Keaton is....

Keaton is adventuresome,extremely honest & open, enthusiastic, loving every minute of life, an awesome uncle, and incredible son, full of integrity, growing in wisdom & stature, becoming a man who fully seeks the Lord, bold, out-going, determined, solid, a thinker, a doer, a goer, a talented musician, will accomplish his calling, and is 16 today!

Christmas with the Deals

Christmas Eve lunch...everyone minus Keaton, he was feeding cows, and Elias, who was napping.

Landon trying on his new coveralls with everyone else in the background. By the time the gift opening was over it looked like the room had exploded with paper and boxes.

Our front flower bed on Christmas morning. So pretty. What a treat to have a white Christmas. It is now a week and half since Christmas and we still have several inches of snow. The FedEx driver would not even attempt our driveway this morning. Once you mange the five miles of backroads to get to a main highway traveling is great!




Dayton and Johnna.

Robert opening his new wallet from Olivia.

Keaton and Pancho a.k.a Elias....

Elias modeling his new hat and fuzzy socks~

Jansen trying to hide behind his knife set.

Haden, Janine and Elias.

Landon opening his much anticipated MP3 player!

Olivia, feeling just dreadful with a fever, and Gloria, her faithful companion.

The Stockings...

Are hung by the chimney with care.......

Baking Marathon!

Twelve batches of cranberry orange bread. Peppermint cookies----however many 14 cups of flour makes. Many, many peanut bonbons. Pretzel chocolate candies. Two pecan pies. Two pumpkin pies.

An Early Christmas Gift

Today, quite by accident, I received an early Christmas gift.

The mail came with an envelope from World Vision. It contained a photo of the most beautiful seven year old boy from India with a letter saying that we are his sole sponsors. I did not remember signing up to host a child but what a joy to see little Satish's face.

Having sweet friends from India when we lived in Switzerland planted a seed in my heart & Olivia's for these people. Sumah and her husband, Bosco, were so wonderful to us. The two of them along with several others cooked delicious food for us, taught us about their country, customs and beliefs. They were patient to instruct Olivia and Landon to eat with perfect form using their fingers. We had much joy with their unexpected friendship.

It seems that we are consistently meeting people with connections to India. An Indian Pastor visited our church and attended our Sunday school class. Then there is Peter Mayer, a talented musician, who grew up in India with his Lutheran missionary parents. We just "happened" to attend his concert last night. and WOW! and so on.....

Anyway, we did not sign up to sponsor Satish. Robert gave him to me as a Christmas gift! He wasn't expecting a letter to come in the mail so soon. Now I can enjoy Satish a few days early.

An incredible gift.

(I will try to get photos posted of our new family member soon.)

www.worldvision.org
www.petermayer.com
www.thekirk.com

Great Grandpa & Elias

My Dad, now Great Grandpa, celebrated his 66th birthday on Friday, December 11th. It was an honor to be with him.

Elias and his Great Grandpa Myers!

Our Beautiful Grandson..... Now 3 1/2 months.

Sweetly Sleeping

Olivia, Elias, and Gloria........