
this handsome fellow turned thirty-six last month, calm and collect like always. we started his celebration with a date the night before (thanks craig and alie!) that included a movie and a meal, aka a ginormous hamburger. i absolutely love time with this guy. there is never a boring moment and before we know it, the evening is over.
we finished his celebration on his actual birthday with home cooked mexican food and cookie bars (instead of cake).
happy birthday christian! happy birthday daddy!

Christmas always rolls around with a sort of intensity we never expect. We suddenly need extra time, extra supplies, extra money, extra sleep. This year we were more than blessed by how much you guys supported us through one of our craziest times of the year!
After chatting with a friend about raising money for the holidays, she suggested “selling” something as a fund raiser. I had no idea what I was doing, but all things considered it went ok, with only a few minor glitches! I have TONS of ideas for next year! 🙂 This year, it was Christmas cards and ornaments. Next year, well that is a surprise of course.
Then there was the mess, errrrrr preparation. 🙂
Lots of parties. Lots of food.
New bibles with homemade/decorated bible covers thanks to a church sewing ministry and youth group!
Santa! (And Addy, Mercy and Walker)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Anchor of Hope!
We don’t post “good” pictures online – – aka ones that clearly show kids’ faces. If you would like to see more photos of what we did for the holidays, please visit and like our Facebook page, Christian and Marie in Romania.

last year, addy started rythmic gymnastics. she liked it but then we went to the states for our adoption and she missed a large chunk. she came back and was able to jump into a two week intensive gymnastics camp at the beginning of summer. so really, she has only been doing gymnastics regularly since this fall and i think (proud parent aside) she is actually pretty natural! 😉 these are just random pictures of the process and we learn what it means to be a gymnastics family, ha! {side note, the younger one doesn’t want to do gymnastics, she wants to do traditional dance…of course!}
































grammie managed to squeeze in a month away from her home…her home on the market! pops stayed home and held down the fort, so it was truly a joint effort (since this was the first year they wondered if they could come for a visit or not with everything happening). and of course, it was nice and refreshing. all things considered, i didn’t take a whole lot of pictures. this is almost {{all}} of them. but we had a lot of simple, quiet fun.
these two went on a date to see some movie i wasn’t interesting in seeing. 🙂
we also went on a date! come to find out, i took my mom to her first 3-d movie. kind of strange since romania is really into 3-d movies so we have a hard time finding 2-d versions (mercy’s preference).
so many read aloud books were read!
and so many puzzles were done. all of the ones we own actually!
my mom’s signature. my {beautifully} made bed every single morning!
a grammie and her oldest granddaughter
sometimes you go to ikea on your second to last day here. whoops. and sometimes you come home with “whichever lovey you want.” 😉

we have been blessed by an amazing relationship – – last year when mercy started grupa mijlocie (aka k4), she had a teacher (educatoare) and two rotating class aids (ingrijitoare). she bonded from day one with “doamna dorina.” fast forward to this year (grupa mare or k5) and dorina (and her daughter denisa) are now family friends. we love these two! in september, mercy spent the entire day with dorina and denisa at their house. it was such a beautiful thing for christian and i – – it was proof that our little girl is healing and moving forward after losing her brother last may. i took the first four pictures and then dorina and denisa sent me all the other picutres!























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disclaimer: way.too.many.photos. {sorry not sorry!}
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homework which we might actually enjoy around here, oh my:
alex started at mercy’s school!
chocolate eyes and a tear on her cheek…
and then we got new colleagues!
that time we bought a bag of mixed veggies boasting broccoli and found one entire piece of broccoli, haha!
there is something magical about sleeping babies:
international day of world peace:
freshly washed and braided hair:
summer comes to an end whether or not you want it to…

you probably will notice that these pictures are more or less missing faces – – these are photos of places we visit on a daily basis so we want these kids to remain anonymous. the one thing we don’t want to do is “market” our kids. and yet we know you enjoy seeing pictures of what we actually do. 😉 if you would enjoy seeing more personal pictures of ministry, connect with us here.


































