cullenhouse

Evening in December 2010

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Our Evening in December Concert series has been a huge hit here in the lowcountry. We expanded to three shows this year - one in Bluffton and two on the Island. Here's an excerpt from one of our Island Campus shows of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" performed by Debbie and Daniel Cort who attend the HHI Campus.

Polar Express 2010

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The kids had such a great time last year that we asked them what they wanted to do this year for Christmas. It was unanimous! We invited Cynthia's parents this year and we had a blast. The recent snowfall in Bryson City, NC really helped with the entire experience. This is an awesome thing to do as a family and a great memory that we will always treasure!

Merry Christmas from the Cullens!

As 2010 draws to a close, we are so thankful for God's blessings this year on our lives. It has been a year full of great things as well as some difficult challenges. However, we are so thankful for God's grace and that His mercies are new everyday.

Todd is working on his seminary degree and taking classes through Liberty online. It has been difficult to do this with the kids and ministry but Todd is doing well and looks to finish by Fall of 2012. The HHI Campus is going well. We are averaging between 150-180 every week. We are looking toward hiring a full-time Family Pastor to oversee ages 0-18 in the near future and we are praying through what God has for us as far as facility on the Island. We are excited about 2012 and new opportunities for ministry.

I am wrapping up the end of my first year overseeing Worship Arts at both campuses at LowCountry. It has been a good year, but a very busy one! I'm excited about hiring a new worship leader to join the team in 2011 and then taking a 3 month vacation to Tahiti!

Our brother-in-law, Jonathan Bonar, was diagnosed with cancer this year. We are so glad to say that as of today, he is cancer free and has finished chemo. We ask for your prayers for Jonathan and my sister, Cathryn, and their kids as they move forward and continue to pray for God to heal Jonathan.

We are enjoying our home on the Island and watching our children grow up. We are so thankful for our church family and the privilege that we have to do ministry together as a family.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year filled with God's grace and goodness!

 

Sean...3.10

  

Sean David is fast approaching four and we can't believe it. He started preschool this year at the same school Sydney attended. He loves it! Sean is full of personality and is our resident comedian. He loves to act out what he watches on TV and has a whole rountine where he can act like a puppy dog - sit, stay, roll over, play dead, and give sloppy wet kisses (a big lick on the face,actually!) He LOVES trains! We went on the Polar Express once again this year and he loved it. He will play for hours on the floor with his GeoTrax and his Thomas the Train set. He has a game of battleship in his room which is really just him separating the red and white pegs, but he will do that for an hour and get everything in a specific order by color. It's hilarious!

He loves music and loves the drum set at church. He hums along with everything that he hears. He loves Sydney so much and watching them play together is one of the things we enjoy the most about our kids. He learned to pray this year (with help from his "sissy" as he calls her). We are still working on colors as he loves orange, peach, and yellow, but not clear on what is red or blue yet. We are not sure if he is teasing us when we ask or if REALLY doesn't know the difference! He is addicted to our iPhones (we are looking into treatment :) and loves Angry Birds, the Monkey game, and The Train Conductor.

Sean is so loving and loves to wrestle with Dad. Some of our favorite phrases right now are...

• "Mommy, I'm hungering (i.e. - hungry)"
• "Mommy, where's your pink phone?"
• "Where's Sissy?"
• "Daddy, let's wrestle!"

Sean is a determined little boy, very self-reliant, and loves people. He is such a joy and a delight!

Halloween 2010

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There is a great neighborhood on the Island where everyone goes trick or treating...it is such a blast!

Sydney...age 6.5

 
Sydney has had a full year! She started first grade this fall with Mrs. Norton (who attends our church). We love her! Sydney has learned to write really well this year and her reading has far exceeded any of our expectations. She loves school, but her favorite things are ballet and art class. She loves Mrs. Barrett and enjoyed taking her after school art class this fall.

Sydney is my creative artist. She loves how music integrates into dance into art into design. Her imagination blows us a way. She loves all the arts and being a part of all of them. Not one has really surfaced as her favorite. She has her own sense of style and her own way of expressing her ideas. Whether she is playing dress up, building a store outside her room, creating bedrooms for her babies within her own room, planning a "show" to perform on Christmas that includes costumes, music, and dancing or re-decorating her room - she loves to create.

Hear are some funny things she has said this year...

• "Mom, I don't want to be a cheerleader because you have to talk a lot. I just like to paint and not talk."

• "I think I have another ear confession"(i.e. - infection)

• "Are you kidding me?"

Sydney had her tonsils and adenoids removed in November. She has fully recovered and is sleeping so soundly. She failed part of her hearing test at school this year and we discovered she had a ton of fluid in her ears. She hears so much better now and the TV is no longer at maximum volume when she is watching it!

The highlight for us this year was that Sydney indicated to us that she trusted Jesus to be Her Savior. She received a journal from a friend during her recovery from surgery and she wrote pages and pages of her thoughts. We think some of her thoughts were definitely because of her medication - things like " Fairies are bad.God is good." (Lol!) Anyway, there were some things that were so meaningful like this..."I learned that God made us food and water. He gave us His love to follow Him and He made us and the most important gift that He gave us His Son Jesus."

She wrote a great little Christmas song this year that I was able to capture on my iphone. Here it is...

Sydney's Christmas Song

 

Sean's First Day of Preschool

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I have this same clip of Sydney walking into Island Lutheran Preschool three years ago...time flies too fast.

Cousins

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We visited with the newest addition to the Cullen extended family in October this year, Kylee Reynolds. It was great to have all the cousins together at Katie and Reggie's home in Greenville, SC.

Sean's First Field Trip - Part Two

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Lunchtime!

Sean's First Field Trip

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The Coastal Discovery Museum on HHI does a great job of offering programs for kids to learn about our environment and our natural resources on the Island. Howeer, I think the idea of running on the beach with his preschool friends was REALLY the highlight of Sean's field trip with Island Lutheran Preschool!