newsletter.

Well, so much for updating this webpage every month. I'm just trying to update it every year now. Once again I apologize for not writing sooner. It would be hard, though, to update it once a month because there doesn't seem to be as much “news” to write about. I guess I could tell you what Pete is learning in his classes each month, or the current house project we are working on, or the neighbor I talked to, or the cute things that Lily said, or the way that our new baby boy is growing. Yep, for those of you who didn't know, we have a little baby boy named Silas James, born on November 22nd. He is going on two months now, so I thought this was a good time to update our webpage to let you hear about Silas and see some new pictures. He is growing fast… faster than Lily did. We think Silas will probably be as big as Lily pretty soon and she's almost 2 years old! She's still our little peanut. Adjusting to life with two little ones is the theme of our lives right now. Pete just started back to school this past week, so I'm holding down the fort without him(atleast for most of the day… he does come home in the evenings to eat dinner and play for a couple of hours, then he's off to work on homework). He had a nice 3 week break last month and we were all able to travel together to see family in Texas, Indiana, and Illinois. It was wonderful to have Pete with us for those 3 weeks to play with Lily, hold Silas, and hang out with us without the pressures of school and work. He is now entering the final leg of his graduate program. This will be a tough semester with 5 classes, then he will be doing research for his thesis this summer and finally he'll just have 2 more classes to take in the fall. He will be done with grad school this time next year.

Some of you may be wondering, “so, what are you guys going to do when Pete is done with school??” That is an excellent question and one that we would appreciate your prayers about. We would still love to make it to the Midwest to live near family again, but we want to be open to the plans that the Lord has for us and that may not be in the Midwest. We'll see what kind of opportunities come Pete's way this semester and following. We wouldn't mind to get out of the city and out of the heat of Phoenix, so we're hoping for a move. We also are still thinking about going overseas again someday. We don't know when that will be or where we would go. Another prayer request.

Right now, we are wanting to focus on the present and growing as parents and husband and wife. The Lord is teaching us new skills for this phase in our life and we are trying to be obedient to Him.

That's all for now. I'm not going to promise another newsletter anytime soon. Those of you with small children will understand. We do check our e-mail, so if you would like to be in touch with us more often please feel free to write. Pete's e-mail at school is: peter.newell@asu.edu. Lori's e-mail at home is: lori.newell@gmail.com

Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter and check out our website.

Peace to you,

Lori for the Newells