To our friends and family, we hope you have a wonderful Christmas. God Bless each of you. We thank you for your friendship and doing life with us! 2011 has been a rather big year for our family. We hope that we finish the year as people who are more thankful for this life we have been given and more importantly thankful for the God who both gives the most abundant life imaginable and is life itself.

We have enjoyed simple family outings and times at home, good times with friends and again are thankful for those who walk so closely with us through the ups and downs of life.

Heres a bit of a catch up on our family from the oldest to the youngest ;-) It has been quite a journey this year. In September, Ben accepted a job and commenced full time work as the Event Manager for Churches of Christ QLD. This has been the start of an exciting new adventure and we feel very blessed by this new door that has been opened. This does mean that Ben will only continue with less than a handful of higher level piano students next year, so there was a tinge of sadness in moving on from what has been such a big part of our lives, and saying good bye to many stu-dents. At the same time, we have been so thankful to Sarah, who now teaches here a couple of afternoons a week and has taken on a number of Ben’s pupils, in-cluding Ethan and Joseph Farley ;-) Ben has hit the floor running in his new role and the last couple of months have been more than a little busy as he has continued on with his role as Event Co-ordinator for the IGA Lord Mayors Carols in the City, and had many students do piano exams before he finished teaching them. Earlier in the year, he headed to Alpha to assist with the opening of a coal mine. Ben and Michelle enjoy being part of a life group. Ben makes a great coffee :-) and has done some fine BBQing this year (no, he didn’t write this!)

Ben loved hanging out at Arley Farm in Maleny during the September holidays, as we all did. The tradition with Ben and our boys each night was to watch some Bear Grylls, to prepare for the next day of adventur-ing and exploring ;-) Ben has been enjoying Bear’s book too and there are plans for a boys camping ad-venture in the new year. Ben is greeted by very excited children when he arrives home and we are looking forward to having more evening time together next year, with the new work hours.

Ben and Michelle had a night away in Sydney in April (Michelle was there for a childrens minisry seminar)and stayed with friends. Ben is now a deacon at our Church, the Baptist City Tabernacle Church (we all call it ‘The Tab’) and Michelle has had a rewarding year looking after the kindy ministry. There are lots of littlies and it makes for a very bustling kindy room on Sunday mornings! Ben and Michelle are both involved in the music ministry there too.

Michelle has also been involved in an array of activities at school and church, and loves being able to be part of such great communities. Michelle is kept busy caring for our beautiful children. Those beautiful chil-dren sometimes create interesting challenges but that's part of the journey isn’t it! She did some songwrit-ing recently, setting lyrics to music for a song which was sung at Forget Me Knot Day in November (a day which she is honoured to be part of, which remembers the adult survivors of child abuse and neglect) Mi-chelle also organised the program for the School Carols night, presented by the Chaplaincy committee. She continues to enjoy her piano teaching and did some further study in the first part of the year, though this had to be put on hold in the second half. Michelle has really appreciated time with friends. She loves hanging out at home and has taken to a show called ‘Escape to the Country’ as a result of her delight in Arley Farm (don’t worry, we are heading back there again in 2012) In May, Michelle’s mum, Hazel, had to move to a secure high care facility as her alzheimers progressed. This was another emotional challenge, as has been the journey of this disease but it was also a time where we saw God provide and at just the right time, a lovely room at ‘The Plains’ was offered to mum. Still part of Bethany Care (as is Janoah Gar-dens), we are very thankful for the way mum has been cared for through this challenging journey. Mum adores the children and mostly knows us.

Ethan proudly became a ‘boys brigader’ this year. He looks very smart in his uniform :-) He has adapted very well to life in grade one and has put in much effort and achieved so well on his report card. We are so proud to see the way our big boy has risen up to face some challenges this year.Ethan loves to come up with plans and then implement them.He absolutely loved our week on the farm. Ethan “secretly” is a spy

and has been setting up a spy network amongst his year one buddies! Ethan is a softy and a thinker. He asks big questions and he loves his nighttime reading regime in bed. Ethan had a fun 7th birthday pool party at The Plantation, he loved visiting the Ekka and went on his first full day school excursion to Under-water World this year. He got a wonderful result on his recent preliminary piano exam and organised a Na-tivity play himself with his classmates, on the last day of school, which he narrated (yes, Michelle almost cried when she walked into the classroom to see what he had arranged) Ethan is very confident on his pogo stick, and is proud of improving in his swimming, He is absolutely hooked on craft-he has recently been doing some very clever origami. Ethan loves hugs.

Joseph has had a great year in Prep Blue. This is amazing considering his first seven weeks or so of very intense separation anxiety. He has finished the year not wanting Prep to finish as he has grown to really love this very special class. Both Ethan and Joseph have had fabulous teachers and assistants. Joseph is a good friend and is very thoughtful. He made a big decision this year to follow Jesus. He loves to help out at home and at school and got an award re-cently for ‘Always trying his best through the Prep Year and being a good friend in Prep Blue’ (this almost made Michelle cry too!)

Joseph continues to love pottering in the gar-den in search of bugs and lizards. He is a passionate

artist and goes to a great Art class each Saturday morning. His artworks have both impressed us and his art teacher! He has been

showing an interest in starting footy so that looks like a plan for 2012. Like Ethan, Joseph played very well in the end of year piano concert.......and has been the case with

our Jo in the past, we made it to the Maleny hospital on two occasions with him on our week’s holi-day at Arley Farm! Joseph lost his beloved Snowbear in June. We have searched high and low but thought it worth mentioning in the letter just in case any of you have come across a cream, shaggy and very loved teddy bear at your home.

Abigail is one talkative and lively three year old. She cracks us up with the things she says. Joseph tells us frequently “Abigail is very smart”. She knows she is ;-) and she also knows that she is very very very cheeky! Abi has invented some imaginary characters recently called ‘the rainbow guys’. They do all sorts of amazing things and we know so much about them that we can all easily have a conversation about their latest adventure :-) Abi loves music. She loves to sing and dance, just at home in the lounge room, usually to the tune of some Colin Buchanan track. Abi was delighted to receive what Colin called an ‘ugly cup’ at Carols in the City. The fact that it was a gift from Colin makes it a very special cup indeed. She has been going to the Salvation Army Daycare at Carina each Friday but has now finished for the year and will next year attend the Carina C&K (as the boys did) to do her kindy/pre-prep year. I can’t believe our little girl is a year away from prep. She has enjoyed her visits to Tab Tots (our church’s playgroup), being out and about, and especially being with ‘her boys’ :-) She is wonderful company, such a joy (as is the meaning of her name) and also is a significant reason as to why Michelle is more than a little tired at night!

Well this was to be a one page letter but as it turns out, thats not the case (Ben is not surprised!) I hope that if you’ve made it this far, you’ve enjoyed your read :-)

Thanks again for your part in our lives. Enjoy this special time of Christmas and know you are loved.

God Bless, Ben, Michelle, Ethan, Jo and Abi xxxxx