Cold Weather

Tonight it has gotten bitterly cold again. It is in the single digits right now and the wind chill brings it down to the negatives. We had been fortunate with fairly nice weather as of late though.
Now that we are all on the healthy side of things we are getting back into our normal routine. Eric went back to school today, which he was thoroughly excited to do.
We continue to search for a church. We pray and trust the Lord will lead us to the one he has for us. The church we went to this past Sunday had one of Eric's classmates from school there. Eric was thrilled to see her.
Time surely has flown by for us here. It is hard to believe we have been here in Alaska for over a month now.
Many of you, if not all, received an email with the picture of the moose. It is becoming a normality here to see them. It is pretty neat to see. In the summer it will be a little more scary since the moose can be dangerous. We continue to lecture the kids about so that when summer comes they will know exactly what to do if a moose is in our yard. Mommy will be a little nervous about it I guess. God is in control but you can never be too cautious.
The boys never stop talking about going fishing. In Gregory's case he wants to go hunting! Yikes. We do look forward to the summer so that we can enjoy the beautiful nature here.
Well, we will be touch with you all and take care til we write again.

Finally blogging again!

We are very sorry for the delay in a new blog. We are having trouble with our computer. We came to our relatives house so I thought I would update everyone.
Unfortunately we have had a horrible case of the flu circulating through our house! We think we are almost done with it in our family. At least we are praying to that end.
We thank the Lord for his mercy during these last days of sickness.
Robert's job is going well. He seems to have caught on very quickly. Everyone in his office ask him how he does it. He doesn't feel like he is doing well because he has not seen commission yet. (he will soon though) It just takes a little extra patience. He enjoys the challenge though.
Eric is absolutely loving his school. He cried this week when he was told he couldn't go to school because he had the flu. He kept asking us to take his temperature to see if his fever had gone away. He finally felt bad enough that he quit asking. In the first week of March Eric will be going to Anchorage to compete in the ACSI competition for poetry. We are excited for him. In fact he volunteered to do it. He practically begged his teacher we hear. We will update how it goes.
Gregory keeps longing to be in school with his brother. We joke and say he is attached to Eric's hip. He sure looks up to him. We are able to use this and teach Eric that he needs to do right because his brother and sister look up to him. We use this with all 3 of our children.
Audrey is always looking for her time alone with mommy. She is excited for Gregory to go to school too. She says, "Mommy, then it will be just us girls!" I think mommy is looking forward to spending a little alone time with her as well.
Mommy is busy with babysitting her niece and nephew as well as taking care of the 2 still at home with her. Mommy is a little sad to see that almost all her children will be in school this fall. It is neat to see your children grow up. Each new step in their life is exciting but it also seems to go by too fast. We treasure each and every moment with our kids.
We will try to keep our posts up more consistently. Our email works fine just having blog trouble. Keep checking! Eventually we will get something posted again! :)

Super Bowl!

Yesterday was one day in our life where the family was divided. The Super Bowl was the cause. Robert and Gregory were going for the Colts and Eric and I were cheering on the Bears. Audrey could care less. Unfortunately the Bears didn't come through for Eric and I. With growing up near Chicago I couldn't help but cheer them on. Robert, needless to say, was quite delighted! Thank goodness that is the least of our worries. Such is life. We won't hold anything against those Colt fans!

Today was a special day for Audrey and Mommy. Audrey has had difficulty with all the new changes. The most difficult change for her is having to share her mommy with her 2 cousins now. She is quite the mommy's girl. In order to get the attention she wants she begins to misbehave. It started to become very challenging to deal with this so we felt she needed a little positive encouragement. We asked her what she would like to do if she could go do something special. Her reply was to go get her nails done to look pretty. So we told her that if she was good for the week she could go get her nails done. It is amazing what positive encouragement can do in a young child's life. We do feel there is punishment required but also there needs to be positive encouragement as well. She responded well to this so today her and mommy were able to go and have time alone while they got their nails done. It was neat to see her face light up as she walked in and picked the color of her polish. The lady that did her nails asked why she was so special to get her nails done. As we told her that she had earned it by being a good girl you could see her beaming with pride at her job well done. This was definitely a once in a while special deal for her. We proceeded to explain to her that Jesus wants her to be good all the time even if there is no special prize for it. We thank the Lord for the opportunity to teach our children these simple biblical lessons.

It reminds me of how the Lord wants us to do right at all times as well. It seems like such a simple and basic lesson, which it is, but it is very easy to not take heed at every situation. God uses our children to constantly show us where we are erring in our own lives. How thankful we are for our 3 precious children. We love them so much and pray that God will someday use them in a mighty way.

While living with Robert's brother, the evening ritual for the kids was to sit on the kitchen counter to watch their dinner being cooked. They were all so excited to see their daddy and mommy after work. I guess there was plenty of moral support in the kitchen! Eric wasn't into all this though. He thought all the other kids were kind of crazy. The Deans kind of have it in them to be crazy. Can you imagine what this house has been like having 2 Dean families in it with a total of 5 kids??? It has been really fun! (even though we are looking forward to settling in our own place)

We have it scheduled to be moved into our rental house on Monday, February 5th. YEAH!!! We will post pictures soon!