Our Baby Turned 14 this week!

Second birthday of the year goes to our Emma Joy! Hmmm... it's a sad thing and a happy thing when everyone realizes the baby is growing up! Fourteen years old. How did that happen? She's growing into a lovely talented young lady and is getting into more of the domestic realm - by choice instead of force. Cooking, helping Arielle will various sewing projects, cleaning .... but she still enjoys writing lengthy adjective frosted letters/essays/books and has her nose in the thesaurus often- finding a "better" word for everything.

Wednesday we celebrated that evening with a friend of hers from church and swim team. Very sweet young lady. Dad said that they reminded him of Chipmunks on caffeine. I think the family size bag of twizzlers and the cheesecake had something to do with it. Liam gave her Converse shoes... but they were the spin off brand- so Mom calls them Convicts instead. :) Ever the practical one- Arielle gave her money for camp (Emma's working hard and saving up to be able to go to summer camp this year at Worldview Academy) and Flynn, Mom and Dad bought her an iTunes gift card- Emma can finally buy the soundtrack to her favorite movie- Swan Princess. She's been humming the "Far Longer Than Forever" song and trying to learn it on the piano for ages!

A "sleep" over followed- and.... You guessed it- they didn't sleep much. But the buzz of sugar enabled them to get up early to find a light dusting of SNOW on the ground... not enough to stay longer than the morning- but it was a welcome surprise!

Happy Birthday Emma! We love you and are so excited to see where God takes you in your 14th year!

Sincerely,
 The Lancaster Family

Can't believe it's February!

Hello Friends and Family!
   The Lord continues to work in our lives as the year hurtles on at a furious rate! Not that we are all that busy - just doing the things that we feel are important for our family during this season- but the time seems to just be gone so fast! Here we are reporting from a February that, at least here in North Carolina, seems to be unable to make up it's mind about which weather it likes best! Sunday was right around 70 degrees, sunny and wonderful- and the next few days were wet and coldish- but the fog was magical and lovely- just in a different way than Sunday. It's all in the way that you look at it- isn't it?

   We have all enjoyed the snow- and the prospect of it (the hope of it happens much more often than the actual event!) since Christmas. The mountains surrounding us have gotten more than we have - which was a bummer for the kids, but left Mom and Dad more than a little glad to have been bypassed yet again. During a trip and the beginning of January to visit friends for dinner in the mountains- we were delighted to  see the snow up there covering everything so delicately! (Yes, the friend's house is pink- like a Charleston pink. The girls loved it!) :)

    We are also adjusting to only having three teenagers now. Arielle turned 20 at the end of January! We enjoyed having a quiet evening at home as a family- with brownies made by Emma and ice cream made by Breyers. Inside the bag that Arielle is about the open at Left is an awesome book that she's been drooling over for several months on sewing fun, creative children's clothing. She was thrilled! Also was a lovely spreader that her talented woodcarving daddy made for her to put in her hope-chest as well as some tea-party china for the same purpose.
      As some of you know, January, February and March are our main Birthday months- with Arielle, Emma, Bev and Pat all two weeks apart. So... now we have an almost 14 year old Emma.... how could that possibly be?
      More Birthday posts to follow!

Sincerely,
The Lancaster Family