Jan. 27

Birthday time. The boys have learned to say when their birthdays are in English. So now it has been time to celebrate Erik's - 6 years old! He is growing up and maturing, but it just seems amazing he is 6 already. We had a simple celebration with just our family and a couple of gifts from us on the 27. Erik also picked a cake at the store. (they have all kinds of cake but something with chocolate on top even if fairly simple was the key for Erik). And Erik wanted to continue the tradition of lifting up in a chair for the number of years old. (They had done this in preschool too. Erik had taken a "Sakotis" cake to celebrate with his group- and he has just gotten better from his cold in time to go for his birthday)

We got packages sent from Aunt Carol and from Grandma and Aunt Julie to open on Friday evening. Boy was that exciting. We also skype video called to Carol's place and Grandma came over too so they could see the boys opening the packages and their reactions.

pictures from January

Gregg has spent a lot of time in this position in the last 2 weeks due to back and hip discomfort. But the boys are not lacking much for attention. Erik had some kind of ice ball thrown at him when he was playing outside at home so he is still recovering from a sore eye.

the boys do enjoy their friend Lars who came to visit at our place last week.

A late Christmas present which works nicely in our apartment since we do have long rooms to run a remote toy in.

Brubaker dancers

Well, what do you know! Erik announced on Monday morning that he wants to go to the dance class they have at preschool at the end of the day (Mon/Wed.) Don't know what changed his mind. He had never wanted to hear of it before, though we offered last year and again this past fall.

He enjoyed last Wednesday so we went to get the dance shoes. And then it got contagious. David decided he wanted to go to dance class. SO today they both went and both are happy and the dance teacher is happy. Go figure!

that's girls stuff!

Our boys are in a stage for the last 6 weeks or more where they pay attention to what is ok for boys to do- and what is girl's stuff and not for them! Gregg suggested tonight that they watch a video we borrowed, with a bunch of others from a little friend who happens to be a girl. But this one they were not so interested in watching. David dismissed it outright- Thumbelina? -That's girls' stuff.

They are a little less interested in hugging or kissing mommy and Erik has avoided close contact with girls for a while already. "ew- girls!" to be exact. He also stated that he is not going to get married because he does not want to have babies.

Once in a while they are inconsistent when they decide to play that one of them marries mommy and the other is left with marrying daddy :) oh well.

We think that David's teachers have been emphasizing the difference in girls and boys and how boys should treat girls- and that boys are not to kiss girls. At least a teacher mentioned earlier in the fall that the children in that group needed to learn what was appropriate modesty and behavior.

let's go to the tomb!

We have been having a lot of snow for more than a week (and more is due in the coming days). Since it has been staying cold there is enough snow to build something and the older boys of our building built a couple of snow forts. They look a little like caves and to make good fortresses for snow battles. The other evening we let our boys play outside with the older boys as they built these and our boys were content to be out for a hour when we finally insisted they come in. It had been dark already for a while!

Today when we got home after 5 they wanted to play outside again. And I heard Erik say to David- let's go to the tomb! I guess it does look something like the image of the tomb that Jesus rose from, the only other occasion for them to see somthing that looks like that!

The boys have enjoyed playing with another boy who is their age, Lars. His family has moved to Lithuania to serve at LCC also. And they helped us out by inviting our boys into their family for some time during out busy week last week with the Saltshaker conference.

New Years already!

With the addition of the LCC event- Saltshaker 2009-2010 from Jan. 2-Jan.1 I did not have time to finish thinking about Christmas and we are already in the new year.
The idea of the youth conference over new Year's did give a group of 200 youth a way to spend New Years in great celebration without the atmosphere of excessive drinking so prevalent in Lithuania. It really was a blast! (But also a lot of work for some of us!)


Now in review there are a few more good moments to share from Christmas time too.
We enjoyed the time with our Silute church family on Christmas day despite the fact that David was fighting some kind of virus. It kept him calm enough that there were not too many disputes between the brothers during the service :)





There had been more good moments at home as well in our own family gift giving...