Merry Christmas!

We've had a busy, crazy year but that pretty much sums up our life most of the time!!! The most significant thing that stands out in our minds is Hayden's illness last month. It actually started October 31st. We are so very thankful for his miraculous healing and restored health. The pneumonia he had was scary but God always gives such peace in the storm. We are very thankful for the doctor's who cared for him and the nurses.
Our lives are forever changed after his hospital stays, particularly his stay at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. We are thankful for the perspective it gave our family. There are so many very sick children there and so many who don't even have family sitting next to their bedside day in and day out.
We are so thankful that I can be at home and teach our children and care for them everyday. There are times I get exhausted and God reminds me of Deuteronomy 5:29;
6:5-9. We are continually trying to impress God's word and His love to our hearts and our children.
God is good and we praise Him for His gift of sending His beloved Son to this earth..a sweet baby. For His life on earth and His death and Resurrection and the promise He has made to return for those who believe in Him. We pray this is our focus and yours this Christmas season. God bless you. Merry Christmas and Happy 2010 family and friends!

"There is a Time for Everything and a Season for Every Activity Under Heaven"

Forgive us for not being very good bloggers. For those of you who read this, you know I'm not Miss Computer!!!! Remembering to blog just doesn't happen to be a priority on my everyday list (surprise!) Especially when you've had a travel, fun-filled summer. So we'll pretend like it hasn't been since May that we posted last.

Welcome Fall, we're glad you're here. We love this time of year and where we live now it's absolutely beautiful. The many colors on all our trees make you stop and praise God for His amazing creation.

We just returned from a school-field trip to Washington D.C. and also attending our dear friend, Mary Jo's burial at Arlington Cemetery. She passed away earlier in the summer but the burial was October 9th. Please pray for her husband and two children. We all know she is celebrating with her Lord and Saviour in heaven and not dealing with any more pain and cancer but it's still hard for those left behind. While we work through the grieving process we rejoice in the promise the Lord has made: "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." Philippians 3:20

A Little R & R

We love getting away and having fun together and relaxing. We praise God for the opportunity to do that as much as we get to and for His beautiful creation. Here's a few pictures of our latest time of R&R and FUN!!!!

National Day of Prayer 2009

"If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord you God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock~the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven."

Deuteronomy 28:1-7

One of the many reasons....

We home school our children for many reasons. A lot of people think we're crazy and a lot of people support us. The first reason we home school is we feel called, by the Lord, to do so. Is it hard? You bet it is. Are there days I wish I didn't? You bet I do. But I have to confess that whenever I feel defeated and ready to throw in the towel, the Lord always brings something to mind or heart to confirm that I'm doing what He has called us to do. He never allows satan to mess with my mind too long. It's amazing and a blessing to teach my children to read and hear them read their first words and first book. It's amazing to hear them read their Bible, by themselves. It's amazing to see them grasp 2+2=4 and watch them build on their math skills. It's fun to learn along with them. It's fun to hear them TEACH me!!! I can't imagine missing out on eight hours of their lives everyday and all the conversations we get to have. And this song/video sums up one of the many reasons we home school, my first baby will be ten, where have the years gone? I've not missed anything he's ever done and they've still flown! I will be forever thankful for the time we've had them and been able to teach them. Don't know if the Lord will call us to home school them all their school-age years but why He is, I'm going to obey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6JHXHWZL- this link is no longer up, sorry. You can go to YouTube and check out the song "It Won't Be Like This For Long" by Darius Rucker. Sorry for the confusion!!

Our baby

Halena is at the stage where she doesn't like to be referred to as our baby girl. So, we try not to call her that (shhh.. even though she will always be that to her Daddy and Mama!) So our "baby" in the family is our doggy, Hannah. Hannah had the privilege of staying with Grammy for a few weeks while we got settled in. Grammy spoiled her, just like she does the kids, while she was there. Needless to say, she needs lots of exercise and a low-fat diet now! :) Here's her favorite past time and exercise plan:

Praising Jesus

We are thankful to our family and friends, who read our blog, for praying for our dear friend, Mary Jo. She received a WONDERFUL report from her Dr. at Mayo Clinic today that the large tumor near her esophagus is dead - DEAD!!!!!!!!! We are praising Jesus and beyond words of thankfulness to Him. Would you please join us in thanking Him for healing her and ask Him to continue to keep her cancer-free and healthy. Thank you!! (This is us with our girl's on New Year's of this year.)

March Madness

We have been watching a lot of basketball, at the Handel house, for several reasons. One, the Mama of the house loves the sport and the Daddy is pretty fond of it too. Thankfully, our kids are learning more and more to like it as they get older. I always thought about the days when they were old enough to "get into it". Well, we're there. Halena doesn't hang too long with the rest of us and so we carry on side conversations and games with her while watching. The rest of us are INTO it!!! The boys are so fun to watch the games with. We all filled out our brackets. Hayden was leading the way for quite sometime, Holten was furious!! Halena's bracket was...well, last :( Daddy ended up with the most wins. We anxiously awaited the 9 p.m. tip-off - yes, the kids got to stay up, the Championship can't be missed (even if it's not Kentucky playing for the title). There are only two UK fans in the house anyway :( The rest of them will learn one day, is what Hayden and I keep telling them. Holten knows every player as soon as he watches the first 4 minutes of every game. He memorizes their name and number, if any of us needs to know who the foul was called on or who made the basket, Holt's our man!! We've decided it's good to move right before March Madness begins - which is our plan for next year. You unpack and park it and watch basketball for a few weeks, not feeling guilty because you don't know anyone yet anyway and what could be better?!!!! Our hats are off to the UNC Tar Heels who played one beautiful game (that compliment only comes because you have one of the most class act coaches ever!!!!)

Cutey Patootey

Halena and I got to babysit Jud while his mama and daddy went to see Billy Joel and Elton John in concert. We had so much fun and he has grown SO much since we saw him at Thanksgiving. We're thankful to see him more often!! He was smitten by Halena and wouldn't take his eyes off of her the whole evening. My sis and bro are doing a great job parenting. He was an angel for us.

We're Here!!!

Long delay in posting, so sorry about that!! It was a crazy few weeks of packing and then making the commute and getting settled in. We've been here since last Thursday and the kids arrived on Sunday night with Grammy :) We still have some boxes to unpack and LOTS of things to get rid of but we are loving it here!!! It's like being on vacation 24/7 ~ we're looking at it as a retreat with Jesus. The weather has been beautiful and thank God the wind doesn't blow hardly ever here:) Can't wait for our dear family and friends to have a get-away from everyday life and come spend some time with us!!

Here are the kids showing off their "treasures" from the lake (no pun intended - ha!) And a view of the lake from our back deck. We are on the cove so it's small and quiet back here. We are anxious to blog a little more regularly and keep you updated!

Crossing The Delaware

Our dear friends, The Henns, had the kids over one day last week so I could get some packing done. Tanya is the best teacher EVER!!! She gave the kids an assignment, but the catch was, they had to do the teaching!! They could pick any U.S. President and come up with the lesson. Here is what their five kids and our three came up with ;) Enjoy!!

It's Official.......

Well, we've been waiting to share our news on our blog until we had some more time to be sure and now we are sure.......we're moving!!!!!!!! We are excited, stressed, overwhelmed, thrilled, sad - all those things. God is good. We knew we would be needing to pick a new location for John to keep things going, as his company desires. We've been praying it would either be a location that puts us right in the middle of both our families or eight hours or less to mine. I really have the need to spoil my nephew :) God has answered our prayers and we're moving to PA. We will be 6 hours from Cincinnati, 2 hours from Pittsburgh, 4 1/2 hours from Washington DC (which is very high on our field trip list!!) and 5 hours from NY. So, it's good vacation spot. We expect some visitors. We are going to dearly miss our friends and family here just like we miss our family and friends from Cincinnati, here. God is good and is pulling this all together beautifully and we know He is faithful and has always provided. We are trusting him and can't wait to see what work He has for us to do there. We are busy packing and plan to be there by the end of the month so we may be absent on the blog for awhile :)

The Winnabego

Finally... a picture of the boy's car (forgive the picture quality but I think you'll get the idea). Hayden and Holten, and their good buddy, Silas decided to make a camper for their car at AWANA drive-in movie night. It was a real hit!

Happy Birthday to our Princess!

Our Princess turned 6! It's hard to believe we were sitting in the hospital with her in the special care nursery six years ago!!! Time really does fly when you're having fun :) She has looked forward to her day for...well, a year :)!!! On the evening of January 31st we tucked her in and said prayers and when we came out of the boys room from doing the same with them, I peeked in to see if she was asleep already and she looked at me with this big grin (the kind she has when she has PROBABLY done something she shouldn't have) and I said, "Did you do something you shouldn't have done?" She giggled and said, "No, I'm just so excited that tomorrow is February and that means I'm almost 6!" She had a great day. I won't post all the pictures, I probably post too many. (That's all I know how to do! ha!) Anyway, here's a before and after picture of our drama queen. She wanted to get her haircut for her birthday. We couldn't have Carey do it so we had my friend here, at the salon I go to, cut it. Her name is Steph and it was her birthday, too. It was a lot of fun.

The Princess Limo

The kiddos are starting to feel better and act more like themselves!! We thank Jesus for that!! We have a yearly art project around here and it is one of their AWANA events. The kids go to AWANA each week and they have a yearly event called "Drive-In Movie Night". The kids have to make cars out of cardboard and then they take them and sit in them and watch a movie. It's a big hit!! So, I decided that would become one of their major art projects of the year. Daddy and Mama can help with the car but the idea has to be theirs!!! Their creativity can really roll, no pun intended!! So, here is Halena with her dear friend, Lydia, in the "Princess Limo".

It's About Time

We aren't doing very well at this blogging thing, are we?!!! Our desire to keep family and friends updated might become a monthly thing ~ ha! ha! We had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed having all of Daddy's family here. We're almost through January and there's a little girl in this house who is ANXIOUSLY looking forward to a birthday in February :) The boys get excited about their birthdays but you've never seen anything like the Princess and her sheer delight over turning a year older and all the discussions about "the day!!" We are celebrating as a family on her day and actually having a big party mid-February because Grammy, Auntie LA and Judson are flying out to party with us. We are counting down the days for their arrival.

The two youngest have been sick. Holt has had pneumonia for more than a week now. The first antibiotics didn't work so we've started his second round. Poor little guy has felt yucky for a long time. We anticipate the Lord's healing soon. Please pray for him to be 100% quickly, we would appreciate that. He did lose a front tooth last week and it's just precious.

Daddy will be wrapping up his role running the plant he built last year. We are excited for him to get back into the building role, which means a move for us and we're eagerly waiting for the full list of possibilities and praying for the Lord's will to lead us where He wants us to go.

We have so many friends that we're praying for. We praise God for answered prayer in healing and sustaining so many. Our friend Mary Jo had a great report from Mayo last week. Please continue to pray that God heals her TOTALLY of the cancer; Tangi has not gone into labor after falling when she was 23 weeks pregnant, pray that her hospital bed-rest would go quickly and she and baby would be healthy; Carey didn't have to have her baby too early and everything looks great, baby should come in late February. We pray for all of you and love you dearly!