Christmas Letter '09

Merry Christmas,

This is the first year of many we’ve been able to write a Christmas letter. Just like most of you, we’ve been busy, busy!

We are still home schooling. Hannah is in third grade and Mikayla is in second grade. Autumn just celebrated her second birthday and thinks she is in school too.

Chad is working at MS Valley Title and is very happy there. He has just recently moved over to their Canton courthouse and loves it. It puts him traveling 45 minutes one way to work, but he says it is worth it!

Chad has recently been very busy preparing for Pinelake’s (our church) Christmas Music program called Best Gift. By the time this reaches you, Chad will have performed in 5 performances in one weekend and many, many rehearsals. He has one short solo part and is singing in an ensemble. I am so proud of him being brave. I will be helping with the interpreting in our Friday performance. Chad is really enjoying his new found friendships with all his choir friends.

Chad has also started hunting again this year. He is very excited about it. He has even taken Mikayla out in the woods to hunt. She loved it too. Chad said she was the perfect little hunter, quietly watching and waiting for a deer to approach.

I am still signing at Pinelake with other interpreters as well as teaching Sunday school every now and then in the Deaf Ministry. I am very involved in our ReACHE home school group. I was just appointed to their board to take over the communications area. I basically created; run and update the ReACHE website and YAHOO group, as well as put together a newsletter quarterly for our members.

In June, I also started a website for our community called RankinKountyKids.com. This website is a database for fun things to do in and around our community (in our county) for parents and kids. It has been fun to put together, as well as a challenge to learn different types of HTML and CSS code on my own.

I’ve also been busy, busy teaching myself how to sew and knit on a loom. I’ve been able to make lots of fun things this year. Pillowcase dresses and twirly skirts have been fun to make. I’ve made several hats and scarves. As you can probably tell, I have a hard time sitting still.

These are hats for We Will Go ministry downtown.

Birthday gift for my niece.

The big girls went to sewing camp last June and had a blast! They both learned to hand sew and sew on a sewing machine. They made bags, skirts, purses, pillowcases, hair scrunches and many other things. They’ve sewed several times since then and have even sewed some Christmas gifts for family.

Hannah and Mikayla with the group of girls showing off their pillowcases and skirts they made during camp.

They have also started Karate this year. Mikayla picked it up right away and LOVED it. Hannah was a little more apprehensive about it, but is doing GREAT. They plan to test for their first belt after Christmas. Chad is taking karate with them.

Hannah went away to her first summer camp last May. She was gone for a week. It seemed like eternity for the rest of us. We couldn’t wait for her to return home. She had a great time. She also stayed with Nana and Pappy (Chad’ parents) and Misty and Marty (Chad’s sister and brother-n-law) this year. She is a girl who likes to travel.

Hannah also started her own little business making bubble magnets. It’s been lots of fun helping her in her creative ventures. I suppose it runs in our family.

Mikayla is more of a homebody but thrives in her environment. She has taught herself how to do handstands and back flips. She is doing excellent with her piano lessons. She will learn to play something, memorize it very quickly without having to look at the music again. She is one of those that tries something once and has it.

Autumn has learned sign language this past year using her Signing Time DVD’s she received for her last birthday. She signs all kinds of animals, foods, vehicles, emotions, and daily life signs. She is very shy with the camera so I’ll have to hold everything she has learned in my memory.

The girls are doing very well in school. They are involved with several co-ops this year. One is American History that meets once a month. So far they’ve learned about Christopher Columbus and William Bradford. They’ve even been geo-caching. Another Co-op they do once a month is PE. They get together with our home school group and play all kinds of school yard games and learn basic skills for different sports. Finally, the last co-op they are involved in is one that we do every other Friday with a dear friend and her daughter. We study different artists and try to recreate some of their techniques in an art project, they have piano lessons, learn praise and worship songs in ASL, and do review and a project from our Astronomy curriculum we study during the week.

A very exciting thing that happened this year for both Hannah and Mikayla (and us) is that they asked Jesus in their hearts. Hannah was baptized in February and Mikayla was baptized in November. It was very exciting for our family!!!

Mikayla's baptism

Hannah's baptism

As you can tell, we stay very busy but our life is blessed and we are thankful for God’s mercy, faithfulness and guidance in our life. We’ve lost much in the last few years, but have pulled together and grown closer through it all. We pray that you will have a great Christmas and especially a wonderful new year.

You can see what we do all year by visiting our blogs:

www.parkerplaceacademy.blogspot.com

www.inspiredbymimi.blogspot.com

www.hannahshappies.blogspot.com

www.rankinkountykids.com

and catch Chad and I on Facebook.

Chad, Jennifer, Hannah, Mikayla and Autumn. ~ 2009