Matthew's 6th Birthday

Matthew has turned 6. He was very excited about his birthday and has talked about it for a long time. We had a party for him on Friday as Mark worked from 9am - 9pm on his actual birthday. He invited three friends and we played a few games and had cake. We introduced pass the parcel to his American friends who had not played it before. He really is growing up and is doing really well with his reading and writing. He was very blessed on his birthday and received many gifts. He still brings our family lots of joy as the youngest and often makes us all laugh. He was sharing some gift ideas with us and added in, "I better get something godly, write down a bible or something." We got him a new bible stories book.

Matthew's cake was a football.

Matthew and his friend Ben playing with Matthew's new remote control cars.

Christmas 2006

We have enjoyed our first American Christmas and New Year. It is certainly different having a winter Christmas. We did not have any snow, but it was certainly winter: 7oC and raining. Mark is now back to studying with a J-Term (that is a holiday class) coming up. He needs to read 100 pages a day at the moment. We have been enjoying some extra time as a family though and went to see the movie 'The Nativity Story' the other day. I am doing better although my movement is still limited and I am still seeing the chiropractor twice a week. It certainly seems to be helping though. Thank you for your prayers and Happy New Year.

Prior to Christmas Simon and Mandy (who takes the children for art classes) looked after the children for us. Mandy made these neat Christmas houses with them.

The children had fun opening their stockings in the morning. We brought them a few games to keep them occupied in the cold weather and some little plastic sleds for the snow, when or if it comes.

We had Christmas dinner at this lovely families house with another family. Mark and Rachel are also in Kentucky to be at Southern Seminary. They have two boys; Isaac and Samuel. Samuel is only a week old. Rachel leads a bible study for young girls which Anna-Marie and Rachel have been able to go to. We had a wonderful time with them. It was fun playing 'Catch Phrase' although there were quite a few communication breakdowns.