Looking back to Christmas

I've been wanting to add this YouTube video to our blog but haven't known how! This week Josh's brother Dave and his family are visiting and I got some good instruction time this morning from my nephew Tyler! Thank you Tyler!

The clip is a little more than 7 minutes and it's from a TV show called Duhovni Utrip which means Spiritual Heartbeat. It's religious program that has come to our church and filmed some of our events. We were very pleased with the report and the response of the people who attended.

In the interview you see Katarina Bordner, one of our JV missionaries and the worship leader for our church and also Dubravka Turinski our pastor's wife who very clearly explained our church and why Christmas is more meaningful than just one day. Also, Dubravka is standing in the Sunday School room and you can see Kendra's name behind her on a poster for memorizing bible verses!

If you want to cut to the parts that have our kids and Josh performing you can see the kids section around the 3:20 mark and Becca has a little solo that's running in the back ground. Blake is standing behind her and Kendra is on the right (struggling with her shepherd's robe:)) Josh sang many times and gave a testimony in Slovene about the real reason for Christmas. One girl interviewed says that she liked his story because it was deep and very real life. The clip of him singing comes around the 4:50 mark.

The room that Josh and Steve built

When Uncle Steve came to visit this year for Christmas we put him to work! Since adding Luke to our family 20 months ago we have moved him from room to room trying to make our space work. The bedrooms in our home are not so very big but the girls have shared the larger room since we moved in. They are very happy in there, sometimes too happy as I have to "remind" them that it's bed time and no more giggling! And since there isn't a lot of space we tend to clean out the clutter sooner than might otherwise happen.





Well, Blake has been in the smaller room and trying to add baby boy Luka to 11 year old Blake's space has been interesting. While Blake has been more than willing; we ran up against a problem. Basically, Blake wants to be asleep at 2 a.m. while Luke prefers to scream, I mean call out and see if anyone might be awake and want to play.







My mother says that none of my children have been fabulous sleepers. I have to agree. Although, in my defense I'll just say that I'm first born and have obeyed all the rules and done what the books say. And yet....







Well, all these protestations haven't encouraged our sleeping boy to lie still. So we had him in our room. Just until he would grow out of it and sleep through the night. After his first birthday we saw no light in the tunnel and moved him into the bathroom. European bathrooms are quite big typically. So it would have been a great bedroom. Except that little matter of people wanting to brush their teeth or pee in your room! My mother was of course horrified. "I hope you tell them to flush with the lid down. You know they say...."







So at Christmas time Uncle Steve showed up. He hemmed and hummmed and looked around at the hallway space in front of the bathroom. He noticed the sky light there. And a kids' book shelf. Yes the ceiling does slope; but with a little knowhow two brothers could possibly make this work.







Josh and Steve drove all over town. Thank you Lord for Bauhaus, our version of Home Depot. They got the parts, used a pocket door and now, Luke has a room big enough for his crib, a basket of toys and his night light. The sky light window brings in natural light and there is even a radiator there.







He can't have any big sleep over parties in there but the other kids have all said that Luke has the coolest room of everyone now. And his sleeping has improved! I guess when you wake up and you can't call out to the guy in the next bed and no one is sneaking in to get their tooth brush you tend to get a better nights sleep!







Thank you Uncle Steve!

Patty people Christmas

All the Christmas pictures are loaded now and we can post these great shots of the kids in this years annual Church Christmas program. Blake and Becca were angels and Rebecca got to sing a solo. She has such a beautiful voice and lots of sweet confidence. Kendra was a shepherd and they were all adorable! Luke and I were in the audience since this year they combined the Church choir with the kids' program.

This shot of Luke is him admiring Becca's handy work on a
gingerbread house that she made at the JV Thanksgiving conference.
We all thought she did a great job and were very willing to help her
eat it at any moment she felt it was ready!