And a Happy New Year!

I didn't get around to sending out Christmas cards this year, so this is my internet version, and as a bonus you get even more pictures than you would in a Christmas card. Everybody wins!

First off, here is the picture I WOULD have used had I sent cards out. Trust me, this was the best we were going to get with the children. It's a good thing they're cute even when they're not smiling (or fake smiling).

We have been so blessed this past year. Our second daughter, Clara, was born in March, Joel accepted a job and we moved back to Moscow in July/August, and our house in Eugene sold quickly after we moved. It has been wonderful to be back in Moscow near my parents and so many of our friends.

We have yet to get tired of these sunsets over the Palouse:

Lucy celebrated her third birthday in October, and sometimes Joel and I look at each other in amazement and wonder where the time went. We still remember clearly the days of carrying Lucy into church in her bucket car-seat, and now she is this beautiful, spunky, intelligent, dress-up-dress wearing three year old.

I wish I had written down more of the hilarious things she's told us. One of my favorites is every time we drive past a cemetery, Lucy launches into the same speech, which goes roughly like this: "This is where we put our bodies when they die. We just take them off and put them in the ground. Not everything lasts forever. But they won't stay there! Someday Jesus will come again and fight Satan one last time and defeat him, and then our bodies and our spirits will join back up together, but this time they'll be perfect! And there'll be no more tears, and no more sin in our hearts, just Jesus! That'll be nice." I love getting to hang out with her all day!

It's also so amazing to us that Clara went from this: 

To this, in the space of 10 months:

She has the most hilarious personality, her favorite voice level is screaming (in happiness or sadness, it doesn't matter). She loves to get in on the fun things that Lucy and Joel do, like basket rides (the only picture I had of Lucy in the basket turned out blurry, but she begs Joel to do this with her almost every day).  

And Lucy and Clara are starting to play together more too, which is so much fun for me to watch. Lucy is a great older sister, she tries hard to protect Clara (sometimes to Clara's hurt, but we won't go into that), and she loves telling Clara about all the fun things they will do together when Clara gets a little bigger.

Of course, not all of our days are sunshine and roses:

But even the hard ones are filled with grace and growth, and we're entering 2014 feeling overwhelmed with God's blessings and excited for what the new year brings! Happy New Year friends!