Merry Christmas and Happy 2010

Greeting to all our friends and family! We pray this finds you all well and that you are enjoying this Advent season like we are in the Gawlak household. J So are you ready for Christmas? We are! This has been a wonderful year full of so many blessings, laughter and surprises.

The kids are growing up fast! Abby turned 5 in September and is in her last year of preschool. She gets on the big school bus next year to head off to kindergarten. She is thriving at the church preschool with the 12 boys and 3 girls…as she is quick to tell everyone. She still loves to work on art projects and has enjoyed starting a Littlest Pets collection. She is like a sponge when it comes to new vocabulary and this is helping her to begin to read on her own. Abby’s newest activity is tennis. She was in a tennis camp this summer and LOVED it. She now takes one day a week after preschool and is sure she is going to be a Tennis Pro when she grows up. I guess time will tell.

Dillan will be 2 in January. He is full of smiles and all boy. He keeps us laughing and on our toes. We have been signing with him and this has been wonderful for everyone. He seems comfortable letting us know what he needs without to many tantrums. Of course when we have to tell him the dreaded word NO it’s not very much fun. He loves frogs, pigs and trucks…specifically the keys that go to the truck. He managed to lose the only set of keys to David’s truck for 3 days. This is how we learned that it would cost over $200 to have them replaced. So he has his own real/fake keys now and we did find them safely tucked in the pantry in a plastic bag.

David is doing well. To begin 2009 he had a hunting trip and bagged a doe and a buck in Alabama. He also went on a hunting trip with my Dad in Nebraska just before Thanksgiving and he got a mule buck. He has been traveling to DC the majority of the year which allowed me and the kids to make a 2 week trip up there with him. It was wonderful to see friends and family in August. The kids had a great time. David is finishing out the year in Raleigh at a client up there. We hope that 2010 will bring him working in the Atlanta area for a while. I think all of the Gawlaks are travel tired.

 

I am at home with the kids and love it! We did a Dave Ramsey class at the end of last year and in that we realized that we really did need to do more tracking and planning with the household finances. That has been one of my new tasks. We are so happy to say we are DEBT FREE (everything but the house) as of August. It took 11 months but we did it! I am sewing more and managed to make several purses and spa gifts for a vendor fare at church. It was a great success. I am making more of Abby clothes also and she loves that I do it for her.

 

The other trip we made this year was to Omaha (by car – UGH). It was a wonderful trip around Memorial Day weekend. Abby was so excited we could go outside during this trip. We usually go in November so it’s to cold to play outside for us thin skinned types. We had a wonderful visit with David’s brother in KC on the way there and then a short trip to Lexington to see Great Grandma as well as countless memories made with Grandpa and Uncle Ken.

We had an interesting sermon today at church. Pastor Stuart asked the question “Are you ready for Christmas?” Of course what he meant was more then the typical responses. In the scripture below Luke 2:13-14 we hear about the heavenly hosts praising God. They said Glory to God! Peace on Earth! Goodwill to all Men! And so he asked us to think of these things as instructions rather then an announcement of the Christ child. And so in getting ready for Christmas he challenged us to give Glory to GOD! To be the peace maker in the places we are (ours homes and workplaces). Then to think of others first, to give Goodwill to others not because of what they have done but because of what HE has done for you. In so doing providing an expression of God’s glory. We pray that you all will remember the real reason for the season this Christmas and experience the love, joy and peace through out 2010.

Blessings!
Sara, David, Abby, Dillan and Nessley