Hello? Hello? We're stil alive! Just haven't posted in a while :)

Hi everyone!  It's been a LONG time... A really long time!  So to space things out, I think I'll break the past almost two months up into multiple posts!

I guess this post will be everything between my last post and Christmas and then I'll go from Christmas forward.  Ha.

Thanksgiving weekend was super busy and super fun this year! 

Thanksgiving this year was a little different in that we celebrated with a small number of Nate's family.  Nate's parents were on a prayer trip to Israel and his brother's family was elsewhere for the day.  It was a little laid back with only five adults and three kiddos.  We had some different foods (fun!) and also some traditional ones, just to be safe :) 

A couple days after Thanksgiving, we hung out with the Sandersons and Weavers at Nate's mom and dad's farm.  We ate leftovers and tried not to blow away in the freezing wind.  The kiddos rode horses, some of them for the first time!  We were so proud of them!

We also got our Christmas tree at a local tree farm where you can ride a horse and wagon to the lot and cut your own down.  It's expensive to do that, so we just opted for a pre-cut one, but it was still fun!  They had a petting zoo and I think Benson would have stayed there all day talking to the animals :)

One of the highlights of my (Jenny) fall was to go to NYC to visit my mentor from Colorado and her family who were in the area visiting some family.  Nate gave me the blessing to go and took a vacation day off work so I could make the trip - what a gift!  Nate's little sis Ang went with me and it was SO GREAT to be in their presence, if only for a few hours. I haven't seen Wendy's husband or children for 5 1/2 years and that was a delight to my heart, too!  They spoiled us with a fabulous lunch and such great conversation.  It was worth the drive, and I left feeling so blessed and refreshed (surprisingly not as exhausted as I thought I'd be).  The time with Ang was also a blessing - I don't think we've ever spent that much time one on one!

Ang, Wendy, and Jenny - FAO Schwartz, NYC (photo credit to Wendy)

Nate surprised me with a cooking class in the area in mid-December.  Cooking is a passion of mine and I love learning more about it.  The teacher is the owner of one of the top 200 restaurants in the country and it was fun to learn from him.  He taught using methods everyone could use and used only ingredients from local stores, so the recipes are possible to re-create.  The class size was up to 18 and I was praying for less, so it would be more one on one, and when I got there, there were only two of us!  I learned all sorts of fun things and some recipes we've already used here at home - delicious!

Benson's a busy boy these days.  Very, very busy.  Like, leaves my head spinning sometimes, but is SO MUCH FUN!  We love watching him grow and develop and change right before our very eyes.  He's such a precious little guy.  I think I can officially say this is my favorite age so far (well, minus the whole temper tantrums business, but that's part of learning and growing, eh?).  His favorite thing to do is run holding on to daddy's hands sliding across the floors, reading his books, playing with his blocks, throwing balls, and being outside and interacting with people.  Right at the moment he is crying pretty hard because daddy needs a break from the running wildly.  Ha.

On the work front, Nate's company moved to their new, six acre property with offices and warehouse.  It's a beautiful building and with it, he got a promotion, so he's still the Project Logistic Coordinator, but he's now also the Facility Manager.  It's more work, but work he enjoys - he gets to be outside more and do some manual labor, too!

Work for me continues to move along at a busy pace, currently we're getting ready to send the guys to the Annual Meetings.  I can honestly say I'm only a little bit sad not to go - isn't is so cool when God calls you on to different things. I still remain as committed as ever though, just in a different sense.  I wondered if I'd be able to keep the passion for my job not being able to see the precious brothers and sisters from around the world, but it hasn't changed that calling and passion at all and I'm so grateful!  We are now working with 246 discipleship mission programs - can you believe it??? It's amazing.  I'm so blessed to be able to continue to serve God there and here at home :)

By far, the most exciting news of the fall was finding out God has blessed us with a baby GIRL.  We are excited to meet her in mid-April!  It will be a change of pace for us going from a house with a very active toddler boy to a house with a toddler boy and a sweet little girl, but we are excited for her to join us :)  Naming her is proving to be a bit more difficult than naming Benson, because no one is telling us to name her after them. Ha.  We're narrowing it down, though :)

Second most exciting news leading up to Christmas was finding out my sister is engaged!  She and Thomas got engaged on a safari in Kenya during sunset - they plan to get married in Finland, so we'll be traveling there for Christmas 2011 :)  Fun!!!!

I'll be back soon with a Christmas/New Year's post and plans for our year!  God is so good and we are so grateful!!!

With love,

Nate, Jenny, Benson, and Baby Girl