February has been a fairly mild month, weather-wise, here. I know you might not have had weather as nice as we experienced, but I hope you did!

Early this month, Rachel took the ACT test. She got her scores on the 25th, with a score that is solidly average. I’m very proud of her, as she has overcome some serious health issues to reach this point. As you will see (or perhaps have seen), she will be graduating on March 16, 2013, with a nice ceremony and reception at the church.

Bobby got a letter this month inviting him to join Mu Alpha Theta, a national honors math club. He hasn’t decided for sure, but I’m encouraging him to go ahead and join.

My brother started several new blogs, in order to separate his writing by genre. He included me as a contributor to a couple, but I haven’t contributed much, yet.

I turned 42 this month. Robby got me a new dresser made of real wood, which is a great blessing! He bought it unfinished and his dad stained it for us. It looks very nice! Also, the church threw me a very nice birthday party after church the Sunday before my birthday. It was very sweet!

I was also able to get three more bad teeth out of my mouth, and now have them added to my partial plate. It is a blessing to have teeth that don’t hurt, even if they are fake!

We were able to get a family membership to Sci-Quest again, this month, which will allow us to visit as often as we like for the next year. This is a hands-on science museum that we enjoy; plus, we have homeschooling friends who also have a membership, so it will be nice to be able to spend more time with them, also.

And, I finally took down the Christmas decorations. I guess it was about time, huh!?

May God bless you!

I hope you are well. I am hoping to do better with keeping up with updates this year, so I’m hurrying to do this one before January is over!

December was pretty nice. The Christmas parade on the first Monday of December actually saw some reasonably warm weather, for the first time since we moved here in 1998. Usually, we get freezing weather starting the day of or the day before the parade.

We went to a birthday party for a friend’s son on the 2nd Saturday, and then the following Tuesday, we attended a special memorial service that the funeral home hosted for those who lost a loved one in 2012. While it was a beautiful service, I hope that it will be many years before I “qualify“ to be invited to another one.

We took pictures so I could make a Christmas card (which is enclosed—sorry I didn’t get it to you sooner!!)

I made peanut butter fudge and divinity, which everyone enjoyed. I used the recipes Robby’s grandmother gave me.

We visited with a friend, who wasn’t home when we arrived. The interlude when we were waiting provided us with this adorable photo of Sarah:

Rachel had a Christmas tree in her room this year—a small 3 or 4 foot tall tree. She and Sarah decorated it together. I believe it was the first time Sarah decorated a tree, since we have had a tiny 2-foot tree on the piano that more or less stays decorated for about as long as she has been alive.

On Christmas Eve, we had dinner at Robby’s parents’ house, as we do every year. After eating, his dad read the Christmas story from Luke. After that, we opened presents, then fellowshipped for a while.

On Christmas morning, we opened family stuff at home. John Luke was quite pleased with his police set and “Perry the Platypus“ pajamas. (It’s a character from a cartoon.)

After Christmas, Robby’s oldest sister, her husband, and two of their children came to visit. It was really great to see them!

And then, the new year arrived! We started out the year with a visit with some good friends. We played games and generally had a pleasant time. We have already planned to visit again, though we haven’t set a date (yet!).

In the second week of January, Timmy finally got his permit (“learner’s license“ here in Alabama). He hasn’t driven much, yet, but is excited about learning how.

Nathaniel turned 13—another teen in the house! He got a guinea pig for his birthday, which he named Frodo.

Bobby is taking a full load this semester, including a drawing class (at which he excels already) and a programming class. Most of his classes are Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes, but one of them is Tuesday-Thursday, and one is online (no on-campus class meetings).

Rachel now has 12 of her paintings for sale at a consignment art shop. It would be very nice if her paintings sell. She will be graduating this spring, but isn’t sure yet what she plans to do after that.

Robby is doing pretty well, in general, and is keeping quite busy these days, which is a good thing! I am also keeping busy with computer work as well as housework and children, but it’s a good busy! My health has improved a lot, but my eyes are still not great, but it may be that I just need a new prescription for glasses. I’ll find out in March.

I hope this letter finds you healthy and happy, and may God bless you!

We have just been called back with the proper procedure by this customer. She said that one must simply insert an SD card, then power on, and the tablet will be reset. It will not do it without the SD card.

I hope this helps someone else out there!

Sorry I have not updated in so long! A lot has been going on. My last letter was sent the end of January. I definitely did not intend to wait until October to send another one!

At the time of the January letter, I had just found out I was pregnant with what would have been our seventh living child, following two miscarriages last summer. The pregnancy went along uneventfully through the spring and summer, with our 20-week ultrasound showing a healthy girl, who we named Hannah Grace. We were eagerly anticipating her arrival around the end of September. However, as most of you already know, we instead ran into some complications resulting in a stillbirth August 26, four weeks before Hannah’s due date. We had her funeral on the 28th, and I ended up back in 9/1 with eclampsia for a week, followed by another stay the end of September for blood clots in both legs and both lungs. I am now recovering, with most of the issues resolved. I still have an issue with my eyes and possibly a pinched nerve in my neck that I am praying will resolve over the next few weeks, though I’ve been told it can take up to a year.

The children weathered the time without mom (and without dad, to some degree, since he was with me) pretty well. Bobby pretty much took over the business and Rachel ran the household, and both did wonderfully.

Other things that have happened since the last letter include:

In February, I turned 41.
In March, Sarah turned 3.
In April, Bobby turned 19.
In June, Bobby graduated from high school officially.
In September, Robby turned 46 (while I was in ICU… what a birthday!) and Rachel turned 18. We had an ice skating party for her in between my hospital stays— I am so glad we were able to do that!

Rachel has also seen amazing improvement in her health since May. We are pleased with her progress.

Additionally, Sarah has shown interest in John Luke’s schoolwork (he is in 2nd grade), so I tried doing “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons” with her — and so far, she is doing wonderfully with it! We are only on the 4th lesson, but she is having no problem doing the sounds of the letters. The two littles may BOTH be reading by the end of this school year!

Oh, and another side effect of being in the hospital half of eight weeks, and unwell the other half — I have lost over 40 pounds. I intend to continue to eat right and get exercise, in hopes of losing about 60 more. So far, so good!

I hope you are doing well. Thank you for being patient with me and my lack of communication over most of this year.

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She did NOT like being poked and prodded!

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And the rest of the pictures:

(Update: fixed the link that wasn’t working.)