Our Week in Pictures

Last week we had a youth staff Christmas party. Here's Kai, the elder from the church in charge of the youth cell. We also played a game with the kids that involved wearing mittens and a race to write your name. Kaylie came through for the girls in the end to just beat out Keiric.
The kiddos, bundling up to go out, again.
Coming back from the church in Heiloo, we just missed a train and had to wait for the next one. It was very cold!

One of the guys in my class is from Hungary. For Christmas he was taking used clothes and toy donations back to the children from his town. Hungary is still struggling to recover from communism and the war and is still a very poor country. I went through the kids' clothes and donated a few things they had outgrown, but we didn't bring many toys with us. So, in an effort to teach the kids about giving, I gave them one of their Christmas presents early - a few dollars cash, to be spent on someone else. Though they were at first not so thrilled with their "gift," they quickly got into the spirit as we went through the store and they began to pick out stuff to send. Kaylie kept counting her money trying to find the best (and most) things to send. We have done things like this before (like Angel Tree), but they really enjoyed picking out gifts themselves, rather than finding the items listed. We all had a great time, and I think it was a good lesson learned. I love to take pics as we ride our bikes; sorry they're a little blurry.
"Mom, let me in" - coming in from shopping in town with daddy.


Decorating gingerbread houses with Barbel and her youngest girls. Stephanie then stayed the night with us - Kaylie's first overnight with a friend who was not related to us.


Didn't they do a great job on the houses?!


Pictures from church on Sunday
Jeremy leading communion (in Dutch). I wasn't able to be there since I was asked to fill in for the babies and toddler class, but I heard it went pretty well.
Practicing for the Christmas Eve Service
Biking home from church

And finally, what I know MANY of you have been waiting for!

The kids both got haircuts thanks to Alexandria who has her hair cutting license and is currently visiting her parents here for Christmas.

In other news, Keiric got an eraser stuck up his nose today and required "minor surgery" as I went at it with tweezers and Jeremy held him down. Though his nose bled for a few minutes after the ordeal, he popped up and said, "Thanks mom!" I suppose we should have known that, eventually, being the parents of a boy, we would at some point be pulling something (foreign) out of his nose! Thankfully, I don't think that he will try this again.