I do, I do, I do believe in fairies!

The twins are 9, and I can't believe it! Last weekend we had a Tinkerbell extravaganza, complete with fairy tag, lots of glitter and tiaras, and yours truly as the resident fairy godmother. Living at 6,000 feet above sea level (and, I'm convinced, the fact that my non-American cake pans were in league with the devil) served to make my layered castle cake less than I hoped for, but the kids didn't seem to mind. We are so thankful to Kiana for passing down her leftover Tinkerbell birthday goodies that were shipped from America so that we could join in on the fairy fun!
We filled the take-home goodie bags with candy, stickers and lots of pink, glittery things....This wasn't exactly Whitney's idea of the perfect party, seeing as she is not the "girliest" of girls, but we've told her that she can have her type of party (her dream theme is "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe") next year when we are in America for their special day :)

New Creation Spa Party

Here are some pictures from Kendall's 12th birthday party, which had a spa theme. She had 5 guests: Anna, Lydia, Leah, Macy and Maddie. They all had fun soaking their feet and hands, painting their toenails and fingernails, and doing facial masks. Lydia, Macy and Maddie were able to spend the night, so we made a "Sleepover" cake. Each girl was given a bag full of spa goodies and a letter from her King reminding her that her true beauty lies inside.

Our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace. Psalm 144:12

Let's Try This Again....

Due to the fact that there are many folks that are uncomfortable using Facebook on a regular basis, I am going to try to keep a blog going for this last full year that we know we will be living in Asia. It is considerably more difficult to post pictures here, but I am going to give it a good college try. My goal is to post a paragraph about something that we have done at least once a week, with at least one picture, so that you can keep up with how we are doing and what our life is like on the other side of the planet. You can also keep track of how many days it will be until we leave for the US with our countdown clock in the right margin - this will mark the end of 4 entire years overseas! If you would like to be notified of when I add an entry to the blog, please click on "follow" in the margin. Feel free to make comments at the end of my blog entries as well.

The picture above shows how many hours of my day are usually spent - reading, reading, reading! The children are still being homeschooled like they have always been - Brooks is in the 8th grade, Kendall is in the 6th, Whitney is in the 3rd, and Sidney is in the 2nd. We are using Sonlight curriculum again, but are doing 3 core programs at one time this year (anyone who has used this curriculum before will know what a challenging goal this is!). We are studying world history and the eastern hemisphere. Sidney is progressing well with her dyslexia material and learning to read better than I expected. Right now we are also in the midst of the children's birthday season - Hopefully the next few posts will have pictures of the parties!

Thanks for reading our blog and keeping our family in your thoughts :)