What we've been up to... an extension of our Christmas letter

Jalen, age 17:
Jalen is a senior this year and is intensely looking forward to interning at Disney World during his 2nd term of college next year. Currently, his favorite school subjects are history, art, and drama and he is excited about playing the part of the wizard in June in "Once Upon a Mattress" (a musical version of The Princess and the Pea) at Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, University of Michigan.

In his free time, Jalen is into drawing (cartooning/manga), writing fiction, attending any and all Life Teen events at our parish, and helping as a teen leader of Fuel, our middle school prayer meetings. He is also guilty of sharing one of his favorite addictions with me, the TV show "Psych," and has sucked me in with him to near-obsession status!

The funniest item (to me!) of his year... Jalen is finally ready to cut his hair and now that he is, the director of OUAM told him NO- the wizard needs long hair! :) We have held off on senior photos, letting him decide whether he would cut it before having pictures taken. Looks like that epic moment will have to wait until June!


Luke, age 15:
Also in the Explorers Drama production, Luke will be Sir Luce and the understudy for the prince. Musically, Luke picked up the bass guitar over the summer and hopes to start serving soon at Fuel in music ministry. He also plans to learn the ukulele in the coming year- I don't know why, but this is one of the things that makes him such a *fun* kid to me!

Luke is always amazing us with his photography and his unique eye in all things artistic. This is likely his last year of homeschooling as next year (10th grade) he hopes to attend WTMC, a charter school at Washtenaw Community College, where he plans to study photography.

Luke is also very active in Life Teen, going on several retreats and conferences in the last year, and John and I are so thankful that one of our greatest problems with having teens so far has been... the cost of gas.


Morgan, age 11:
Morgan is a singer (2 choirs), dancer (worship dance, drama), actress (in "Annie" July 2010, and in the singing/dancing chorus of "Once Upon a Mattress"), musician (violin and piano), and athlete (CTK Jaguars volleyball and basketball.) She recently began a conversational French class with several friends and is really enjoying it (it helps that her awesome teacher brings hot chocolate and crepes to class!).

Morgan attends Fuel, the middle school prayer meetings at CTK, and is a member of a Catholic girls' group called "Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus." She comes home with wonderful ideas for expanding our family's faith life together and I think her passion will help bring great changes to our home.


Parker, age 8:
Our little pirate princess follows in her sister's footsteps as a dancer, with two worship dance classes, basketball player (in the Upward league), and in violin, piano, and French.

Parker, in 3rd grade, is my most eager student. Among her favorite subjects are history and science. She has many goals and asked if she could be "more than one thing" when she grows up- the current goal is a world-traveling scientist/inventor/chef/dental hygienist. :)

She can make something out of ANYTHING and constantly raids the trash cans for discarded items that can be used in very unique ways. It's cute, but I do have to watch what I throw away!!


John:
John continues to feel like he lives a life way cooler than he deserves. He just finished his 23rd year working for Thorton's and still really enjoys it. He is coaching basketball in two leagues for the girls, and his alter-ego, "DJ Jedi," is still doing his podcast and occasionally does special shows for Emancipation Radio.

John's bucket list got a bit shorter this year as he got to see the original band "The Time" (you know... Morris Day, Purple Rain!). We have seen the traveling band and met them a few times also, but this year in Detroit we were able to meet and hang out with all seven of the originals.

His other favorite days were driving like a madman through the night to get me to Florida and into the Magic Kingdom before my 40th birthday ended (I got 4 glorious hours complete with fireworks!) and also he says "just the simple days with my redhead and our kids." Love that guy!


Kelli:
What have I been up to??? I pretty much have a full-time job coordinating all of the above!! In addition to playing taxi driver and master-scheduler, I am the yearbook instructor at Explorers, the team mom for the CTK Jaguars, and I'm in my 18th year as a dental hygienist, still working part time for CSW Dental Associates. (Oh, I left out my other full-time job... homeschooling! I am teaching grades 3, 6, 9, and 12 this year!)

My favorite memory of the year is, of course, our trip to Disney World for my 40th birthday. I look forward to our next trip in 2012 when Jalen spends a semester there. :)


Even with the challenges that the year has brought, God has lovingly opened a window for us for every door that was shut. I am very excited about the new year and the changes that are sure to come. I was just explaining this to one of my teens the other day... It is hard to not know the future but over the last 23+ years with John, we can look back and see how the mighty hand of God was guiding us. We have suffered losses that were difficult, only to see that the Lord actually had something better in mind for us. Sometimes it took years and sometimes only weeks or even days to see what blessings He wanted to give us. We are so thankful for His loving care!

Thanks for checking in with us this year. We pray for peace and joy for you in 2011!

Celebrating

It's been a great week and a half or so of school shows, talent shows, ballet, and birthdays! Here's a little of what we've been up to..

Our drama club had a fabulous talent show and all the little girls were really enjoying the nationally-ranked Elvis impersonator that emceed...

Morgan and her friend Colette sang Christmas songs and there were so many other fun, funny, and beautiful performances. It was a great evening out, enjoying wonderful food and friends.


A few days later, it was Luke's "golden" birthday...fifteen on the fifteenth! He gave us ZERO ideas for a birthday gift but he seems to be enjoying his new Flip. :) What a joy this young man is to us! He has a heart of gold, a great sense of humor, and musical and artistic talent that obviously did not come from my DNA. The Lord will do mighty things with this young Jedi. :)

Then, on Thursday, we were off to the Nutcracker to watch our friends, Sarah and Lydia Polk, performing in the first of their five shows. Sarah and Jalen...

Thursday night, we surprised Luke with a belated birthday dinner at IHOP (he's been asking to go there since it opened.) I love this photo- Luke and Mo can get irritated with each other sometimes, but more often lately, they have been best buddies. LOVE the expressions...

And finally, we had a birthday dinner with our friends at Pizza Hut for Luke and for their daughter, Kristin (18). I am fairly certain that the Schultz family was dropped straight from heaven just for us. Here are two of their four teens, David and Sarah, along with Luke in all his silliness!

So the last week has been one long and glorious celebration! Now the decorating and shopping are basically done and we are ready for a really wonderful Christmas. Thank you, Jesus, for the blessings you bring to us in so many ways!

Small things, big joy!

Why *this* photo? I guess because I love doing laundry and loved being the team mom for the CTK Jaguars volleyball team and, well, this combined two of my favorite things! While it is time to hang up the way-cool spotted socks for the year, Morgan sure had a great time learning the game of volleyball and growing in friendships and in skill. She even says (to her daddy's utter horror) that she now likes it more than basketball!


Another simple pleasure... This is the first time I can remember the kids ever really climbing trees. I saw Morgan up *really* high this afternoon, but I decided it's best if I just quit looking. It gives me such joy to see them together and that this tree seems to be just the right size for them. For those in the country with lots of trees, this probably isn't a big deal, but for me, this week it is so I had to share it. ;)

And finally, oh the joy of exchange students!!! They've roped us back in! Jalen had tried to convince us to host again, but we wanted to focus on just our own kiddos for Jalen's senior year. A couple of weeks ago, though, I was asked to resume my area rep. volunteer position for a Korean boy in Whitmore Lake. We had the greatest time this weekend meeting him and taking him to the YFU Halloween party. When we brought him back to his host family, no sooner had he left the car when one of the kids asked, "Can we keep him?!" NO! He has a wonderful family but we are excited to spend more time with him and with all of the kids again soon. John and I love exchange teens and the way our kids go out of their way to welcome them and learn from them. They all exchanged a lot of laughter during the evening!

So I had been thinking of trying to put some "thankfulness" into my blog when, in the span of one week, several friends did the same thing in their blogs or on facebook. Oh well... I decided it must still be an idea worth trying even if I'm not first! I mean, how can you not be joyful and thankful looking at that sunset?...

God bless,
Kelli

A Little of This and That...

OK, I am NEVER going to be good at regular, timely blog posts. Never. Oh well, here's a bit of what's happened since the last post.

I really didn't want to pour over *all* of the Disney photos again to pick out a bunch to post here. Here was just one highlight- Parker's birthday gift. Both girls got pirate makeovers! Princess makeovers are SO out-dated in this family and they are on to bigger, "badder" things. :) The girls got new "Elizabeth Swann" (Pirates of the Caribbean) costumes and they got their hair, makeup, and nails done. Then they had to recite the pirate oath, pledging their allegiance to Captain Jack Sparrow, and finally were able to enter the SECRET pirate room where we were NOT allowed to photograph what we saw!!! A *super* fun morning for the girls and for us while the boys went off to find characters to hang out with. :)

A little later in the day, the girls were in the pirate parade and then Morgan was chosen for training by Captain Jack himself!!!! After her training, Parker was also brought onstage to be part of the crew.
The vacation was an absolute dream-come-true. We've been to Disney somewhere around a dozen times, but this birthday trip was just SO special! We met up with a couple of sets of friends while we were there and that made it just that much more fun!

In super-sad news, we returned home from Disney to discover that Jalen's beloved kitty, Sushi, died from ingesting plastic bags (a bad habit that already got him one enema.) Coincidentally, friends had some kittens that were just precious and eased our pain a bit. We are loving our new babies, Kuzco (Jalen's) and Leslie (Morgan's).

Hmmmm, what else is new? A friend that we have known by internet for several years came up from Illinois to spend a few days with us and go to the Time reunion concert. She was THRILLED when we took her after the concert to meet the band. Jerome's kiss is up there as a high point of her year, I think! Two of my favorite men...
Also in the "fan club" department, we saw Parker Welling in concert for the first time last week. This is THE Parker that inspired us to name OUR Parker, only at that time she was just a young teen and we had no idea she would grow up to be such an awesome singer! It was lots of fun to have the girls get to see her again after several years and they have already memorized all of the lyrics on her first cd! Get one for yourself- she rocks!

Parker and Parker...
Two of Parker's biggest fans- they came home, grabbed some microphones and the cd, and held their own concert. It's great to have a great Christian girl for our girls to look up to. :)
On one other note, I never updated on our 40 bags in 40 days challenge. We made it, but just a little late. In the spirit of Holy Week and the chaos of prepping for Easter and Parker's first communion, it just wasn't worth my time to write about it or even to push to complete the challenge on time, but we were thrilled to dump MORE than 40 bags in the end.

We hope you have a wonderful Independence Day and we hope to post soon about our newest houseguest. Immo is flying in this evening from Switzerland to spend most of July here! He was one of the exchange students that hung out with our students a year ago.... we are so happy and honored to have him stay with us and to get to share some fun Michigan summer activities!

Disney!

For my 40th birthday, we are in Walt Disney World having an absolutely MAGICAL vacation. I wanted to write about a few highlights before we forget them. Funny/cute/special things happen so often that I think I'll forget many before we get home.

Friday, May 7. The drive: We left at 9:40 at night on Friday, May 7, from the Explorers' Extravaganza. John drove through the night and I took over for a couple of hours when we reached Georgia around 7am and again in FL for another 2 hours or so. It was a pretty easy drive, other than some rain. I was very surprised that John could go without sleep all night and I know he had some FUN conversations with Luke as his co-pilot to keep him awake and with Morgan chattering away with them. :)

Saturday, May 8. Arrival and check-in: We made it to Calypso Cay by 6pm. Our villa is so pretty, all in Carribean pastels, with lots of space for everyone to spread out. We are about 3 miles from the entrance to Disney so we unloaded our luggage and by 8pm, we were already in the Magic Kingdom for my birthday celebration. It's amazing how much you can accomplish in just 4 hours at the MK once a lot of the young families have left! Space Mountain, Small World, the tea cups, Buzz Lightyear, Pirates, Stitch, Haunted Mansion, fireworks while in line for Big Thunder Mountain, pin trading... WOW! Of course, Parker and I started the evening by getting our birthday buttons so the cast members could celebrate with us. :)

Sunday, May 9, Mother's Day...

EPCOT- you think it means "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow." I recently learned it REALLY means "Every Person Comes Out Tired." So true, but SO worth it! Eating "around the world", learning a little about other countries, riding some of our favorite rides and trying out some that we had never tried before, drinking Beverly at Club Cool, etc.

Getting on a family favorite, Test Track... Luke looks a bit freaked out as this was his first time! He loves it now. :) One of the great parts of the whole trip has been how many more rides the kids will all go on- they are so much FUN and we have to separate far less than we did on the last trip 2 years ago.
Monday, May 10, we stayed at the villa to visit with some of our favorite people, the Schneiders. We were thrilled to have them skip school for the day to come up from Ave Maria and spend some time with us at the pool.

All of the Schneider and Sparrow kiddos together for a fun day...

That evening as they drove home, we headed back to the MK for an evening very similar to Saturday- a frenzy of packing in as much fun as we could in just a few hours. In a very short but magical time, Luke won an MP3 player, Mo was treated to several free games of Guitar Hero with a cast member, and John was "That Guy" on the Laugh Floor!! Three days later in Animal Kingdom, someone saw John and said, "Hey, you're That Guy!" Wow... we happened to see someone in a different park three days later and he recognized him from the show. I think that's pretty amazing among thousands of guests!!!
Since tomorrow (Friday) is our last day in the parks, I think I will quit now and get some sleep. I'll post on the rest of the trip soon!

Reduce, Reuse, RECITAL

A little "40 Bags in 40 Days" update: Purple Heart picked up another 10 bags! Between those bags and the ones in the garage sale pile and in the trash, we are up to 22 bags out the door! I can walk all the way into my walk-in closet.... sweet success!



I haven't been able to get the violin videos to upload on youtube so I put off blogging... I give up. Here are a few photos anyway of the girls' first violin recital two weeks ago.

Parker played the Monkey Song :)
Here's Morgan with friends, Annie and Francesca. What I love about this sweet photo is that these young violinists are scrappers on the basketball court with the CTK Jaguars! Such different personalities on the stage than what we see on the court!

The final performance of the afternoon was the girls' violin instructor, Sarah. She is also Parker's worship dance teacher- she's quite a talented teen! She *wowed* us with her performance!! We took her out with our family after the reception for a Coldstone treat to celebrate.

Have a blessed week!
Kelli

Our Lenten Challenge

Oh the time I waste shuffling clutter back and forth, to the garage or basement and back again, etc. One basement flood a year and a half ago consumed several weeks in time and lots of money because the clutter took over down there and wasn't put away as it should have been. Then a minor plumbing accident several months later dumped water on my scrapbooking room and table... another round of clean up and loss.

While purging the house is probably not, in itself, a very spiritual Lenten activity, I've spent a long time thinking about simplifying in many ways to make more "room" for the Lord in our home. Then just before Lent, I read a blog that had the "40 Bags in 40 Days" challenge. It was just what I needed! So we got started this week...

Christmas supplies, keepsake boxes, luggage, etc. are all waiting to see if they make the "cut." :)
(Want to buy a rocking chair? It *won't* survive the cut!)

Books, movies, games, school bins for each kid, and.... JUNK.

After an hour or two of work this afternoon, I already have boxes and boxes of books and curriculum to sell or give away (this is less than half of what I came up with)...


... and this looks to me like it should count as about 4 bags of trash, plus two more of donations we already removed. Ooh, it feels SO good! Just 34 bags to go.

Here's what we are aiming for- more peaceful areas like our prayer area. (Currently, it is purple for Lent- Parker is usually the one in charge of changing the cover to match the liturgical calendar. She does it so lovingly!)

Our kneeler, handmade for me by John's dad. <3I'll post more progress later on during these 40 days. I am excited to see the end result and to enjoy the process of emotionally and physically parting with the "stuff" that clutters my space and steals my time and peace.

God bless,
Kelli

A new year- new paint, new friends and a "new" heart!

Aaaaaahhh, finally! After many years of kid-fingerprinted, dingy white walls, we finally painted the house! We are absolutely thrilled with how much this feels like a HOME now! The kitchen, while pretty, is not really blog-worthy with its new beige tone, but here's part of the living room...

...and the kids' loft. This orange is my favorite <3.

We were so blessed to receive a visit last week from Won Kun and his family!! It was a wonderful evening, but I wish I paid more attention in French class 25 years ago! Won Kun's whole family speaks French as well as Korean. Me, I'm stuck with English only. Bo Yun did lots of translating for her mom though, so it was a really neat visit. We shared Korean soju, Michigan beer, and lots of stories about our shared "son". The visit went so well on Thursday that we got up early Saturday morning for one last hug and to see them off from their hotel. We certainly hope to see them all again in the future!

We found these Korean Michigan shirts in Ann Arbor for Kyung He and Youn Duk!

All of the Park and Sparrow kids together...

Friday night, I took Luke, Mo, and Parker to an ice skating exhibition and brought Morgan's friend, Colette, along for the fun. It was a really neat show... and free! (Dave Ramsey would approve!)

And the best news is that Parker made her first confession! She wrote a little bit about her thoughts on it when it was over: "...I was nervous but Jesus helped me get through it... my heart felt soooo white and clean!..."

Now, we have started a really crazy time and I am trying to enjoy (almost) every minute of it. Jalen started driver's ed, Morgan and Parker both started violin and basketball, Jalen and Luke have much going on with school, play practices, parties, and Life Teen and tonight the boys are attending a pro-life rally for teens- what a great way for them to spend the evening!!

John and I are thankful (even if a little tired from all the driving) for the ways they are each growing in their friendships, faith, education, and as a family. My greatest joy of the week happened last night when I had a raging headache. I was nursing my head downstairs, while listening to all of the kids and their dad in the loft. They were playing board games together and it was such a joy to hear ALL of them enjoying their time together, even if the screaming did hurt my head even a little more!

I have internet friends who were recently discussing their "word" for the year... some I remember are "simplicity", "choosing joy", and "faith". I can't pick one. I'm stealing all three of those to work on and the first two weeks of 2010 have been a pretty great start. :)

God bless,

Kelli