Their Dad

To these little guys, he is Superman!!

Make New Friends

But keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.  We have some amazing friends.  Sometimes I truly marvel at the people God has allowed us to know and love and be loved by.  He is kind.    And though we are making great friends here in our new home, our old friends are still so precious and dear to us.  Maybe even more than when we lived near them.  My BFF from way back, is a shining treasure to me...a reminder of God's perfect love for me.  She's the one who really introduced me to Christ.   And there are my treasures from college and China too.  We have some "gold" friends from each stage of life!

And our kids have a few "gold friends" that we still talk about a lot.  See that candy jar?  It was a gift from some of our china friends when we were leaving.  They are in every little street shop in China, filled with lollipops for little ones.  The plan was to bring it home and eat the lollipops as a reminder of each other and our time together in China.  And we did.  The lollipops are gone, but we keep refilling it and remembering!  YAY for friends and candy!  To the golden friend who gave this to us,  do you still have yours????

Puppet Show

She even wore white puppeteer gloves.  Oh my!  

3 Performances

 (From Wiki)  Saint Lucia's Day (sometimes Lucy for short) is the Church feast day dedicated to Saint Lucy and is observed on the 13th of December. Its modern day celebration is generally associated with Sweden and Norway but is also observed in Denmark, Italy,Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Bosnia, Bavaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Spain and St. Lucia, West Indies.  In the United States it is celebrated by little girls getting super creative with extra garland, sheets, and paper candles.  

HEHE. ok, I added that part!  Andy and I actually learned about this Nordic holiday while in China.  Each year, we loved visiting a local art gallery run by Nordic friends, sipping mulled wine (ok, I hated that part!) and watching this beautiful performance.  Lots of young women dressed in white led in procession signing Santa Lucia and other Christmas carols.  It was really beautiful.  

Grapes is creative.  We all know that.  And on St. Lucia's Day she gave us a really fun performance.  We made the costume and she came down the stairs to the hauntingly beautiful song Santa Lucia.  There are varying stories on the life of Santa Lucia, and it's not a holiday we normally celebrate.  But this year, creativity, the calender, and our warm memories of celebrating St. Lucia's day in China collided for a fun morning!  

 And a little brother can't be left out of the fun.  He came riding down the stairs on his horse to some Gene Autry tunes...but got a little stage fright half way down, as you can see!

And this little guy.  Well he's the star of the CUTE show.  We are loving our five month old! He's FUN and oh so cute!

Each one of these little ones is fearfully and wonderfully made.  Your works are wonderful God, I know that full well!  Psalm 139

A year of putting down roots!

At 6:30pm we poured the sparkling grape juice, passed out cups of M n M's and party horns, and watched last year's New Year's Eve countdown on Youtube.  We ran around outside screaming HAPPY NEW YEAR and then my kiddos were in bed by 7:30!  I'm hoping they'll sleep through the actual ringing in of the new year, but it's unlikely with all the fireworks!  Either way, I'm glad we celebrated early and got a few good hours of sleep in before the fireworks begin.  My five and four year old just aren't ready to party til midnight.  (Neither am I for that matter!)

Andy has been gone for five days now and we are all eager to get him home tomorrow!  God has provided for me through friends from church. I've had play dates and help putting kids to bed and friends to cook for us and friends to spend the night with me.  I got a break and sat by a lake for an hour!   And I even had a stranger buy my groceries...which is a post of it's own!  I'm so grateful for how well it went...cause let's face it,  I AM NOT GOOD AT SINGLE PARENTING!!! I get frazzled and angry and overwhelmed.  Much help was needed and much help was provided!!!  The Lord was very kind to me.  

I've been thinking about this past year and it's been a year of putting down roots.  2012 was our first full year in our house.  It was first full year as members of our church.  It was Andy's first full year at his new job.

Andy working, well sorta

 It was our first year to have a season pool pass and to attend all the town's holiday events-The Easter Egg Hunt (which involves a helicopter and marshmellows!), Fourth of July Fireworks, and The Santa Drive By (which involves getting pelted with peppermints!) 

My very pregnant Fourth of July with the Aragones Family!

Marshmellows for Easter with the Wilhoits! 

 It was a complete year-and God has richly blessed us with friends this year.  We are known and loved.  We have friends over for lunch after church and friends who babysit our kids and neighbors we carpool to school with. 

Silliness at our Christmas Party with our Gospel Community

We love our little school

 In 2012 we were able to get the 4 plus years worth of leaves off our lawn so that grass can begin to grow.  That was upwards of a 70 bags of raked leaves.  Things are taking shape and we are starting to have a yard and a life here.  Through it all, God has been faithful.  From the days of intense transition where everything was in chaos to our more settled and normal life this year, he continues to show us his heart of love for us.    We were given a grapefruit tree recently and I think it will always remind me that as 2012 was the year it took root in our yard, so it was the year our family began to take root in this town.  

 My favorite moment of the year was having a baby!!!  Judah is precious and I am so thankful for him.  He seems like he's going to be a fun kid.

Blessed with two healthy boys!  

And I have loved how I am learning to walk with the Lord this year.  Deeper trust in him. Seeing how much I need him and learning to look away from myself and look to him for what I need.  The wreath above my desk says "abide."  That was my word this year-to abide, or hide myself in his love for me!  And as I have done that, I have experienced great joy this year.   There have been some really hard things this year for us, and I am so thankful for how he is shown me his deep love and commitment for me, in the midst of those hard things! There has been real joy in connecting with him, especially in the midst of the harder parts of our life.  So I can walk confidently into 2013, knowing he will walk with me, no matter what the year holds! 

Enter Beth

We've had the pleasure of hosting this sweet friend for a couple of months now!  Beth moved in with us in October and will be staying til February 24th-we're counting down the days  til then (notice the countdown chain above her door)...  But not because we want her to leave but because on February 24th SHE'S GETTING MARRIED!!!

Danny and Beth are in our small group from church and we are really excited for them to start their life together soon!  She's a delight to have in our home and hopefully our chaos isn't too much for her.???   The kiddos really love her and I love hearing them say things like, "Ms. Beth is a part of our family too!"  I'm so thankful for the body of Christ and how we can love and serve one another.

As a busy mom of three, I've been thankful for moments to connect with her over doing my regular job-cooking, folding laundry, helping my kiddos.  It's hard to get to know new people well at this stage in my life when so much of my time goes to my family, so having her in our home has been a treat for me.  So thankful for her.  With each chain we take off her door, we're praying God would bless their marriage and their future together and draw them to himself and each other everyday of their lives!

Merry Christmas Indeed!

Merry Christmas from the Huffmans!  This year we decided to stay home so we were far from those we love most. We love being in our home and enjoying our family's traditions, but it also leaves an ache in my heart not to be in North Carolina or West Virginia.

In the morning we enjoyed some really fun family time with Nerf guns and a baby stroller as the big hits for the morning.  We continue to make good use out of the second-hand china cabinet we bought from a family friend.  While the bottom half is still home to all of our craft supplies, the top half has now been converted into a target board!  There are Nerf darts all over the cabinet and my house!   As we love to do on Christmas, Andy and I got up early and enjoyed some quiet with the Lord before the day got rolling.  That's definitely my favorite part of the day.  In the afternoon and evening, we spent time with some friends from church as well as some Chinese friends.  Waffles, Wassail, and Wii.  (which was hard for our Chinese friends to pronounce!)  It was really good to be with people we love here.

This was maybe my favorite Christmas ever.  Not so much because of the day itself, though it was fun.    But mainly because this season gives me reason to really reflect on  the Christmas story.  And my heart needs to be reminded of the reason I can celebrate.  With each passing year, the meaning of Christmas becomes clearer and richer and deeper to me.  This week, I've been thinking about the phrase in 2 Corinthians, that says, "sorrowful yet always rejoicing."  I think it best describes how Christians in the world are supposed to live.  It's a description of our pilgrimage on this earth that touches both the pain of living in a fallen world and the HOPE we have in Christ.

Sorrowful-I do not need to look farther than my own heart to see the damage my sin causes.  And if I look a little father outside myself, to those around me, I see the pain and bitterness of living in a fallen world, where friends  and family are grieving losses this year,  unspeakable pain of losing children, battling things like spina bifida, being unemployed, losing beloved pets, pain from broken relationships.   The world I live in is broken.  I've been thinking a lot about the passage that says, the WHOLE CREATION is groaning, eagerly awaiting it's redemption. .  We too await our adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies.  It's so true that every aspect of creation is subject to death, until something undoes that...

The reason we can and SHOULD celebrate on this day is because Jesus came into the fallen, broken, sinful world to change everything.  He has undone what our sin has done.  "The weary world rejoices!"  We are weary from the affects of sin but he has come to save us!  We can rejoice!!!    I have real hope and joy in this world, not because I pretend the pain isn't there but by looking it square in the face and seeing the Savior who has overcome all of it.  This is why we rejoice!!!    And Christ is with me, each day, speaking his love to me, guiding me, reminding me of the forgiveness I have in him and the welcome I have with the Father because of him!

So for now, I live as one sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.  And on Christmas we can take time to really celebrate for we have a great hope-Christ with us today, and the promise of the day when every knee will bow to him and when he will wipe away every tear from our eyes!

MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS INDEED!