Merry Christmas 2013

December 2013

Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—

We debated whether or not we should even include a letter this year—after all, isn’t the point of Facebook to provide real-time updates on the events of the family to everyone close to us?  So, I went ahead and checked my Facebook account, and it looks like my most recent entry was dated 11/10/12 and said: “San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl sounds pretty prestigious.” So, dead end there. You’ll remember from past years’ letters that we have our family blog at www.nathanandmegan.blogspot.com, so I turned there next. Unfortunately, my blog posts ran out in April. Another dead end. So, we concluded that you most likely have no idea what we’ve been up to this year, and a quick little letter would, thus, be warranted. Here’s our update:

Olivia turned older and has learned how to walk—which resembles the walk of a man who recently rode a horse for 4 hours. She’s learned some important words like “D-a-a-a-d-y” and “M-a-a-a-a” (which either means “mom” or “milk” or “more food now”). Though she’d become an excellent sleeper at night, she’s re-learning how to do that all over again now that she’s begun sharing a room with Ava.

Speaking of Ava, she turned older this year and is quite the little talker—especially at bedtime when Olivia (and everyone else in the house) is trying to sleep. She has also become obsessed with the iPhone or iPad. She texts me sweet little phrases several times a day such as “DjO jU” (which I received this past Thursday at 6:34 p.m., for example). She also Facetime’s her grandparents almost every morning as soon as she wakes up. We pre-apologize for her yelling in the background if you try to call us, as she insists on saying “hello” to everyone that calls. Her iObsession notwithstanding, she is so sweet to her little sister and said “I am so happy” when they started sharing a room. She loves playing at the YMCA, and even took a little ballet dance class there this year. She had her first recital last week and may become quite the performer!

Max turned older this year and started kindergarten. After confessing “I’m so scared” on his first day of school, he quickly came to thoroughly enjoy it and is reading, writing and drawing like a champ. He loves walking to class in the morning with his big sister, Kaitlyn, and riding the bus home. He feels so big. He’s also discovered a love of Lego’s and has become an expert at building various “ships” (spaceships), piggybanks, and weapony-looking things of all kinds. He is still missing his front tooth and with that and his glasses, he is definitely in the running for most adorable little boy ever (according to us at least).

Kaitlyn (turning older in a few weeks) is now the oldest sibling at the elementary school and has stepped into that role well. Additionally, she has enjoyed taking gymnastics classes over the course of the year, and is now physically incapable of going from point A to point B without doing a cartwheel, or back walkover, or walking on all fours upside down while in the bridge position. She continues to work on her piano skills, and has also discovered that she has a very witty sense of humor. (For example, during a Target visit, she found a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower, held it up to me and said, “I kind of expected the Eiffel Tower to be a little bit…bigger.”)

Alison (turned older this year) is literally counting down the days until she turns older and can enter the Young Women’s program at church. As a middle schooler, she is becoming uncomfortably independent (am I really old enough to have a child in middle school?) and enjoys being able to stay after school to watch the 7th / 8th grade girls basketball team play home games (a team that she aspires to join next year). She loves watching Studio C, a sketch comedy program on BYUTV, and getting together with her friends. Fortunately, we’ve been able to nurture her unhealthy obsession with BYU, so she fits right in with her parents on game day.

Megan remains as busy as ever with 2 kids at home and 3 kids at school who need lunches during the day and guidance on homework at night. Somehow she still finds time to serve in her church responsibilities in the children’s Primary organization, workout at the YMCA frequently, and use her Stampin’ Up products to papercraft anything in the house that can have a glue dot or adhesive attached to it.

I’m enjoying my job at Bank of America, serving as the organist and youth Sunday School teacher at church, and trying to find time to play guitar and record music whenever I can (which, with the aforementioned 5 kids in the house, ends up being at around midnight for 10 minutes at a time, every other month).

We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the things we did this year as well as the things that really matter most—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2014.