Happy Christmas!
Wishing you all joy, peace and love the whole year through!
To our dear family and friends, spread all across the world,
Christmas is coming fast again. This year I planned to be prepared well ahead of time, mainly so we could enjoy
more family time and down time during December. It was a good plan, however the weeks have flown by and all
of a sudden December is more than half way through!
Last week we did another charity carol concert. This time we were supporting Crisis, a national charity which helps homeless people in many ways, with both immediate and long term needs. Two Christmases ago Rachel received a violin and Hannah a flute. Last Christmas Rebekah had chosen to start learning an instrument and received a cello (which I thoroughly enjoyed listening to on Christmas Day while making the dinner as she tried it out). All three have been getting a lot of use this year, and all played a little part in this years' carol concert. It is lovely when the children play their instruments together. It has been harder this year to put together and practise for with lots of other things going on, and between us having been ill for much of the last two months. The evening was good though. The children did brilliantly, the boys all sang including just the three of them, many people really enjoyed themselves, and we also managed to raised £300 for Crisis.
Sarah, Rachel, Rebekah and Hannah, meeting the pianist
Paul Cardell on the first night of his European tour.
Rachel is 16 now. This year she has really progressed especially with her piano playing and has written some lovely songs. She had her first experience in a recording studio recording one of them to send to a friend overseas for a special occasion. At the moment she spends four days each week at a school doing music, dance and drama, plus english and maths GCSEs. She seems to enjoy and do well in all of it. Some of us got to go to their show last week, which was great. Rachel is enjoying doing more dance, and continues to do ballet classes twice a week.
Last week we did another charity carol concert. This time we were supporting Crisis, a national charity which helps homeless people in many ways, with both immediate and long term needs. Two Christmases ago Rachel received a violin and Hannah a flute. Last Christmas Rebekah had chosen to start learning an instrument and received a cello (which I thoroughly enjoyed listening to on Christmas Day while making the dinner as she tried it out). All three have been getting a lot of use this year, and all played a little part in this years' carol concert. It is lovely when the children play their instruments together. It has been harder this year to put together and practise for with lots of other things going on, and between us having been ill for much of the last two months. The evening was good though. The children did brilliantly, the boys all sang including just the three of them, many people really enjoyed themselves, and we also managed to raised £300 for Crisis.
Sarah, Rachel, Rebekah and Hannah, meeting the pianist
Paul Cardell on the first night of his European tour.
Rachel is 16 now. This year she has really progressed especially with her piano playing and has written some lovely songs. She had her first experience in a recording studio recording one of them to send to a friend overseas for a special occasion. At the moment she spends four days each week at a school doing music, dance and drama, plus english and maths GCSEs. She seems to enjoy and do well in all of it. Some of us got to go to their show last week, which was great. Rachel is enjoying doing more dance, and continues to do ballet classes twice a week.
Hannah, now 15, is really enjoying playing her flute, and progresses so fast each week. She is doing a
geography GCSE this year, and working on some others too. She and Rachel got to go to For the Strength of
Youth this year, a week at a campus with other youth from our church and loved it.
Sarah is going to a home-ed learning centre two days a week in someone's home, and has been adopted as part of the family! She has made a new friendship especially with the girl who lives there, and spends her time between there, here and the ice rink. She's been working hard to earn some money to pay for a season ticket and extra skating lessons through the winter, so is having a lesson once a week and practises two other times in the week normally. She's really improving, and most of all loving it.
Rebekah studies away through the week at her music and other subjects of interest, and is loving doing gymnastics and ballet still. She is very organised and diligent, working at the things she has chosen, and ever more confident. She practised hard and did a fantastic job of playing her cello in our concert last week.
Peter and Samuel also attend the same gymnastics club now and love it! Peter is set on learning the trombone, so we'll see how that goes this year. He has a lovely singing voice. He really wants to do woodwork and loves to create. All the boys are so active, rarely wanting to stay still for much, but for a book they normally will, especially Samuel. He'd love to still be doing Home-ed sports, as he loves everything sporty, but is putting his all into the gymnastics! Daniel always knows just what he wants, including what he wants to learn about. He is quite delightful, and still as cuddly as ever. While the boys are together our house gets pretty manic (for me at least!) a lot of the time, though they are creative in their play - mountaineering on the stairs etc.!
Michael got a job about 4 months ago working for Argos as a delivery driver. It has been good for him to be working again. He has found some aspects of it stressful, including the shift patterns - getting up at 2.30/3am hasn't suited him so well. He has been offered another job now helping to run someone else's business (admin etc.) so he finished at Argos last week. He's now on the high council at church, so we travel some Sundays.
I (Ceri) have been ill much of this year, though am doing a lot better than I was. At the start of the summer I found a doctor who knew more about adrenal and thyroid issues, and the supplements I have been using since then have been helping a lot. Still I have been ill with colds on top of the normal symptoms for much of the last couple of months. I'm grateful to have a lot more energy and resiliency on many levels than I have done, and am looking forward to increasingly better health the more I can do to sort it.
This year we had a visit from Michael's Mum at the start of the summer. We enjoyed two weeks away camping in Dorset in July, which was really good for us all. Peter and Hannah celebrated their birthdays while we were there, and my parents joined us for my Dad's birthday week too, staying in a bed and breakfast down the road. We also had the first two trips to A&E that we've ever had to have with our children. At the end of Hannah's birthday, Daniel ran full speed into our minibus while looking up into the air at the kite he was flying! Two days later, at the second hospital, Daniel had an X-ray after a lot of persuasion, and we discovered he had fractured his collarbone. It wasn't too many weeks until he was back to normal though, and he is fine now. Sarah and Rebekah also got to visit Centre Parks later in the year with friends. After Christmas we'll be going to the Midlands to meet a new nephew/cousin too, my brother David's new baby Caleb, born a couple of months ago.
Happy Christmas to all of you, and we hope to see some of you through this next year.
Much love from Michael, Ceri, Rachel, Hannah, Sarah, Rebekah, Peter, Samuel and Daniel Kruger xxxxxxxxx
Sarah is going to a home-ed learning centre two days a week in someone's home, and has been adopted as part of the family! She has made a new friendship especially with the girl who lives there, and spends her time between there, here and the ice rink. She's been working hard to earn some money to pay for a season ticket and extra skating lessons through the winter, so is having a lesson once a week and practises two other times in the week normally. She's really improving, and most of all loving it.
Rebekah studies away through the week at her music and other subjects of interest, and is loving doing gymnastics and ballet still. She is very organised and diligent, working at the things she has chosen, and ever more confident. She practised hard and did a fantastic job of playing her cello in our concert last week.
Peter and Samuel also attend the same gymnastics club now and love it! Peter is set on learning the trombone, so we'll see how that goes this year. He has a lovely singing voice. He really wants to do woodwork and loves to create. All the boys are so active, rarely wanting to stay still for much, but for a book they normally will, especially Samuel. He'd love to still be doing Home-ed sports, as he loves everything sporty, but is putting his all into the gymnastics! Daniel always knows just what he wants, including what he wants to learn about. He is quite delightful, and still as cuddly as ever. While the boys are together our house gets pretty manic (for me at least!) a lot of the time, though they are creative in their play - mountaineering on the stairs etc.!
Michael got a job about 4 months ago working for Argos as a delivery driver. It has been good for him to be working again. He has found some aspects of it stressful, including the shift patterns - getting up at 2.30/3am hasn't suited him so well. He has been offered another job now helping to run someone else's business (admin etc.) so he finished at Argos last week. He's now on the high council at church, so we travel some Sundays.
I (Ceri) have been ill much of this year, though am doing a lot better than I was. At the start of the summer I found a doctor who knew more about adrenal and thyroid issues, and the supplements I have been using since then have been helping a lot. Still I have been ill with colds on top of the normal symptoms for much of the last couple of months. I'm grateful to have a lot more energy and resiliency on many levels than I have done, and am looking forward to increasingly better health the more I can do to sort it.
This year we had a visit from Michael's Mum at the start of the summer. We enjoyed two weeks away camping in Dorset in July, which was really good for us all. Peter and Hannah celebrated their birthdays while we were there, and my parents joined us for my Dad's birthday week too, staying in a bed and breakfast down the road. We also had the first two trips to A&E that we've ever had to have with our children. At the end of Hannah's birthday, Daniel ran full speed into our minibus while looking up into the air at the kite he was flying! Two days later, at the second hospital, Daniel had an X-ray after a lot of persuasion, and we discovered he had fractured his collarbone. It wasn't too many weeks until he was back to normal though, and he is fine now. Sarah and Rebekah also got to visit Centre Parks later in the year with friends. After Christmas we'll be going to the Midlands to meet a new nephew/cousin too, my brother David's new baby Caleb, born a couple of months ago.
Happy Christmas to all of you, and we hope to see some of you through this next year.
Much love from Michael, Ceri, Rachel, Hannah, Sarah, Rebekah, Peter, Samuel and Daniel Kruger xxxxxxxxx
1 comment:
Happy new year to you all, another lovely post Ceri. Funny to see that your complete family shot now needs to be in panoramic mode!! Love from all the Stokes' xxxx
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