Saturday, December 20, 2008

Christmas Letter, Part Deux

As I started writing this year's Christmas letter, I was torn with whether to update everyone with all of the current events in the life of our family, or to take it in a different direction. I wanted to do the latter, but I was concerned that some of the current events info (like upcoming surgery for Maggie) needed to be shared. Here is the happy medium. I have cut and pasted the "current events" draft of the letter as a blog posting here so that I can write about something else in the Christmas letter. Hopefully you will still get our Christmas cards by Christmas so that you can read part one! :o)

The family update version of the letter:

Dear Friends and Family,

Here is what is going on with all of us...

Maggie is in kindergarten this year! She has two absolutely wonderful teachers, Mrs. Mercy Williams, and Mrs. Amy Simpson. These two ladies are loving, hard-working, knowledgeable, experienced, and faithful Christians to boot! Maggie adores kindergarten and is quickly learning to read and write. Maggie’s speech has grown by leaps and bounds since our last letter. We are still in speech therapy both in school and privately, but she is showing improvement. The doctors want to take out her tonsils next to help improve her speech by changing the structure of the back of her mouth and throat. We will schedule that for a school break so she won’t have to miss too much school. As always Maggie keeps us smiling and laughing, and she has such a loving spirit with little hugs and kisses and cards always abounding.

Our little man Jackson is finally talking. He was a little slow to start, but he is talking up a storm now! We love to hear him say, “No, no, Daddy!” and wag his finger at Daddy for whatever annoying thing he is doing at the time. Jack is smiling almost all of the time and laughs a lot! He is interested in exploring everything, closely examining each ornament on the tree and even the dust bunnies under the couch. (What dust bunnies? My house is spotless! Ha ha.) One thing that I treasure about Jack is how cuddly he is. He loves to sit on our laps or to lie next to us or to have hugs and kisses. He loves being held. Oh, and if you see Jackson anytime soon, ask him to show you his new shoes (Disney’s Cars). He will be thrilled to show you how they light up when he stomps and maybe he will scrunch up his face in that way he does and get you laughing right along with him.

As I write this, I am excited that both children are scheduled to be baptized tomorrow morning. What a special day for our family! I had some qualms over infant baptism for a while, but heard a very interesting interview on the topic and now feel sure that it is the right thing to do. I am so excited to publicly welcome them into the family of God. Maggie loves the Lord so deeply and purely, and I pray that Jack will grow to do the same.

As for the grownups (if you have Christmas letter fatigue, you can put this down now), Mike is still working at Sage Software, and I am still teaching fourth grade at Alcova Elementary School in Dacula. I am facilitating a Disciple course this year (Disciple 3) and really enjoying it. I love the way that these in-depth studies help me to grow more and more toward my goal of being like Christ.

We are hoping to save enough for another Disney trip in 2010. Maybe next year when you read our letter we will be just about ready!

Until next year...or actually, until you get our card sometime this week (I hope)...!

Love,
The Colley Family