Christmas Capers!

The last few days..

Baby Alive!

Christmas mornin'

Christmas Lunch

Luke's 9th birthday at Homebush

Bailey's 13th birthday at Luna Park

Gotta love youth group leaders!!

I have always been thankful for the young people at the churches I've been to for their time, commitment and desire to serve the younger people in the church. Now as a parent, even more so. Sarah James has been Hannah's leader for about 6 years at our church and she has been one of the highlights during our time there. She has been fun, energetic, caring, thoughtful, generous with time and money and most importantly, she has modelled to our girl what it looks like to follow Jesus and serve Him with your whole life. Here's the gift she gave Hannah this morning, as a way of encouraging her as we head off to Fiji in 4 weeks. Thankyou Sarah -so typically thoughtful!

It's a  "Fiji survival kit" and Hannah is thrilled!

Snapshots of the last few weeks!

Gingerbread fun!

Finished product

Hannah recieving a "Lindfield Blue"

Yeh baby!!

Last day of school "clap out" for all the leavers.

Getting ready for the gymnastics presentation night

Caleb's 7th birthday

Perfectly normal behaviour....

'arry Po-a

Soph's more recent passion is the Harry Potter series and so her mornings now involve grabbing the book, flinging herself on the bed next to daddy and "assuming the position". I tell her what time she can wake him and she then watches the clock until it is FINALLY time. It's a good thing he shares her enthusiasm over this book - had it been something like Milly Molly Mandy, the reception may not have been so warm.

Commissionanagans!!

We just had the best weekend as we had our commissioning service with CMS. We were officially sent by CMS and our fellow supporters as missionaries to Fiji and farewelled by a whole lot of friends and family. Some of the highlights were:

- catching up with friends from many stages of life
- Dave's fantastic sermon about why we choose to head off on mission.
- seeing the kids with their friends and on the jumping castle
- hardworking friends chipping in and helping out before the day and on it
- Ant back on the organ belting out "It is well with my soul"
- ice cold punch on a 37 degree day!!!
- no rain

All up, it was so encouraging and God -glorifying.....not to mention emotionally draining!

Commissioning Time!

There's been a flurry of "commissioning activity" lately, with ours coming up this weekend. A commissioning service is basically a send off /farewell church service run by our sending organisation CMS and we loved being part of our friends one as well, given that we all lived and trained together in Melbourne for 6 months this year. Sadly we missed Amy's, but were able to make it to the lovely Snowdons last Saturday. It really does make it all feel very real and official. Can't wait to see how God uses them in Spain in the coming years!

Making their promises as missionaries

Celebrating Will's Ist birthday afterwards!

Beautiful Amy- heading to Argentina as a missionary.

Meeting the newest member of CMS.

No queues here..

Kids getting their photo with "The Jesus Display" at our local shopping centre. Three metres away there was an enormous queue for Santas lap -but funnily enough, there was no wait for this one! And the best bit was that the kids didn't find it embaressing at all...!

Controlling the action

I can't believe I am still writing about Ethans birthday which was over a month ago! However these birthdays somehow manage to turn into festivals and we have a pretty big list of " Sydney things" to do before we leave. We've been talking about going to Jambaroo Action Park for 3 years now and so we finally bit the bullet! We grabbed Angus and the cousins and headed down for a fun, but cold day in the water. According to Eth, it was worth the wait!

It's a hard life....

We have taken a bit of time off the last couple of weeks -and enjoyed the sun, surf, food, boardgames etc... We had a great family holiday at Avoca, thanks to some very kind friends, and then just the two of us headed south to Gerringong for a couple of nights while the kids hung with my mum and dad. All of us agreed that we were gone for too short a time -so I will be sure to quote my parents on that next time we need some overnight babysitting! Actully we did miss the kids, but came back very refreshed and semi-ready for the craziness of the next couple of months.

Monopoly and pistachios- the new tradition.

Reptile Park

Beautiful Gerringong

Not a bad place to spend a couple of nights

Lunch at a winery

10 things we love about Ethan

Hard to think that it has been 11 years since Eth entered the scene - time sure does fly! Anyway, here are some of the things we love about him.

1. He's hilarious and gives us the giggles regularly.
2. He's great with young children as we have enjoyed seeing on our many different church visits lately.
3. He loves his sisters and is very protective of them. e.g. "who said that to you Sophie -I will hunt them down".......not really..i assume......
4. He is full of enthusiasm for whatever is going on -even the more girly activities.
5. He encourages us with his love of Jesus and His word in the bible -and thinks hard about what it means to apply what he has heard.
6. He moves on and forgives when he has had a fight with his sisters.
7. His sensitivity when it comes to animals who are hurt.
8. His massively adventurous streak and inquisitive nature.
9. His boyish cheek, which he can also rein in when needed
10.Love that he is still happy to hug and kiss us in public and give his grandparents a cuddle too!

Long time, no write!

Hi again - haven't been around much lately, but I guess being back in Sydney we don't have to document everything for the grandparents as we can see them in the flesh! Its been a flurry of activity during our time of deputation (visiting churches to talk about our mission to Fiji) and , being a huge introvert, all I want to do is lie on the couch and watch telly to recover. It has been fun and encouraging in lots of ways, but will also be good when its over and we can actually get on with the stuff we have spent so long talking about.

A nice interruption to it all was my dad's birthday and Ethans birthday. We had a very excited little birthday boy....and Ethan enjoyed it too! ha,ha! We prefer to refer to it as The Birthday Festival here because it seems to stretch out way beyond the day. Anyway lots of fun was had as the pictures show. First though, a couple of pics from our trip to Vaucluse House/ Nielsen Park....enjoying our favourite parts of Sydney while we can!

Birthday boy and his breakfast waffles

The first of many birthday desserts -Bombe Alaska!

Birthday with the Wrights(cake no. 2)

Boys outing to watch some famous player play some game at an oval somewhere??

And last but not least, the Heard celebrations with cake no. 3......we like our food in this family! Below the new pet mice-Lulu and Potsie.

It's been a busy few weeks! First a busy run of birthdays, then Tony off to Fiji to speak at a conference, then a weeks trip to Perisher for our first family ski trip (thanks to my VERY generous in-laws!!!)Now back home and ready to keep going with our deputation at St Albans Lindfield -where it was so good hearing Tony preach again after a bit of a break. Currently feeling very full after a big day of eating celebrating Fathers Day- also feeling very thankful that my heavenly Father gave me a great dad and gave my kids a great dad too.

Geared up for our first ski

Re-fuelling with a hot chocolate and bacon and egg rolls!

So cold she couldn't feel her cheeks but still smiling!

Tony and his parents

Dumplings for Fathers Day lunch

Suva

A possible house for us in Suva