Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas everybody!

Welcome to my official Christmas letter. For those of you who frequent my blog, this will probably be a little redundant, but for my first time or sporadic visitors, WELCOME!



2008 has passed by in a blur. Once again an entire year has passed without another baby. Whew!

Darrin is still teaching PE at Anchorage Christian and has his schedule full with work, coaching basketball and track as well as going to college. He has been working on getting his degree in business at Wayland Baptist. He goes to school at night and takes some online classes. It's a tough schedule, especially during the times of year when he's coaching, but we are determined to see it through. Darrin is preparing to take his basketball team to Orlando next week to play in a tournament and spend some quality time at Disney. These boys have been with Darrin since junior high and they all hold a special place in our hearts. They are like our sons. I think it will be difficult for Darrin when they all graduate this coming spring. He plans to take some time off of coaching basketball next year. As always, Darrin has been very active in the church youth group, specifically junior high. He teaches a Sunday school class, runs visitation on Tuesday nights and game time on Wednesday nights.

I have been a busy bee at home this year. I've started writing more regularly for Peekaboo Picks magazine. I have a weekly crafting/scrapbooking article and it's been good for me to have the accountability to actually accomplish some things with all this STUFF I have accumulated for crafting projects. I haven't been running as much this year. I've only done three races all year long. I was supposed to run a half marathon in June and trained really hard for it with my friend, April. However, we registered too late and the race was full. It was such a let down that neither of us have run much since then. I did manage to beat my own personal record in a 5k race this fall though. Yay me! I'm still teaching the two year old nursery class on Sunday mornings. My first group of kids EVER are in first grade this year. Time flies!

Jaycob just turned five years old in September. He missed the cut-off for kindergarten so I get to keep him for one more year. As much as I look forward to having one less kid to haul to the grocery store, the thought of him starting school makes me cry. Once he starts, he's gone forever! So I'm enjoying this time with him as thoroughly as possible. He is really into Transformers and Star Wars right now. He loves to watch the movies over and over. He won't watch Shark Tales though. That cartoon is too scary. But Darth Vader cutting Luke Skywalker's arm off? Now, that's just cool. Jaycob has become quite the artist this year. He loves to draw and color and he's really good. The things he draws are actually recognizable and my fridge is covered in artwork that I don't know what to do with. He also learned to ride his bike without training wheels this year. We got him a bigger bike for his birthday and it took some getting used to. He's still pretty nervious about riding it.

Jordy Roo is three years old. She is such a girl. But she's not girly at all. She's super emotional all the time. Not just in a bad way though. When she's happy, she's SUPER HAPPY, when she's feeling sweet she is very cuddly and affectionate. When she's ticked off, LOOK OUT. She is not into any of the usual girly stuff though. She could care less about princesses or baby dolls. She wants to hold straws or sticks in her hand all day long. If you look back at previous blog entries you will very rarely find a picture of her without a stick of some sort in her hand. She has been doing this since she was old enough to pick one up. She is the messiest eater on the planet. My baby is neater at meal time than she is. This summer she finally figured out how to pedal her bike. It was a big moment because we'd been working on it for a year. She doesn't like to put a lot of effort into things that take actual muscle activity. She'd much rather color or watch Sesame Street.

Joshy is two years old. He's a big boy and such a love muffin. He's by far my cuddliest child. He's so polite and sweet all the time. But he's also easily offended. His piercing squeal of a cry is horrific and makes us all run for cover. He's getting into trains and cars these days. He doesn't care much for TV though (which kills me! Ha!) but he loves to go off and play by himself. Very easily entertained. He seems to really love music too. Whenever I blast the tunes he tells me "I like dis one!" for every song. I just introduced him to mistletoe today and he won't stop kissing me. Not that I'm complaining. Especially since Jake cries every time I try to lay one on him.

So that's what's up with the family in a nut shell. (What does that even mean?). As always, the Lord has been blessing our family in wonderful ways. I hope you all have a wonderful December and a very merry Christmas. Our's will be merry and WHITE! We have two feet of snow so far. It's beautiful of course, but it's been really cold this past week. Single digits, ugh.

Love, The Powers Family