Christmas Surprise

Merry Christmas! We hope that you all are enjoying the holiday with friends and family.

We had a fun surprise for our kids this year. They have been saving money to get a pet rabbit and when we finally had enough money saved, we found out that Austria has a law that requires you to have 2 bunnies. They were upset and thought that they needed to start saving more money to buy a second bunny. So, we decided to give them the second bunny as a gift for Christmas, and they had no idea that we got them. We have been hiding them in the basement for 3 days! We wrapped them up after the kids got up this morning and this is the video of them opening the box. It was so fun to see their reactions! I think Cotter was more interested in the candy from his stocking (which doesn't surprise me)!

Kisi Kids (Eine himmlische Aufregung) - Carli

Over the last semester Carli joined a kid's singing group, which performs musicals about different stories from the Bible. Early in December the group performed a musical concerning Jesus' birth from the perspective of the angels in heaven. Carli was one of the angels. The short videos below are excerpts from the different songs they sang; this was their first performance. With each performance the group improved (I was there for the first and last performances) and Carli's confidence grew to the point that she even had a short solo in the final two concerts. It was a great joy to see our daughter boldly praising God (in German nonetheless); the last song below is "Here I am to Worship" and often brings tears when I hear her/them sing it. What a blessing it is for those of us who have the responsibility and privilege of raising our children in the Lord!

Carli's Christmas Party

Carli had her Christmas party in her class today. They sang a lot of songs and presented the parents with gifts that they had made. It was a lot of fun and she did a great job! She was much more animated than some of the other kids!

Tomorrow we go to Caleb's class and I hear he has a solo! I'll try to post a video tomorrow too!

We have had one of the busiest months ever and I have not had time to keep up with the blog. I hope to post soon about some of the fun things that we have been doing.