Happy Chinese New Year 2014

This year is the year of the horse, how are you celebrating? We made a Chinese lantern (Thanks Lauren) and read the Story of Ping which takes place in China. I love that we are always learning new things! I had no idea that the Chinese celebrated their new year for 15 days, if you want to learn more as we did, feel free to click the link. So this past Christmas, each member of our family gave Jesus a gift. I chose to give Him this blog. I committed to update this blog at least once a month, but hopefully more often. God has revealed time and time again that this is a way to honor our extended family and friends! We have had a wonderful January. We got to see a Frozen at the theater, WOW was that a great movie. I am pretty sure it is my favorite animated movie. The music was wonderful and it was a rich story of genuine love. Which always reminds me of my favorite story, God's story for us. John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. Sarah now tries to freeze us all and she likes to be called "Elsa". We are studying ancient history and are learning a lot about the human body. :) You can also see in the picture where the kids made a snowman on a skewer out of foods. That was really fun! (Thanks Kristin) Doing school work has turned comical when both Ava Jane and Mazie are awake and out with us. Those two are partners in crime and their primary offense is getting us off task. They are both so cute, they woo us over! I am SO thankful we got an invisible fence for Mazie, it was my Christmas present. Honestly, if we didn't get the fence I am not sure we could have kept her. She loves to run wild and now she can do that :) Brennan got started back to basketball and Jenna Grace is doing cheerleading. Brennan was also in a play "Heidi" which was a wonderful experience. He was a mountain kid and one of Clara's friends. The entire play was a testimony of God's faithfulness......... amazing! Brennan, Jenna Grace, and Sarah all enjoy going to AWANA on Sunday evenings. We had a wonderful visit with Gramma and Pop-Pop this month when they came to visit. They got to see Brennan's play, Jenna Grace 's cheerleading, to go to church with us and pick up kiddos from AWANAs. Then they got a nice warm day to play before they had to head back to the bitter cold in PA. As they left, snow came our way. We had several inches of pretty snow and the kids were thrilled to get to play with their sleds and their neighborhood friends. Jeff worked from home for 3 days and we tried to be somewhat quiet, that is rather comical. Somewhat quiet is a mild roar as opposed to the entire zoo. There was a lot of hot chocolate and hot tea for a few days. Jenna Grace had a special date with Daddy and they went to a frozen yogurt shop and the craft stores. She also had a special date with Mommy as we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant together. Jeff took Brennan and Jenna Grace to Home Depot and they made box calendars that are pretty cool. The kids enjoyed making their own markers with their marker set (thank you Gramma and Pop-Pop) and Mazie is enjoying her dog bed (thank you Granny Bee and Pappy.