Merry Christmas!!!

Our Christmas morning devotional came from our dear friend Belay in Ethiopia ~ he sent a newsletter through his ministry Hope for the Fatherless about that very first Christmas ~ there was no room for Jesus at the inn ...... He was born in a stable with animals ~ the lowliest of places for the highest of kings ~ the Lord of lords and King of kings. 

If they only knew WHO they didn't have room for there in Bethlehem. Today Jesus knocks on our hearts and desires to live in us ~ will we make room for Him? 

Will we clear out all the things in our lives that distract us from living fully for Him? That is our family's desire for 2016 ~ to clear out the clutter of our lives and make room for Jesus to live in and through us. 

Our love will never be enough. Our patience will only last so long. Our joy will always be conditional apart from Him in us. 

Only His love endures forever. Only His patience never runs out. 

Only He can create joy in suffering. We want that.....we want Him to fill us to the full! 

We enjoyed a morning at home with my side of the family

Anna and Kaylee :)

Special time with cousins

Papa and Uncle Dave

Hugs to thank Nana

The Clarks love their new hats

We love when Aunt Abbie comes!

We headed up north after opening Christmas morning gifts and had Christmas with Grandma and the Courages! 

The kids' favorite Christmas gift is their puppy Duke ~ we love him! Fits right in already :))). Keegan even gets up with him in the night if he has to go potty! 

Merry Christmas and looking forward to an amazing 2016!!! The year our Little Brother and Baby Sister come home!!!

Christmas Crafts

So thankful Kaylee has a sweet brother to do her school crafts with! Makes it a whole lot more fun for her! 

We learned about Christmas Trees as we read The Legend of the Christmas Tree.....the lights we string on our trees remind us that Jesus is the Light of the world, the ornaments we put on our trees help us to celebrate the birth of Christ, the star we place on top reminds us that Jesus came to save the world and its our job to proclaim this truth to the world!

We made our own Christmas trees and talked about how WE can be a LIGHT for Jesus! So thankful the Lord has brought Kaylee to a place where she can begin to learn about His amazing love!

Kaylee's ideas of how we can be His Light were that we can be nice to siblings, obey mommy and help others out when they need it :)

More Christmas trees! 

We read This is the Stable and noticed all the rhyming words :)

Then made our own stables and mangers with Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus and the stable animals :)

Thankful for this season of celebrating the birth of our Savior in so many different ways! 

Volleyball Weekend

Keegan had a VB tournament out of town this weekend so we headed up north early to go to Six Flags :)))

So glad Brod's fam could join us! We had a blast :)))

Kaylee LOVED the roller coasters and even wished she could have been tall enough for the bigger rides ~ she has no fear when it comes to crazy stuff like that ;) 

Tea cups! 

So much fun :)))

And the. VB all day :)))

These guys did great and have worked hard all year!