Our Christmas was wonderful...albeit a bit different this year. Our first without Maddie. I did pretty good until she sent me a Christmas card that made me cry for about a day!! But...she is doing so well in her new life and I am so proud of her that it helps to take the sting out of her growing up on me! She has been doing well with school and her full time job as a resident counselor for Heritage Christian Centers. I think God has led her exactly where she needs to be at this moment. We were also blessed to finally meet a very special person in her life...Doug and his daughter Sabrina. We have heard so much about these two and it is so nice to finally know them and have them a part of the family.

Andrew Thomas is recovering nicely from his surgery. He is doing very well at PT and the doctor believes that he will make a full recovery and be at 100% in time for baseball this year. And he will definitely be good to go for his college football career wherever that may be. Many coaches recruiting him, which is exciting but difficult all at the same time. I am hoping that after his overnights with a few of the colleges one of them will jump out at him and he will know in his heart where he wants to go. Not only to play but to learn as the learning is the most important part!!

Abigail had a great season in volleyball this past year and she continues on with her JAVA travel team. She has an amazing spike and it is so much fun to watch her play. We keep hoping she will want to continue to play in college but she has just not decided yet if that is the way she would like to go. We shall see what happens after this years JAVA and of course her senior season next year.

Max is doing well too...he is very smart and loves to learn. He does however need to slow down when he writes as his handwriting is a bit atrocious! He is also not the neatest colorer in town but hey...he has other things on his mind. As Abby says "he doesn't like to be limited by lines" So I guess we will go with that one!! Hopefully over this break we will teach him to tie his shoes...we have been a bit remiss about that one as it is just so much easier to do it ourselves as we are running out the door to get to the many places we need to be. Fingers, toes and laces crossed on this one!!

Drew has had a great year as well. He continues to be an amazing teacher to his many, many students. It is so much fun to hear the kids talk about him and to know what a positive influence he has had on so many. He has also been officially published. His book hit the printers this past month after ummmm...many, many, many months of it being a work in progress with the publishing company. Not sure how successful the book will be but it is pretty exciting to be married to a published author!!

I have been well this past year too. It is a bittersweet year because it is Andrew's senior year and so many things will change and then following right after will be Abby's. But I need to remember to embrace these changes and look forward to the new things we will have in our life. Growing is always a good thing....I need to keep that in mind when I am feeling a bit blue.

There are so many things to talk about as we wrap up this year but I feel like I would be typing forever to get them all down. So instead I will just share a few pictures and promise that this year I will keep up on things a bit better!!