Christmas Day

Me and my kiddos on Christmas Eve


Aaron enjoying the presents


The girls and their new Heely's, a gift from Steve's mom


Aaron and his new football

Random fun

Morgan and her grandma making ornaments


An intense game of monopoly. Steve was teaching Claudia
and Morgan was perfectly content to be the banker


Who says you need to wait until Easter to play with the eggs?


Morgan was outside helping her grandpa wash his truck. All of
a sudden we heard her yelling. This adorable little puppy had
come to visit her. He was so cute, jumping up all over us. Even
my mom enjoyed it! (Those who know my mom know that's a big day for
her to even smile at a dog!!) This dog was precious, for about 5
minutes it made me want to buy my girls a puppy. We found out that
the dog was a new arrival for our neighbor and had escaped. It
was fun to play with him for a few minutes.


Aaron and his second cuz, Stella

Cake time

On Christmas day we finally got to give Aaron his cake. He was so funny.
He dove right in and gave us all some good laughts.

Birthday picts

Since most of us were very sick on Aaron's b-day all he got was a couple pictures taken and to open his gifts. Thankfully, he did not care!

Fun Pictures

This past fall, a friend and fellow PC student, Raymond Cournoyer, kindly
took our family pictures. He did an excellent job and got some great shots
for us. I know some of you have seen these on our
Christmas card, but I threw a couple more of my favorites in.

I can hardly believe this pose worked, Aaron
hates to stand like this.


My cutie girls


My favorite family shot


This is my favorite picture. I think it looks
like a Gap jean ad.

Fifi is my hero

Bruce Chick is the pastor of the Sovereign Grace Community Church in Roanoke, VA, and our instructor for this week. He is teaching the 2nd of our Old Testament classes, after teaching the first component last fall. Besides being a warmly pastoral man, Bruce also has the distinction of being one of the few pastors in Sovereign Grace with bona-fide athletic skills. He played AAA baseball, primarily in the Red Sox farm system, in the early-mid 90’s before attending seminary and becoming a pastor. So, one of his unique contributions to our year here is to introduce athletic challenges throughout his weeks of teaching that allow us to opt-out of quizzes if we are successful.
Thursday’s challenge was archery. Fortunately, one of the members of our class, Efisio Setzu, is a bowhunter. Efisio, whom we affectionately call Fifi, is from Vista New Life Church in El Paso, TX. He is generally a quiet and unassuming guy, though he does bear a striking resemblance to Nacho Libre. His first challenge was to beat one of the interns here, Merritt Anderson, in a shooting contest from 20 yards. He won handily. But then we elevated the stakes. We asked Bruce if we could get an essay removed from our test if Fifi knocked an apple of the target from 20 yards away. Bruce agreed and the stage was set. The apple was carefully perched atop the target and Efisio readied himself. We all were eagerly waiting to see what the outcome would be, though 20 yards seemed a huge distance for such a small target. Efisio loosed his arrow and a split-second later, phoosh!, the apple was knocked from its perch. That might have been the biggest roar heard from the PC this entire year. It was a small but important victory for the entire class, and Fifi is our official hero--at least for a few days. Just a brief insight into the trials and travails of Pastors College life.

Still here

I just wanted to take a minute to fill in all you faithful readers. We returned to Gaithersburg on Monday after 2 1/2 weeks in Lancaster. After we all recovered from the stomach virus we did have a great time on our vacation. This week has been a little crazy trying to unpack and get back in the swing of life after having help with the kids for so long!!

I have lots of pictures that I want to share but something is wrong with our iphoto... we are waiting on a new piece of computer something (way above my head). Hopefully this weekend I will get a chance to catch up with what has been happening.

One quick funny story, my little boy is turning from nice to naughty... since we have been back here he is into everything, climbing on top of things, trying to climb out of the bathtub, going up or down steps and we have no idea where he disappeared to. The other day I was sitting here on the computer and I have no idea how the following unfolded with out me realizing... I hear Aaron crying and here he is IN the fireplace (obviously not being used), stuck and trying to get out. He had opened the glass doors, opened the screen, crawled in and was covered with black ashes. We have never actually used the fireplace but apparently the people before us did. Little stinker. For a split second I considered running and getting my camera but that would have been mean to leave him stuck there crying!! Aaron still has no desire to walk, once in awhile he will stand and take a step or two. He is very content to crawl and climb wherever he needs to go!