In the month of December we usually re-post all our favorite Advent/Christmas posts.
We recorded the song and filmed this year's (sixth annual) Christmas production this past weekend. It isn't going to beat some of the past years in our opinion, but Troy did get to co-write a song with a dead guy without express written permission, so that was pretty cool.
We admit that for year six it was suddenly kind of hard to think of new ways to talk about and present (the true meaning of) Christmas. The covering on Lydia's head (below in the year one video) is still in the costume rotation and we realized our props have grown a bit weary and maybe even boring over the years.
We re-watch these as a family every year and laugh at the precious speech impediments and remembrances of each year's quirks. Year one was the least edited and least produced ... But that will probably become painfully obvious to you if you watch it.
This was December 2007, in Zimmerman, MN. We were there (not in Haiti that Christmas) having Lydia, putting our house on the market after the renter left, and moving Britt to Baylor to start college in January. The idea of the production wasn't well received by the older girls on this first year, but they have since submitted to tradition sort of kind of almost willingly.
We recorded the song and filmed this year's (sixth annual) Christmas production this past weekend. It isn't going to beat some of the past years in our opinion, but Troy did get to co-write a song with a dead guy without express written permission, so that was pretty cool.
We admit that for year six it was suddenly kind of hard to think of new ways to talk about and present (the true meaning of) Christmas. The covering on Lydia's head (below in the year one video) is still in the costume rotation and we realized our props have grown a bit weary and maybe even boring over the years.
We re-watch these as a family every year and laugh at the precious speech impediments and remembrances of each year's quirks. Year one was the least edited and least produced ... But that will probably become painfully obvious to you if you watch it.
This was December 2007, in Zimmerman, MN. We were there (not in Haiti that Christmas) having Lydia, putting our house on the market after the renter left, and moving Britt to Baylor to start college in January. The idea of the production wasn't well received by the older girls on this first year, but they have since submitted to tradition sort of kind of almost willingly.
Below is year two, filmed November/December 2008 in Port au Prince (at the house we currently live in) with video sent to us from Texas by Britt (our oldest daughter) and Chris (at the time her fiancée). This was the year that Noah spoke English but needed sub-titles anyway. This was also one of the two years that our niece Annie was living with us and got in on the tradition.
We'll post years three through five later this week.
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Quickly, one last thing today. We'd really love if those of you that are willing and able to pray for us would pray that we find a suitable living situation in the coming six months. We have loved our very nice home that we've been in for a little over four years. We have been uber blessed to live in such a lovely, new, clean, rental-house.
With Paige moving out for college in mid 2013, we would like to find something MUCH less expensive, and smaller. (The earthquake drove our rent up when large NGOs with large budgets came into our neighborhood and had the ability to easily pay higher rent.) Our landlord isn't willing to come down on his increased rent price so we're actively looking and asking God to provide a place that is more affordable by July 1st. That probably sounds like a ridiculous amount of time from an American viewpoint, but we need to stay close to the Maternity Center and our options are very slim so we're starting the search and the praying for a new place nice and early. :) Thanks for praying!
