Merry Christmas & Happy New Year dear ones!
The time has come once again, to celebrate as we reflect on this year of 2017 & look ahead with bright eyes towards this next year of 2018. It has been such a BEAUTIFUL year! We are so grateful for all that our little tribe has gotten to experience as we have grown & continued to watch the glorious King of Heaven bring light & life to all around us. We hope that you have also tasted beauty & embraced happiness as you have journeyed through your year!
The beginning of our year brought us snow & rain, & therefore lots of bundling up & playing outside along with tea drinking & book reading inside. It also brought us lots of time with family. One wonderful thing that the winter season brings is more time together inside playing & snuggling. We are big fans. Noah & Katie’s dad finished up our incredible fixer-upper home remodel, & on February 1st, we moved into our NEW HOME! It is gorgeous, you guys. A dream come true for our family! Noah has continued to lead worship at our church once a month & our family worship nights are a regular part of our evening routines. On March 15th, Katie was declared 5 YEARS CANCER FREE! We have been doing a happy dance for 5 plus years & we are nowhere near stopping! On March 29th, Eliana Marie turned 4! We celebrated with family & friends at a park, she got a giant balloon & requested chocolate cupcakes with strawberries so that’s just what we had. It was simple & perfect.
The spring brought us more rain & exploring, we enjoyed frequenting parks (swing are Cora’s favorite), visiting local trails for hikes, playing in local places like Columbia & our favorite, Pinecrest, & enjoying daily walks in our amazing neighborhood. Katie continued to make our Jenks Abode into a haven for our family with baby numero 3 on the way & Noah coached spring track. The girls played outside in our backyard & did lots of painting & crafts. We played music together as a family each night (usually including at least one rendition of Old McDonald prior to worship) & took the girls blueberry picking. On May 30th, Cora Kinsey turned 2! We celebrated with our family & some close friends at our home with a moon & star theme because Cora loves the sky! It was a sweet time. We also were able to visit with Eliana’s birth family & had the honor & joy of meeting her biological grandma for the first time! We love adoption, it such a beautiful thing.
June brought us the end of the school year for Noah with his 7th & 8th graders as well as the end of our first year of preschool with the girls. It also brought us one of the best gifts in the whole world. On June 20th at 2:16pm, SEBASTIAN WILLIAM JENKS was born! He weighed 8lbs .09oz & stretched out at 20in long. He came earth side after being flipped the right direction 5 times, multiple bellybands & being induced. It was an intense 22 hour labor & a natural delivery, bringing us our first SON! We are so grateful he is a part of our family! The remainder of the summer called for rest for our little tribe along with trips to Santa Cruz, Oregon & of course lots of time up at our family cabin in Pinecrest.
The fall has brought us more time settling in as a family of 5, Katie started her second year of homeschool with the girls & has continued to sub at the high school & Noah began his 5TH YEAR of teaching! Woot Woot! We have taken trips to Texas, San Diego, Monterey & surprised the girls with a visit to Disneyland. As the days have gotten progressively colder, we have enjoyed daily fires in our wood stove, walks to collect the beautiful fall leaves around our neighborhood & enjoyed baking together in the kitchen. By the time you read this letter, our children will be 4 ½, 2 ½, and almost 6 months old! We are absolutely smitten with them & the way our life is FULL of snuggles & our house is covered in books, princess dresses, collections of rocks, & pinecones. We are blessed beyond measure with a roof over our heads, food on our table, jobs that we love, children that we adore, & a God who loves us relentlessly, even when we don’t deserve it. Day in & day out we sing praises for the beautiful life we have been given, with all of its ups & downs because He is worthy of it all! We are so grateful that HE IS GOOD & has given us the ability & privilege to love people well, to BE KIND, & to bring light & life to those around us.
With that, CHEERS to you & yours! We are so thankful for you & the role you play in our life, whether it is near or far. May you find more reasons to REJOICE this Christmas season than you can count, so that you can continue with your thanks all year long. May your heart be light & your home cozy. May you be surrounded with people that you love & may you love others well. Be kind. Love well. Bring life. We’ve got this! Lets bring light to this world during this holiday season & all year long. May your 2018 be sweet & full of ABUNDANT JOY. We love you. Happy Christmas!
Love,
Noah, Katie, Eliana, Cora & Sebastian Jenks
the jenks tribe 