Matthews Family Herald

Hi Family, Friends, etc.

Great to update you very briefly here.

The kids have started up in Gymnastics again for most of them. Jacob is taking a mixed martial arts class instead. Micah was going to take some guitar lessons from an American but local legend here, Billy Goodman. This guy toured around with some of the major rock bands but then became a Christian. He's active musically and evangelically now, and also gives lessons at affordable rates. Check out Billy Goodman here:

http://www.homegrownmusic.de/billy_goodman.40.html#BILLY

So, although you can tell I think Micah would really benefit from Billy Goodman :) he's going with the martial arts now as well. That's great too, though, and I support him in that decision.

Micah has opened his website and continues to offer spray paint artwork custom made for you, if you make a donation to cover his supplies, shipping costs, etc. Comes out to about $20 a pop and well worth it. He's already had several orders and so he's pleased, but looking for more ways to get himself out there. Waiting for the summertime to offer more opportunities. He may up his price a bit, as this amount doesn't quite cover all he spends. But again, if you want to see his amazing work and consider getting him to paint you something awesome, his site is:

http://www.spacepainters.blogspot.com/

Speaking of Micah, he just about broke one of his toes trying to do a martial arts kick recently. And just about the time his toe was "all better," he and I were fooling around doing martial arts in the driveway, and he injured his pinkie. Good grief!

Heather and many of the other local homeschool moms have picked back up with regular weekly co-ops again. We had another great home fellowship meeting last night and we are starting a series by James McDonald. http://www.jamesmacdonald.com/

The keepers and contenders groups are going to have an annual planning meeting this month and then get that going again.

Heather's natural, herbal class materials for certification have not yet arrived but we await them eagerly. I continue reading my second Joel Salatin book and learning otherwise about argriculture as much as I'm able (which isn't much). Of great influence in our family right now are The Duggar Family in matters both practical and relational. http://duggarfamily.com/

Our oldest, Rachel, has had gall stone troubles. She had surgery to remove some of the stones and now it looks like she may have a second surgery to remove it entirely. Their family is set to move to Japan sometime early this year. The great news, though, is that they have started a family blogsite. http://www.meerkatfamily.blogspot.com/

Mary Ann is doing well but has a bit of a fever today. She is saying "Mama, Ninny, Da Dad" lately. Or some very close variation of those, and at the appropriate times you'd imagine a child saying them. She's gotten heavier recently, and of course, always cuter. She smiles a lot and laughes a lot. What a cutie! Heather has gotten so good at reading her body language, etc., that Mary Ann ends up "going potty" in a baby toilet that Mommy holds her over almost every time. It's pretty amazing. A definite head start on the road to being potty trained. Mary only fusses when something is wrong (imagine that) and something is normally not wrong. One funny thing I've noticed, if she needs a diaper change and is fussy about that, she'll calm down and smile if I come and say "change your diapie? Change your diapie?" with a smile? That's often how I know what the problem is without needing to actually check her diaper.

As for us, we spent a big chunk getting the van fixed but still have "miles to go before we sleep" in getting it back to standard. We have temporary tags for now. A friend, however, has loaned/maybe given us his car when he left Germany and so I now have something to drive. This may turn into the only car we have if the rest of the van problems are not taken care of.

I'm sure there's more news but that's about all I have for now. I'm here on MLK day, at work unfortunately, trying to catch up on some large projects.

Back to work for me and hope to hear from you soon.