Birthday Traditions

First of all, thanks mom for watching Daniel so Joshua and I could go on a date while we were in Texas!

While on our date, Joshua and I started talking about birthday traditions. Daniel's birthday is coming up soon and we have not thought about what kind of traditions we want to start. I read Noel Piper's book about family traditions and treasuring Christ in those traditions but that was a while ago so I don't really remember specifics! We both decided that I should look at that chapter again and we can talk about this topic again. But we did continue our discussion. Some of the things we talked about were what is the point that we want to get across in the celebration of birthdays? > It seemed like that was a good question to start with because then that would drive what we decide to do. We decided that we want it to be a celebration of the person (kinda obvious!) and a way to treasure the gospel and Christ. So with that, our next question was what are things that we can do to make it a celebration of the person, but make sure they don't think the world revolves around them? What things can you do honor Christ or make much of the gospel in a birthday celebration?

We also talked about the importance of having traditions because it gives stability and expectation for Daniel and any future kids that we have. We are probably going to be living overseas and might have a somewhat varied schedule, so we think having traditions would help give continuity to a child's life. So we want whatever we do for birthdays to be something that can be easily replicated with multiple children in varied settings.

We don't like the idea of giving other siblings a present on the birthday of another sibling as seems to be the current trend. It seems like it would be a valuable lesson to teach the children who's birthday it is not, to rejoice for their sibling who is getting gifts and having attention given to them.

And we didn't get much further than this. We are having a hard time coming up with tangible things you can do and not just say that will give a birthday celebration more meaning than only the celebration of the persons life. So we decided to ask our parents and others what they did/thought on this subject. So if anyone actually reads this and has traditions that they do, or ideas they have heard of for birthday traditions we'd love to hear them. We are specifically looking for ideas about how to have a gospel centered, Christ exalting birthday celebration.

Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We here in Texas enjoyed a rare thing-SNOW!!! Yesterday my dad got up saying, "It's going to snow." Joshua and I thought he was crazy since the day before we had thrown Frisbee in 70 degree weather! No, he insisted, "It's going to snow." Thirty minutes later what we saw out the window proved him right! It snowed just about all day. What a treat for us to have a white Christmas.

We enjoyed a Christmas Eve service at Hillcrest Baptist-my parents church. Daniel enjoyed the music and playing with the candle before it was lit. It was great to sit down and think about the greatest gift of all- Jesus Christ. We are amazed at God's gift to us, that he would give His Son to live on earth and then die for our sins. Praise God for the resurrection too!


A fun family tradition that we introduced Daniel to after the church service was opening one Christmas present. This Christmas Eve present is always PJs! The PJs are to be worn that night and the next morning we open our presents in them! Daniel enjoyed the paper! We also had some chicken noodle soup and a tradition from Joshua'
s family--onion sandwiches!


Daniel in his new PJs...they were nice and fuzzy and warm!


Daniel got up at about 7:15, so we all got up and started making breakfast. After breakfast we read Daniel's advent Christmas story and then started opening presents. Daniel made it about halfway through the opening of presents and then went to bed for a couple of hours, during which we continued opening presents and then started putting finishing touches on food!


Gregory and I made dressing balls and green bean casserole. We also had turkey,ham, rolls, cranberry sauce, potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Yum-o!


Grandma Rannels joined us for lunch. She really enjoyed Daniel's antics!


The rest of the afternoon was spent by various people taking naps (Daniel included!), playing Rock Band, watching some home videos circa 1987 (gotta love those clothing styles), playing games and chatting with each other and other family members who aren't here.

It's been a great Christmas day and we are blessed. In the words of Dad Greever, "being together is the best part!"

Back at it

After taking along break from the blog, we'll start back at it! Here's our Christmas letter for a quick run down of what's been going on with us this year. And I'll post some pictures from this morning...we opened our Christmas presents this morning. We will be traveling to my family's home this Christmas so we wanted to celebrate here with Daniel his first Christmas. We had a special breakfast, read our advent story and opened presents. Daniel loved the wrapping paper and understood that we wanted him to take it off of the presents! Here's our Christmas update!

Merry Christmas from the Greevers! This year has been full of change, and we are so thankful that in the midst of it all we have the hope of eternal life through Christ, whose birth we celebrate. Here are a few highlights from our year.

On February 4th we welcomed Daniel Abraham Greever into the world. He was born after a difficult labor—we are so thankful that the Lord protected both baby and mom. We thought when we took Daniel home from the hospital that he did not have any significant health concerns, but we found out when he was 9 days old that he needed to have surgery to fix a narrowing of his aorta. He had this surgery when he was 17 days old. God was gracious in causing this surgery to be effective and, when Daniel was 6 months old, the cardiologist said Daniel could go a year before another check up! Another health concern we have dealt with is that while Daniel was in the hospital they started some genetic testing to rule out any syndrome as a cause for his heart defect. God saw fit to grow our faith in Him over about 8 months of waiting for final results of this testing. We are thankful that all the testing has come back normal. We will have a check up with the geneticist when Daniel is a year old and we hope that no additional testing will need to be done. On the lighter side, Daniel frequently practices words like “ra-ra-ra” and “da-da-da,” as well as rolls around on our carpet! Soon he will be crawling and (even!) walking. We are thankful for and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him!

In May Joshua graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Louisville with his Master of Divinity. He was interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in New Testament studies at the seminary, and in September he was accepted. He took German this fall in preparation to start his studies this coming spring. He continues to work the weekend night shift as a security guard as well as weekdays at our local mall’s Chick-fil-A. Also, our church started an internship program that Joshua is participating in until May 2010.

Amelia is enjoying the joys and trials of motherhood. She is thankful to be able to work only 3 days a month at the hospital, which allows her to be home with Daniel a great deal. This fall she has been able to attend a women’s Bible study at church. She has also been able to participate in a Bible study for the wives of our church’s interns. She has greatly enjoyed both.

We are continuing to meet with our small group from church, which is a blessing. Joshua is co-leading the group since the previous leaders are now doing mission work.

Other small tidbits of news include that we moved off campus in May as Joshua was no longer a seminary student. Our new apartment is a few blocks from our church so we often enjoy walking to the services.

We have gotten to see our families at various points throughout the year, for which the grandparents are very grateful!

We have seen God’s faithfulness in the midst of the small and big changes of this year and we look forward to His continued faithfulness in the coming year. May God richly bless you as well!

Joshua, Amelia, and Daniel Greever