her tray....

Until out of the corner of her eye she saw the highlight that every two year old lives for...

BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!!!!

Oh what a wonderful thing to enjoy on such a sunny day!

Jacob choose to eat his cake laying down in the grass. I guess kids know how to enjoy lifes little pleasures better than us adults.

Brothers and Sisters

Our weeks go by so fast with all of our activities and ministry opportunities. For the next six weeks, it will be an absolute blurr around our home. This is especially true for Jeff and all of his administration duties that he must fullfill in the next six weeks. From NHS induction ceremony this week to academic awards to present, staff appreciation dinner to co lead and of course graduation. On top of that, we must get ready for a visit back to the States this summer. Our family will be running everywhere. However, ever once in a while I stop and catch my kids connecting with one another and growing closer. Those rare moments are very special and I wish I could hold onto them for a long time. So instead, I run a grab the camera so one day, I can prove to them that they actually like eachother.

Bonding Brothers- Jacob is the only one who can get Joshua to laugh really loud. They already rough house with eachother as only brothers can.

Sisterhood-

These girls love to giggle and play dress up together. Anna is so sweet with Sarah and trys to be patience with a demanding two year old. However they ARE sisters and many times don't agree on the same ideas. But for the most part, they adore each other.

Report Cards

Last Friday, Jacob and Anna brought home their report cards for third quarter. Jacob has been working very hard all quarter to bring a few grades up especially in spelling. We were so happy that he brought every single grade up on his report card. It has been a long road for him as he transitioned from German school to BFA the middle of his third grade year. He had to catch up and learn all of the crazy spelling rules that english has. We are happy to see that he now has a clear understanding for it. He worked diligently every night with grandma mary and she rewarded him with a trip to the local Eis cafe ( ice cream shop). Anna also continues to enjoy her classes in third grade. She is currently learning fractions now in Math which she actually enjoys.
Don't they look proud!

Birthday boys

Today marks the four month birthday of Joshua. He sure is growing fast. We gave him some cereal for the first time and he seemed to know what to do once the food was in his mouth. He is a bit cranky today, but I think it is because he knows that he must share today with his dad, who turns another year older. We are planning a small family party tonight. Sarah helped make the cake and we are going to TRY to go out to eat with the whole family. This is something that is always scary for us over here, because we are such a large family by German standards. But Jeff only gets to have a birthday once a year so we will see how it goes.

Here's to a special day!

Jeff's new office space

During Easter break, instead of doing some major spring cleaning around our home, we put our energies into redoing Jeff's office at school. Since he moved into his new office in January, it was still the style and taste of the old principal. It just didn't feel like it "belonged" to him yet. So we began to repaint the entire office space. Jacob went in with Jeff one day and helped him paint all day. Then I helped him paint the next day.

Now I know how Jeff thinks, he really had some big ideas about his new office. What man wouldn't be excited to make his office really cool? I think Jeff would have liked his office to look like this. Wouldn't every kid like to hang out in the Principal's office more if it looked like this?

Well, our budget isn't that big that they give us around here, so we had to settle for good old IKEA desks. This is the actual finished product of Jeff's office. Now who wants to take a trip up to the Principal's office?