March 2007

Greetings to each of you and a Happy Easter to you all!

We hope and pray that all is going well with everyone. It has been a long time since I've written anything, so I thought I had better sit for a few minutes and at least start. Hopefully, this will get out before Easter, but who knows.
If you saw the pics, then you realize that we have had Megan for 1 year now. We celebrated with supper at Outback Steakhouse. Then we bought a table and some stools for the kids as a celebration for everyone. They have enjoyed the smaller table so much.
Marcus: Finally, a few weeks ago only, his tooth that came loose at Christmas time is out. The new tooth came through before the old was out, but it looks like it is fine. A few days after that tooth came out, the one next to it came out as well. He is ready for school, and I think we all are ready for him to go. It was a good decision not to send him this year with transition and all, and we are beginning the process of registration for next fall at a local public school. He really enjoys math, and is beginning to read a bit which is fun to watch him sound out the words.
Matthea: If any of you saw her last summer, you would not recognize her today. She has changed so much in just the first 6 months that we lived here. I think that the first two months she made this change of "I want to be a big girl" attitude and began trying new things. Then when we started regular therapy she was ready for their challenges. Since Christmas she has learned to sign more and we are still working on walking without assistance. She offically has taken her first 5 steps as of last month. They are a bit wobbly, but controlled. Other new things is that she has graduated to a big bed, this is great but with some challenges as well....she is still learning to stay in it once it is bedtime. We catch her out playing with toys or trying to get in bed with Megan regularly. It is funny. One last thing that has brought a bit of stress, yet excitment at the same time (if that is possible) is schooling options for her. The dr. all believe that she should start school in the fall. Uwe and went and looked at the options that are available and they are not bad. The stressful part was that we had 3 days to make a decision of where we would want her and if we even wanted her in school next fall. We decided that it was too soon and to wait another year....but with that said, we now know what the process is and probably where we would want her to go.
Megan: She has become quite the mother hen, making sure that everyone is doing what they are suppose to do and taking care of those that are injured. She talks non-stop and it is becoming more clear what she is saying. She is still the entertainment for us nightly with her many dance moves, monkey faces, and comedian style stage preformances. She loves to be mom and take her dolls for a walk in her baby stroller. She is also the first of the kids to have her shoes ready to put on at any sign that we might be going somewhere.
Uwe: Is still busy with school and his paper. We co-coached the JVB girls and had a great time. We were so proud of them at the tourn. There was only 5 and they played two games in a row. Now, their style of ball is to fast break the whole game and they were awesome. They won the first but the second they lost by 1 point in the last 10 sec. and our last shot went in 1 sec. too late. It was truly a scene from a movie. Those girls were awesome. The cool part is that 4 of the 5 are 8th graders and we are now co-coaching the MS team, on which they are on. We are expecting to do really well, or at least we should. In between those games though, Uwe coached the MS boys soccer...he has been so busy with everything, but having fun being on the field again. He also has been on a teacher/staff team that has been playing on a league. They had a tourn. a few weeks ago and they were the champions. It was so fun to see him play. Matthea jumped and clapped most of the time. The other two, well, it was just too long and they colored or played on the stage with the other kids. But, out of all of this Uwe's knees are in lots of pain. He is going to the Dr. again and will probably have to have surgery on them.
Md: Busy with the kids, of course, still doing the Bible study with the Grade 6 girls. That should finish up next month, so that will be nice. I got to attend a retreat for ladies this month. It was nice. A friend told me that I was going and she would watch the kids on Fri. while Uwe was at work. It worked out well and I had a nice time hanging out with some friends. I did alot of laughing, which was so good. The speaker was good too, but I enjoyed just hanging out. But, of course, there are some funny kid stories to add to this retreat...before I left, literally hours before I was to leave...Marcus decides to be cowboy and ropes the TV. All I saw was the TV and stand fall forward; Marcus with the face of "oh, this could be bad" look; and him sticking out his fingers to catch it so it wouldn't hit the tiled floor. He was in some pain, but nothing broken not even the TV. The second incident was with Megan. She had her snack and was sitting in her booster chair. I went to get the broom and I came back to Megan rocking in her chair and flipping it backwards. Again, I was thinking "Am I going to get out of here before the kids kill themselves?"....but, again, she didn't really hurt herself, just scared her alot, and scared me too!

Other things that we are involved in is starting a church that is focused on the families at our school. It isn't totally focused on them, as others are welcomed to come as well. But, our main targets are the parents and the students who don't have a place to go for discipleship. We've only met a few times, but I am very excited to see what God has in store for it. It has been something on our minds and when we got together with the other two families, they had been thinking along the same lines. So we need prayer for this.
Other prayer concerns:
Marcus's school decision...that he's get a good school with a good teacher.
Uwe's knees
Matthea to obey quicker and to understand that she is in trouble
Good ending of the school year
And fun and safety over the Easter holiday as Uwe's sister and family are coming to visit for the week. (Looking forward to this...this will be the third Easter in a row that we have spent with his sister! How fun is that?)