Sunday, December 24, 2017

Merry Christmas 2017!



Love incarnate, love divine
Star and angels gave the sign
Bow to babe on bended knee
The Savior of humanity
Unto us a Child is born 
He shall reign forevermore


Noel, Noel
Come and see what God has done
Noel, Noel
The story of amazing love!
The light of the world, given for us
Noel


Son of God and Son of man
There before the wold began
Born to suffer, born to save
Born to raise us from the grave
Christ the everlasting Lord
He shall reign forevermore


Noel, Noel
Come and see what God has done
Noel, Noel
The story of amazing love!
The light of the world, given for us
Noel


 Merry Christmas! 


with love,
The Serna Family

Monday, December 18, 2017

Kicking off the Christmas Season!

The day after Thanksgiving, Georgetown had it's tree lighting ceremony downtown. 


We decided it would be a fun thing to take the kids to see. It was kind of cool - but so crowded!





The following weekend, the kids had their church choir concerts. Mig and Selah's concert was at the mall. Here is a video of their sweet concert. Both Mig and Selah had speaking parts. 





Faith's concert was in our church sanctuary. These are 4-6 year olds....I am one of their directors and they are fun, but you never know what or how they will do on stage! We never were able to go all the way through our concert without stopping before this performance, but they were adorable and did a great job!!! Faith has a speaking part right at the end. She was supposed to say her verse and then go and turn on the Christmas tree lights, but she forgot and went back to her spot on the risers - and then finally remembered to turn the tree on! HA!



That weekend was also our small town's Christmas parade. It was a parade of lights so all of the floats had Christmas lights on them. We brought our international student, Emma, with us.

 




After the parade was the tree lighting ceremony. It was an amazing ceremony! When the tree lights came on, fireworks went off; both in the sky and around the tree!



It was also the weekend of the Super Moon! The moon was as impressive as the fireworks!


We had such a fun kick off to the Christmas season!! 

Monday, December 11, 2017

We are Thankful for Gabe!

Gabe's birthday was on Thanksgiving Day this year. We took the RV down to Georgetown to spend Thanksgiving at my sister's house. Gabe woke up on Thanksgiving morning with presents on his mind. 


Gabe asked for a mandolin this year. He was certain that the big box had that special gift inside.



Instead he found a rock and some smaller boxes....



He was really trying to be a good sport, but was not very good at hiding his disappointment. After several excruciating minutes, Byron finally pulled one final box out from its hiding spot. 


Gabe was so excited - and started playing it right away!! Within minutes of getting the beautiful instrument tuned, he began to play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". He's kind of an amazing kid. 


We left the RV around 10:00 to find that Aunt Rachel had a surprise party ready for Gabe upstairs!



She had some experiments for the kids to perform and had decorated the upstairs like a mad science lab!




Gabe loved it!! 



We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. (Many thanks to Galina Stepanov for these following two pictures).



 After dinner we sang to the birthday boy! 


It was a special birthday full of special people! 

Celebrating Faith's Birthday Moana Style!

On the Saturday before Faith's 6th birthday we met some sweet friends at Hula Hut for a birthday lunch. 





We love Hula Hut! It is such a fun place to eat - and was perfect for having a Moana themed birthday party. 




These girls are such sweet and silly friends!


On the morning of her birthday, Faith went straight for the presents. 


That evening we had a fun dinner and cupcakes to celebrate the new 6 year old.


She looks so grown-up!



We are so blessed to watch this precious gem blow out her candles each year! 

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Our 3rd Gotcha Day!




Three years ago you were adopted.
You were placed in our lives
and born into our hearts 
in a very special way.

We prayed for you,
we dreamed of you,
we prepared for you,
we waited for you.

And when we finally held you
for the very first time
it felt like you'd
belonged to us
forever.

poem by Kimberly Rinehart

Happy 3rd Gotcha Day!!

1 year home:


2 years home:


3 years home: