Merry Christmas!

Greetings from the Purath home! We thank God for walking with us through another year, one of much blessing and much stretching.

We’ve been in Staunton, VA for over four years now and have really grown to love it here. Our initial shock of not having a Target nearby wore off a long time ago! Staunton has a lot of personality and culture for a town its size, and we love the park, the farmers’ market, and small town feel.

By far, the highlight of the year was welcoming Beckett into the world! He’s 6 months old now, finally sleeping through the night (usually), rolling over, and eating baby food. He loves to laugh at his big brother and loves to be around people.

Keaton turned 3 this year. It’s been such a joy to watch him learn and grow. He loves playing guitar and listening to music. (Wonder where he gets that from?) He also loves books, puzzles, and playing with his friends. He took swimming lessons this year and is in one of Jenny’s French classes too.

Kipp continues as the worship and outreach pastor at Staunton Alliance Church. He leads the bands, plans the Sunday services, organizes outreach events for our area, disciples other men, and leads our small group, among other things. But life’s not all work, right? He also likes to play Guitar Hero on the Wii and has gotten back into biking recently.

Jenny spends most of her time chasing Keaton and Beckett around and keeping the house straight. She also continues to teach French classes in our home- 2 preschool classes and 1 elementary class this year. Our local moms’ club has been a fun way to get to know other moms and kids as well.

We wish you all a merry Christmas and look forward to hearing from you too!

Vacation!

We just returned from a wonderful, sun-filled, relaxing vacation in Garden City Beach with Jenny's mom, grandma, and sister. What a blessing to spend the week in a beachfront house with a backyard pool! Keaton loved both the beach and the pool and had a great time. Kipp split his week between Garden City and a conference in Orlando that he really enjoyed as well. On the way home we stopped in Columbus, NC to visit Jenny's grandfather, Pops, and see her dad as well.

Easter 09

We had a really fun Easter this year. About a month ago, I started trying to think of ways that we could make Easter a special time for our family. Christmas is always such a big holiday (and rightly so:), but I wanted to make Easter into a "big deal" for us as well. Jesus' birth is important, but so are His death and resurrection.
So Keaton and I have been telling the Easter story for the past couple weeks. We made a wooden cross and a tomb out of a plastic container with rocks glued on it and had paper cut-outs of different people who play a role in the Easter story. It's been fun to listen to Keaton's 2 year-old version of the story.
The day before Easter we had an Easter party and egg hunt at our house and invited some friends over to celebrate with us. It was a little wet outside, so we ended up hunting eggs in the basement, but no one seemed to mind- especially once they found the M&Ms inside their eggs.
Here are some pictures from Easter this year...