"Holy, Holy, Holy"

It is such a blessing to be able to teach our children the truths of God's Word through song, video, books, and living life day-to-day!

We have recently introduced Jillian to Boz, the green bear. She got the "A Wowiebozowee Christmas" and she loves the last scene with the manger scene and baby Jesus! There hasn't been a day that has passed that she doesn't talk about Baby Jesus. We sing songs about Jesus. We especially enjoy singing together ..."I'm so happy, so very happy, I've got the love of Jesus in my heart!" We have been praying WITH Jillian for over a year now, but she is just beginning to understand that we pray to Jesus! We tell Jillian how much He loves us and that He loves when we come to Him in prayer!

We also have some Beginner Bible storybooks (recommended for ages 2-4) that she loves and one of the books in our small library is the Easter story. It so cute, when she wants to read that particular book, she will say "Jesus is Alive!" (with a full exclamation point, because that is how we tell her the story!). I know its quite young, but when we look at the illustrations for "Jesus is Risen" she will point to Jesus on the cross, and say "Jesus, boo-boo," and then she will point to Mary and the other women crying at the foot of the cross, "sad, crying". And then at the end, she will get all excited when the angel tells the women "Jesus is ALIVE!" She loves when "baby Jesus" all grown-up appears to the women and tells them, " Go! Tell the good news!"

***(When Brad and Jillian are singing about the "Trinity" they are making a triangle because God is three "persons" in one (God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit)!)***

Tummy Time

Faith is nearly already rolling over from both her tummy and her back! :)

PB & J Sandwiches

Brad teaching his eldest how to make an excellent PB & J sandwich! :) Jillian loves getting to help whenever we are "cooking" anything. Here she is holding the bread for her daddy as he spreads the Creamy Jif Peanut Butter (from America, of course!).

This video needs a little commentary...

The reason I even pulled out the "video mode" for this one, was because I wanted everyone to hear Jillian say "totally doomed". I am not sure why I said those words exactly (I first said it and Jillian then repeated me), but we have three swaddling blankets, one of which had been left at the Irvine's, and the other two had gotten unexpectantly dirty (on the same day), had been hand washed and were hanging to dry. Well the blankets hadn't dried and it was very close to Faith's bedtime, so Brad made an emergency run to the laundry room and after quite a while after being in the dryer they still hadn't dried! So my response was "we're totally doomed". :) I am not sure what cracks me up more: Jillian mimicking me, or that I said it in the first place!!!

Jillian says "totally doomed" at the beginning of this video and then she started running around the table! Jillian and I often do that in the morning as a way to "exercise"/ dance. We will put on some fun kids music, or praise and worship music and run around the table and I will sweep Jillian into my arms and it is a lot of fun! Some of you may be wondering why we would run around a small table like that...but this is England! The weather has been absolutely miserable, the sun has gone down at 4 PM and hasn't been up until after 9 AM. It rains and rains, and then it rains again, and did I mention it is cold! Winter is not an absolute joy here, especially when you have a newborn baby who hasa cold for 3 weeks! :) But God has been good! We have continued to enjoy the visit of neighbors and friends, and Jillian and I are most often are able to find something to occupy us (from playing with sticker books, finger-painting, baking muffins (Jillian likes helping smash the bananas!), or blowing bubbles INSIDE!).

***Also, I'd like to say that we have taught Jillian that "no" isn't a bad word. She is able to have her own opinion about things and we give her the opportunity to make choices. For instance, we ask Jillian, "would you like dessert?" and if she doesn't want dessert, she can say "no!" (LOL, that doesn't happen all that often, but believe it or not, it has happened). But really, when we are telling Jillian she needs to do something, we are careful to say, "Jillian, please come here", not "would you come here?" We are not asking her a question, but are giving her an instruction that she is to obey. ***

Bury St. Edmund's Video

This is not the most exciting video, but if you have been missing our voices, you can hear them again! :) And it is just so fun for you to get to see a little snippet of our lives on video! Isn't blogging fun?

Bury St. Edmunds

Our friends the Irvine's just got an 8 passenger mini-van! Woo Hoo! The day after they got it, they picked up up in Cambridge (we live 45 minutes from them) and we all went to Bury St. Edmunds. It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed getting to be together. Then we all went to their house, had pizza for dinner, got the little ones to bed and then the grown-ups stayed up until 1 AM talking and eating chocolate cookie cake with ice cream! :) We have LOVED our time with the Irvine's. We call them our family in England! We have spent both of our Christmas Eve's in England with them, as well as a Thanksgiving. It is so nice to have friends who act like family when you are so far from home!

This last Christmas Eve, they had some big surprises for us!
First off, they came in with bag after bag of "American groceries" for us, a lot of which we can not purchase here in the UK. When we first moved to England, our families, as well as some of our friends, were so sweet and sent us care packages of food that we couldn't buy here. The postage would be at minimum $50, but sometimes as much as $100, to send a small box of food to the UK, but we missed it so much and our families wanted to send us comfort food! :) But now, Kristin is always so generous with her time to shop and brings me Raisin Bran (they have sultana bran here), American peanut butter, pancake and brownie mixes, Ranch dressing, American cheese, macaroni and cheese, ground beef (instead of minced beef) and many other of our favorite foods from the States. It is always a huge BLESSING!

In addition to bringing all of the fun American food, Kristin baked up a storm. She made pumpkin torte, Rolo Cookies, cranberry squares, and fudge! They were all amazing and it made feel even more like Christmas! Then Josh and Kristin gave us a card and told us to read it. We read it and it said (I am paraphrasing) that they wanted to do something special for us this Christmas and wanted all of the groceries to be their gift to us! I was overwhelmed by their generous gift, and was flushed by the excitement of it all! I closed the card without reading their salutation or names very carefully, but Brad directed my attention back to the card. So I read their names again and it said "Love, Josh, Kristin, Eli, Soraya, +1....?!?!

The Irvine's are expecting their third baby!!! I thought they told us the news in such a cute way (and to top that, we were the 1st to know in all of the UK-- I have Kristin's permission to post this news!!). :) I just started screaming and crying. I was just so excited for them. They are incredible parents and I know this little one is going to be so blessed to be an Irvine baby.



In the market at Bury St. Edmunds


Kristin and I outside the abbey "park"- the only way Faith would sleep was if she was up against her mommy's chest! :)  These are sweet, sweet moments that I will always remember.

A family photo :)

Jillian and Eli playing in the park


Josh and Kristin and baby Soraya

The two daddies giving rides to "the big kids" on their shoulders

Baby Faith asleep on our bed in the guest room! Isn't she just precious!?!

Christmas Photos:



We have been so excited about creating our own traditions for our family that we knew we wanted to have something to remember our time in England during the holiday season. So we have decided that we are going to have Christmas Tea every Christmas Eve with scones! This was our first year to do it!



The boys playing with Josh's toy from the Christmas cracker!




Jillian and Eli opening their gifts from one another. Eli gave Jillian a beautiful baby doll and Jillian gave Eli some Thomas the Train Legos and a Thomas the Train bath toy!



Kristin and Soraya with Soraya's new outfit from Faith! :) Faith got some beautiful hairbows with head-bands, they are just beautiful! :)

Jillian's Crush

Jillian has a HUGE crush on Eli (who is a year older than her)! It is so funny. The other weekend, Brad witnessed our two year old daughter put her hand behind Eli's head and give a kiss right on the lips! And while we were at the Irvine's house this last weekend, Jillian kept giving Eli hugs, wanted to hold his hand, and would lean her head on his chest! It really is sweet.

Brad and I are really happy that Jillian has been taking notice of our love and affection toward one another (she has never seen this "public display of affection" anywhere else). I think, however, we are going to need to start explaining to Jillian that she has to wait until she is a little bit bigger before she can start thinking about kissing boys. Until that day comes (I am hoping MANY years from now), she can always share her daddy with me. I'll let her give him kisses anytime! :)



We had our dear friends the Irvine's over a couple of weekends ago after church. The "boys" (Brad and Josh) took the two older kids (Jillian and Eli) to look at some of the colleges in Cambridge with our Chariot (Brad's parents got us the stroller wheels for Christmas and we are LOVING them-thank you so much!).