Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Merry Christmas Letter 2012



Dear Friends,
Merry Christmas! 

We had a full year and are grateful for where God has us right now.  Too busy, but happy and enjoying what He has for us.

Some Highlights of the Year:  January started out with a wonderful vacation to California for our anniversary.  Because of Todd’s paramedic training we didn’t get to celebrate our 10th anniversary in 2011 so we celebrated in 2012.  We had a wonderful time traveling down the Central California coast visiting Mendocino and beautiful, Carmel.   Todd was wondering if they need paramedics in Carmel?!   The kids had a great time with all the Grandparents.  In March, Todd got to go hear one of his favorite pastors, Matt Chandler speak at Mars Hill.  Spring brought a trip to Pomeroy to visit Gran and the cousins and a trip to the Sandpiper with the kids to enjoy the ocean.  Molly also got to be at her friend Andrea’s birth to welcome baby Benjamin into the world.  We also took a quick visit to Oregon as Molly’s great Aunt Mildred passed away at over 100 years old.  It was good to remember her life and see relatives we had not seen for a while.  In June we went to Seaside, Oregon with Todd’s Dad and Linda and we all had a blast.  Because of Iva’s birth, we did most of our vacationing early on and had a quieter summer than normal.  Although right before she arrived, the kids got a week of Vacation Bible School, which they loved.  After a couple of days of contractions that started and stopped, Iva arrived on Molly’s Grandma Dorothy’s birthday, thus her full name ended up being Iva Jo Dorothy Merry!  With her came lots of friends’ babies too- several in the same week!  She will be blessed with friends her age.   Fall brought the Puyallup Fair, school starting up again and a fun field trip to Leavenworth to see a Civil War Re-enactment, as well as a wonderful ladies retreat at church.    In November our good friend Mary Esvelt passed away and we were able to celebrate her life at a beautiful memorial service.  Now Christmas is upon us and we are looking forward to what God has planned for us in the year ahead.

Todd: has been busy with homeschooling Maggie and Silas.  He loves his time with them – seeing them grow and learning right alongside them.  Over the spring, he taught Chemistry for Maggie’s class at Co-op, which was a lot of fun.  There’s nothing like making smoke bombs and blowing things up with a group of 5, 6 and 7 year-olds.  He loves his job at King County Medic One.  Every day is different and always presents with opportunity to care for people and learn more about medicine.   In February, Todd began leading our Community Group (through Mars Hill Church), which meets at our house.  It’s been such a blessing being part of this group and seeing God at work in the lives of our friends.  The group has grown to the point where we are ready to replicate in January.      

Molly: Sometimes life seems almost too full with helping Todd home-school and keeping up with 3 adorable kids, nursing a sweet baby and a very full schedule with friends, family and Community Group at Mars Hill.  There are moments I feel like I am working harder than I’ve ever worked in my life, but after what I went through a couple years ago I love it!  I feel grateful to be able to do what I do and I realize that health and sleep is something I will never take for granted again.  I’m so glad to be sleeping well and in a better spot health wise.  I honestly don’t have time for many hobbies right now, but I still love photographing the kids, journaling about what Jesus has done in my life, reading, writing and especially date nights and vacations!  Someday I will sing, act, teach, write more, play volleyball, ultimate Frisbee and travel the world but I honestly love my life right now and am so grateful.  I can’t believe how much I am enjoying Iva too.  I feel so blessed and grateful for my husband, my babies, home, friends and family and JESUS! 

Maggie:  Maggie is 8.  She has a love for Jesus, love for life, is always coming up with creative play ideas and wants to try everything.  She is a good leader and is great at helping take care of Iva and Lucie.  She is very into crafts, drawing, horses, cooking and too many other things to mention.   She is reading well, taking piano lessons and has her first recital coming up.  She loves to leave special notes around for Mommy and to spend time with all the Grandparents and her many friends.  She took a ballet class this year and is looking forward to tap in the coming year.

Silas: Silas is a thoughtful, energetic, responsible almost 6 year old.  He loves music and instruments and we are pretty sure he will be leading worship at church someday or starting his own band!  He is also almost always upside down and is a strong little man who has learned how to stand on his head already and is looking forward to a gymnastics class next year.  He took on mutton bustin’ at the Puyallup fair and did great.  He thrived in T-ball this summer as well.   He is thoughtful and asks lots of questions about Jesus and decided on his own that he wanted to be baptized.  We are excited for him to be baptized and Iva dedicated on the 23rd of this month.

Lucie: Lucie is an adorable, happy, sensitive little almost 3 year-old.  She is definitely the cuddliest of all of our children always wanting to “hold you”.  She pays more attention to her baby dolls than Maggie ever did and it is so fun to see her little personality develop.  She gives everyone hugs.  She and Silas pretty much vie for the title of “class clown” in the family, and she gives him a run for his money for sure – always goofing off and trying to make us laugh with her crazy faces.

Iva:  We are enjoying Iva so much.  She is sleeping well, and very happy, giving huge grins and giggles to everyone.  She is more of a mommy’s girl than any of our previous babies which secretly delight’s Mommy’s heart.  She has had some skin issues that we haven’t experienced before, so we are learning all sorts of things about how to deal with this, but despite getting an infection on her skin, colds and having baby acne – she is the happiest little girl.  You’d never know from her mood that she was having any problems.  She makes us happy too!

Mars Hill: In April of 2013 we will celebrate 2 years at Mars Hill Church.  We love our Community Group, hosting ladies studies and just being involved and soaking up all the good teaching here.  We love serving and it feels like we have been there forever.  The sermon series we are currently in is,  “He made us family” and we heartily concur.  We miss the wonderful people at Trinity and City Church but we love connecting with them when and where we can as well.

Marriage:  We enjoyed our anniversary trip to CA, as we mentioned earlier but we also loved going through our Pastor Mark Driscoll’s book, “Real Marriage” with our community group and as a couple.  We shared about this last year in our letter, but as Pastor Mark preached through the series early this year, our take away was sort of a no brainer  - but something we’ve enjoyed the whole year through.   We really feel like God has helped us to enjoy our friendship with one another more than we ever have.   Sometimes the husband, wife and parenting “responsibilities” crowd out friendship.  We take the passages of Scripture to husbands or wives and try so hard to obey them – and completely forget that all of the passages of Scripture about friendship apply to marriage as well.  Focusing on this has been wonderful for our marriage.  As CS Lewis says, “Duty is a crutch for love”.   Sometimes we can be so focused on our duties that we don’t even realize that they can become a crutch for us and become unhealthy.  Love comes when we enjoy each other and have fun together.  It’s been wonderful to make this a priority.  (I know I know…duh! – but it really has been great!)

We love hearing from Jesus and growing in Him.  We have been thinking a lot about the gospel, making it the center of our lives and what it really means, – Good news!  Good news – no condemnation!  Good news – we are free from guilt and shame for sin!  Good news – we’ve been given grace!  Good news – Jesus loves us!  Good news – when we focus on what Jesus did for us, rather than what we do for Him, righteousness follows, and sin decreases not the other way around!  We have been looking a lot at how the Gospel is central to everything we do and everything we are.  What Jesus has done for us has become more of the focus and it is so great.   We feel a new energy in serving and excitement in blessing Him.  We are still learning and asking God about how to make the gospel central practically and are loving the journey.

So ….  Good news!  Jesus came in the most vulnerable package possible – a baby - and He did it for you.  He grew, died, rose again and took our sins so we can be righteous and have a relationship with God. 
Enjoy celebrating what He has done.

We love you all.  Have a wonderful Christmas!

Love,
Todd, Molly, Maggie, Silas, Lucie and Iva








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