OCC Update!

Photo from Samaritan's Purse

Remember the Operation Christmas Child boxes we packed this year??  WELL, we got an email this week in regards to their tracking!

GHANA!!  According to the Samaritan's Purse site shoeboxes are headed to 283,080 children in Ghana this year and 3 of those boxes are ours!  An even cooler thing about our boxes heading to Ghana is that we have been studying some parts of Africa in our geography work for school so it was really neat to show the boys on the map where they headed to. 

So excited to share this news with the boys and continue to pray for our boxes as they land in the hands of 3 kiddos in Ghana. 

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights”  -James 1:17a

Happy 4 Months Joel!

Today the littlest Kroh is 4 months old!

This month he rolled over from back to tummy!  He can only roll the one direction so far, and no matter how many times he rolls to his belly and gets angry, he continues to roll over. Ha!  Eventually he'll learn to go the other way.

Joel also visited Santa for the very first time, and he was SO chill about it!  Both Leeland and Hayden cried their first times visiting Santa, but Joel did not mind at all.

Due to the Holidays, the little munchkin doesn't go to his 4 month check-up until the first week of January, but my unofficial home scale says that he weighs 19.4 pounds. (Still exclusively breastfed.)  When in disposables, he wears a size 3 diaper and is wearing size 9 month clothes.

The little fellow had a short few weeks where he spoiled us with sleeping through the night and in his own space... but not anymore!  Little man is currently waking 2-3 times in the night and refuses to sleep without Mommy.  It's a good thing that I love coffee.

He's such a sweetie!  We sure are blessed!

Holiday Fun

Can you believe it?  We're less than a week away from Christmas!  Christmas time is my favorite time of the year... our house has been decorated since Thanksgiving and I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that it has come so quickly.  This year has really flown by!  Maybe it's the third kid?  I just wish that it would slow down a little bit.

Our homeschool co-op met the first week of December so we have been out and mostly home since then.  We've kept things pretty low key-- still schooling through December (just reading and math) and enjoying the holidays.

We attended a local Christmas parade...

We built a gingerbread train...

We made gingerbread cookies...

We visited Santa...

We have gradually filled our Jesse Tree with ornaments as we've read through the Bible...  (The big boys have been super thrilled that the Jesse Tree is in their room this year.)

AND we opened our first Christmas gift for our jammies and movie night...  (Normally a Christmas Eve tradition but we bumped it up this year since Daddy Kroh is working Christmas Eve.)

Now we look forward to the upcoming week.  We look forward to lots of quality time with family, and of course we look forward to lots of excitement Christmas morning!  I do hope that you all are having a wonderful Christmas season!  It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.  Merry Christmas friends!!

Boys' Dedication...

This past Sunday we had our boys dedicated at church.  All 3 of them... because why do anything small or do one child at a time, when you can go big and do all 3!?  Ha!  In all seriousness though, dedicating the boys at church has been on my heart for quite some time.

We first began attending our current church when Leeland was 2 weeks old.  And we came with suitcases of baggage.  Lots of them.   Our previous church had crumbled right in front of our eyes and we were hurt by many.  We came to Westover to hide out.  We knew it was a big church, we thought we knew no one who went there and we went with our 2 week old babe each week to just attend.  A place to attend and not get involved and not get hurt by people..... but boy did the Lord change our hearts!  (And we are so thankful He did!)

So 5 1/2 years later after first entering the doors of that big ole church to hide, we have grown, we have changed, we have forgiven, and we have gotten connected.  I couldn't imagine being at any other church!  I love that we have met so many, and made wonderful friends, but also love that it's the only church our boys have ever known and that they have grown and fellowshipped with their friends and learned so much about the Lord.

The purpose of the dedication was to thank the Lord for each of our wonderful little men, but also publicly profess our faith and our plans to raise our boys in the faith and that we would love for the church to come alongside us in discipling them and shepherding us as a family.

It was such a special day for us!

I found this beautiful dedication invitation here on Etsy and the seller was so gracious to adapt it to include all three boys and the verse that we chose for them.

We sent out invites to all of our family and were so excited that many were able to come and join us! We had an entire row full there to watch and support us.

We went on stage, each of the boys were introduced to the church, the verse that we chose was read aloud and Pastor Don held the littlest and prayed over our family.  This is the verse that we chose for our boys....

"For this reason I kneel before the Father,  from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."

-Ephesians 3:14-21

Oh how I pray that they know Him and love Him!  We are so thankful for such supportive family and friends and our church family.  Thank you to all who came out and who have been so encouraging and thoughtful making the boys' dedication day so special.