A Birthday and 10 Years!

December and January are filled to the brim with family events. Between December 5th and January 18th, we celebrate Nick, Colton, Caleb, Rahel, my brother and my birthdays along with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, our anniversary, New Years Day and Ethiopian Christmas (which is today-Melkam Genna!).....whew that's alot of party going on over here.

So, before another event hits (Caleb's birthday is tomorrow), I thought I better catch up on two biggies.

Our sweet little ball of fire turned four on the 28th! I can't believe he's already four. Four seems so old--definitely not a baby anymore. He's let me know that he is a big boy now and is starting to step up his game in the "big boy world." Of all of the kids, I think Colton was the most excited about our new baby boy. He jumped up and down and hugged Caleb and said, "yeahhhhh, we're getting another boy, we're getting another boy!" He's really excited to be a big brother. The other day, he was having a little melt down and I reminded him that he was a big brother now and he needed to act like a big boy. He said, "our babies not here yet, so I'm still the little brother." I guess he'll be playing both card to his advantage for the time being.

Paw Paw came over to celebrate.

Present time. I got him a new comforter for his bed!!!! He was gracious, but not particularly excited about it. Dad scored big with his present.................
A trip the the monster truck show!

Cake time with FL Gee Gee
Happy birthday to you.....

He went for it--even though he didn't have a spoon yet--just his style!

My sweet boy.

Next, we were off to Nick's parent's house. We dropped the kids off for three fun filled days of grandparent spoiling and Nick and I headed off to celebrate our 10th anniversary! What a treat-pretty awesome any time anyone takes on all 6 of our kids at once--thanks!

We decided that the best way to relax was to jump off of this.

That's me.

Nick.

...and a self portrait. Taking pictures mid air is pretty tricky.

It was super fun-neither of us had ever gone zip-lining before so it was a great little adventure.

But the best, best part of it all was that zip lining was the only planned activity that we had for the entire 3 days. We stayed in bed past 9:30, didn't get dressed until noon one day, lazed in the hot tub and generally enjoyed being together doing pretty much nothing. It was wonderful and relaxing and exactly what we hoped our little getaway would be. We also learned that the less you do, the less you want to do. Apparently, laziness breads laziness and we soaked it up! It made us realize how busy and active our days usually are. It also made us realize how amazingly blessed we are because after 3 days, we were totally ready to get back to our 6 little buddies that make our life so full.

Here's another self portrait--much like the one we took on our honeymoon in Jamaica 10 year ago.

What a ride we've had! I can honestly say I could look the whole world over and I'd never find anyone that I'd rather be spending my life with. I feel like the luckiest girl around to have been blessed with such an awesome husband.

Here's to the next 10 years!!!

May we fully devote ourselves to the Lord and may he use us in mighty ways for his glory!