Last week we celebrated Anna’s 11th birthday. The birthday fun started two weeks before with her Anna of Green Gables themed countdown calendar, which included swimming, gifts, movie night, fresh orange juice, bike ride with Josh, hide-n-seek in the dark, and other things.

Anna chose her traditional panda cake. This was her first year to help decorate the cake. Her birthday meal was tacos, complete with salsa, guacomole, chips, and passion fruit juice (all homemade – for the chips I buy corn tortillas and fry them). After the meal, we did gifts, then cake, and ended the time with a picure slideshow. Each of the younger boys did a special chalkboard sign for Anna’s birthday.

Anna is a very sweet young lady. She is probably our most helpful child, even showing inititive with the work of cleaning up yucky messes. She never complains about her chores and is faithful to do her daily tasks. She diligently practices her piano and flute. She faithfully walks the dog 30 minutes everyday, missing out on games while the kids play outside. Anna is a faithful language learner and is working hard to learn Jarai and use it. Kind. Diligent. Faithful. We’re thankful for our sweet Anna.

Last week we celebrated Josh’s birthday with the Crowleys. We had a birthday lunch, which made for a longer celebration instead of just an evening meal (and allowed the Crowleys to come). The meal included beef stew, challah bread, and veggies. It was a nice afternoon to be together. Josh didn’t go back to work for the rest of the day. In the evening we ate again and then played 5 rounds of hide-n-go-seek in the dark in our house. We’re so thankful for Josh – the head of our home, the founder of our feasts!

Last week we had a Performance Night. There were presentations, piano pieces, poems, a flute solo, a juggler dance, and a midget tap-dance. The three middle kids are taking geography, and each gave a presentation on a European country: Clara – Sweden; Anna – Ireland; Isaiah – Wales. The three kids each made a dessert from his/her country to have after the presentations. Becca gave her presentation on one of the legends of how Stonehenge came to be in its current location.

The four older kids performed piano pieces. Poems: Micah – The Caterpillar; Ezra – The Goops; Clara – The Land of Nod; Anna – I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud; Isaiah – The Road Not Taken; Becca – Death be Not Proud. Maria was not to be left out. She got up and used Becca’s PowerPoint slide and “gave” her own talk. She also did The Caterpillar poem with the motions. Flute: Anna gave her first flute performance and did a wonderful job playing Be Still My Soul.

We closed our night with a performance by the two boys pretending to juggle. Becca played the piano, while the boys had a box of trash that they threw all over the room and had a blast doing so. The finale was a midget tap-dance. Clara was planning to use her tap-shoes to dance while Becca played the piano, but week before the shoes became too tight for her feet. So we improvised – the shoes went on Clara’s hands and Anna’s arms became Clara’s. It was very funny to watch. (And took quite a while to set up properly!)