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Here is Emily singing Happy Birthday Jesus!

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY DONOVAN!

We celebrated Donovan's 1st birthday this month. I can't believe he has been with us for a year now. He has been such a joy and a blessing. We have so much fun with him and look forward to another great year with him. Here are some pictures of him and his party.

HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY SHELBYANNE!!

We celebrated Shelbyanne's 5th birthday today. She has been counting down the days till her party (today) and her actual birthday (tomorrow). I am so excited for her. She starts kindergarten in 1 week. I remember with great fondness my kindergarten teacher, Miss Tucker. I think she was a big influence on me becoming a teacher.

I made Shelbyanne's birthday cake. This was definitely a new cake adventure for me. I used fondant for the first time. She loved it which made the late night and all the hours of labor worth it.

This past week we helped out at Northstar Community Church with their Vacation Bible School. It was a lot of fun. I, Amy, worked with the preschoolers. We had 30+ preschoolers throughout the week. They are precious kids. I was able to be with the girls since they are both in preschool, which was good and challenging at the same time. They loved that I was their teacher, although since I was with them Emily wanted to be in my lap and at my side a lot of the time. She did really well though for a 3 year old. Rob was with the 4th-6th graders. He had a great time with the older kids. It was challenging and fun for him as well. We enjoyed serving with the other leaders and getting to know folks there.

We've had a fun February. The girls have enjoyed getting outside to blow bubbles, draw on the sidewalk with chalk, and ride their bikes. We are looking forward to more warm weather.

Donovan will be 6 months old this weekend. He is almost rolling over, reaching for everything, and definitely ready to start eating food. He is such a happy baby. We are all enjoying him being a part of our family.

Donovan Josiah

Shelbyanne and Emily sporting their bicycle safety gear.

The first warm afternoon we had the girls and daddy ate a picnic lunch and played with water outside.

We took the kids to The Watermelon Patch, an indoor play place for kids. They both were able to climb the climbing wall all by themselves, Emily only needing help getting down.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

We graduated in December from the training we have been in for the last 3 and 1/2 years with New Tribes Mission and are now officially missionaries with NTM. WooHoo! We took some time after graduating to enjoy Christmas at home as a family. We even had Santa visit us at our home. The girls were thrilled. Shelbyanne sat in his lap and told him what she wanted. Emily told him what she wanted, but she did it from Daddy's lap. She warmed up enough to give him a hug before he left.

We have been in transition for the last several weeks. We are now in Alabama visiting with family and friends and working on our partnership development. We will head to Florida in May to do the same. Then we are planning on heading to Tanzania in the beginning months of 2011. Shelbyanne and Emily started preschool at Spanish Fort United Methodist Church Preschool. They are really enjoying it and already starting to make new friends. Although Shelbyanne comments often that she misses her teachers and friends in Missouri.

This is a picture of them before their first day of school.

We hope you all are doing well and having a great week so far.

Here is a short video of Donovan. You can hear the girls in the background. We are all doing well. Donovan is growing and sleeping well. Rob is still trying to get a deer. We hope to be having deer roast or stew or something someday soon. Hope you all are doing well. We love and miss you all.

What in the world have we been up to? I wonder myself some days. We have had a very busy summer. It has been lots of fun hanging out with friends and family. As of today I am still pregnant!! Woo Hoo! We plan to be back in Missouri this Friday. I am looking forward to meeting our baby boy. I just hope we decide on a name for him before he comes. We are still taking suggestions if you have any. Here are some pictures from our most receint events.

Rob's brother Reed trying to beat my belly. I think he did it!

I got to hang out with Brooke, a friend from High School, and her family. It was great!! We all had a blast!

We took a trip to the Miami Seaquarium. We all enjoyed seeing the sea life. I was suprised that Shelbyanne and Emily both were willing to touch the animals.

Summer has arrived and is in full swing. We have been in Alabama visiting with friends and family since leaving Missouri in May. We are having a blast. The heat is kicking in, and we are having to be careful to watch how long we are in the sun. We have done so many fun things. Here are a few pictures of what we have been doing. Hope you are having a wonderful summer as well.

PETTING ZOO

WATER FOUNTAIN

FIRE STATION

PARK

ART IN THE PARK

PLAY TIME AT HOME

PLAY PLACE FOR KIDS

We've had a great spring so far. The weather has been wonderful, and we all are enjoying the outdoors. Rob has been out fishing at least once a week since we have had nice weather. We are going to have a great fish fry soon with the fish he has caught. This semester will be completed next Wednesday, and we will be heading out for the summer to visit with friends and family. We have been learning so much and enjoying building relationships with people here at MTC. 

Rob let the girls play with a fish he caught in their water table. They had a blast with it. We were proud of Shelbyanne for touching and holding it. She loved showing it to her friends, Sam and Ben.

Here Rob is showing the girls how he fillets the fish. He was telling them all the parts of the fish as he gutted it. The girls were quite interested in this science lesson. 

We hung a hummingbird feeder outside our window. We have frequent visitors. Rob took some great photos of a few of our new friends. Shelbyanne has made it her job to announce everytime she sees a hummingbird at the feeder. 

It's A Boy!!

It's A Boy!! Woo Hoo! We took the girls to the ultrasound with us. It was good for them to see the baby. Emily was concerned that mommy wasn't okay. It was really cute. She sat up on my lap towards the end and said, "You okay Mommy?" Shelbyanne is getting used to the idea we are having a boy. She really wanted a girl, but she is going to love having a baby around. Both girls are very interested in babies. They are going to be great big sisters. 

Hope you all are having a great weekend and looking forward to another fabulous week. 

Blessings and Love, 

Amy

We hope you all had a wonderful day celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. 

We went to Oaklahoma for Spring Break with some of our friends from the training. We had a blast! Here are a few pictures of the things we did this week. 

We went to an easter egg hunt on Saturday at the state park. It took about 5 minutes for the children to collect all of the eggs that were scattered all over the grounds. Shelbyanne and Emily and Ethan got to pet a real bunny. Emily kept wanting to say hello to the bunny in it's cage. 

Emily had a really hard time the day we were leaving. I don't know if she thought we were going to leave her or not. Daddy snuggled her in his jacket. She felt much better after that. 

Hey all! We had a great winter, but are glad that it is Spring. We are definitely enjoying the warmer weather. 

Just in case you haven't heard already we are expecting Baby #3 at the end of August. We are super excited. We will have an ultrasound on April 17th to determine the sex of the baby, so we will let you know how that goes. 

We have been so busy with life and classes. We took a Phonetics class last semester and are starting a Grammar class tomorrow. I am enjoying learning tools that will help aid in our language learning. I am anticipating learning a second language to be a big challenge for me. I have never done it, so maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. 

Hope you all are doing well and look forward to sharing some more of our lives with you through this blog. 

Blessings, Amy

We went to Ha Ha Tonka State Park with our friends. It was so much fun. We all had a blast. 

Here are Shelbyanne, Ethan, and Emily hangin out together. Emily and Ethan act like brother and sister. It's so funny to watch.