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We had a great weekend with Eric, Kate, Elle, and Zane here.  With birthdays on Feb. 1, 8, and 15, as well as Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year today, we had good reason to celebrate.

Friday night we enjoyed watching Benjamin play basketball and score his first basket this season.  He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face!

On Saturday we made Valentine’s crafts and a Valentine’s/birthday cake.  We also made lanterns for Chinese New Year and made traditional dumplings to go with our feast of Egg Drop Soup and Fried Rice.  We also all enjoyed going to China Night at MU, a celebration of Chinese culture with music, dance, martial arts, and more.  We saw some beautiful performances.

Despite the late nights a good time was had by all.  It’s fun to see the kids playing together and enjoying each other.  We are blessed to have family that lives somewhat close by!

Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine’s Day to all our friends and family!

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We woke up to a beautiful WHITE Christmas!  It had snowed during the night and we had about an inch of snow.  It continued to snow and blow the rest of the day.  It made it extra nice to be in our warm house all day with our family.  We opened the rest of our gifts in the morning and then had “adopted” grandparents over for our Christmas dinner.  It was nice to share our Christmas with them.  Carolyn brought the yummiest cheese cake!  We also got to talk to our family around the globe to wish them all Merry Christmas, wishing we could have been with each one of them.

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We had a wonderful afternoon and evening spending time together.  Of course the kids were anxious all day to open presents.  Our Christmas Eve service was very nice and was a special time to focus on the Greatest Gift of all.  Currently the boys are trying to stay up until midnight to celebrate the official start to Christmas, the three girls are sound asleep, and Chris is trying to set up his perfect Mii. 

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Ahhh, what a blessing to have family to spend a holiday weekend with.  We had uncles, aunts and cousins here for the last few days and had a great time.  The older kids (and grown “boys”) had fun on Uncle Kevin’s Wii and all have sore muscles now.  The cousins had fun together, especially Ami and Elle.  The ladies got to go out for lunch on Friday and do some bargain shopping.  And of course we had lots of yummy food!

We also started a new tradition this year of a family service project.  We made an assembly line and put together a whole bunch of burritos for the freezer of a dear family that is going through a very rough time right now.  They have two adopted children from China (Michaela and Benjamin’s ages) and the mom is fighting through the final stages of cancer.  The guys delivered the food this morning and helped do some needed yard work.  While our hope is in the Lord, our hearts are heavy for this wonderful Christian family.

As our Wolfe gathering sat around our Thanksgiving table and feasted, we took turns sharing what we were thankful for this year.  The blessings are numerous, but at the top of our list was the addition of two very special Wolfe boys, Zane and Elijah.  It was exactly a year ago that we received a video from our friends at PHF with the news that Elijah had been given our package and told that he had a forever family coming to get him soon.  I well remember sitting around the computer watching that video surrounded by family and crying tears of joy.  Wow, what a difference a year makes!  Thank you, Father!

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Kate surprised us with a call on Monday asking if they all could come visit over night on Wednesday.  Of course we said yes!  They arrived in time for lunch on Wednesday and we took today off school to enjoy more time with them before they left.  We had a great 24 hours together.  It was especially fun to spend time with Zane and get to know him more.  Elle and Ami had fun playing dress-up and getting toenails painted.  Unfortunately Elle hurt her foot by playing “Monkeys Jumping on the bed.”  Oops!  We are thankful for family that lives close enough to be able to visit and spend the night on short notice.  Thanks Kate and  Alicia for the good chats.

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We consider Dad our personal conservation agent and park ranger here at Wolfe State Park.  He enjoys the great outdoors and works to help us keep our woods in great shape whenever he is here.  He also seems to add something for the birds each time (feeders, bird bath heater, birdhouses, etc.).  We appreciate all your hard work, Dad.  The house and woods are empty without you.  Miss you already!

Here is a slideshow of just a few of Dad’s pictures while with us this summer.

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Today was more of the same with processing shoes (cutting off tags, banding together, sorting, packing), but we also got to work on socks today.  Each orphan that receives a new pair of shoes is also given a new pair of socks.  We cut more tags off and paired socks together, then sorted them by size.  The kids did a great job again today.  We accomplished a lot and know that ultimately our work these last two days will have a great impact on many children in need.  We hope that our own children’s hearts and lives have also been impacted by our shoe mission.

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It was exciting to load up this morning and head over to Buckner to deliver our shoes and begin to work.  We processed loads and loads of shoes.  We cut off tags, took out stuffing, unknotted laces, rubber-banded shoes together and sorted, sorted, sorted.  The kids really took off with their various assignments and enjoyed working together.  They know how to have fun doing about anything!  Now they are all enjoying playing in the pool.  We’ll get up and do the same thing all over again tomorrow.

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Our group took one day for fun and sight-seeing before doing our mission work for the next two days.  We spent most of the day at the Fort Worth Stockyards.  Texas surely has their own culture and despite the heat we experienced a cattle drive, a maze, a shootout, a Wild West show, ropin’, and Cowboy Church.

The church service was at high noon and was a neat experience.  It was a very laid back yet meaningful service.  Our group of 19 easily doubled the attendance of shop workers and regulars.  We sang some old time hymns, partook of communion and read scripture.  They also had a Sunday School for the kids and made crafts.  At the end of the service they presented each of the kids with a very nice hardback Bible!  Each child’s name was called and they came forward to accept the Bible from the preacher.  We were very impressed with their friendliness and genuineness.

After a day in and out of the heat we had a fun dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.  It was an event in and of itself.  Then it was back to the hotel for swimming.  I think everyone will sleep well tonight!  We are looking forward to doing what we came to do tomorrow…delivering our shoes and volunteering in the warehouse.

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With Grandpa and Grandma Wolfe living in Russia, it’s been quite a while since we were all together for a good family photo.  It will soon be outdated though, as a couple more Wolfe grandchildren are on the way. 

Just click on the first image to start the image slideshow.

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