Christmas 2009

Here we are, 2009 winding down, Christmas season upon us, and football's regular season reaching a close. Holy CRAP! Where did the year go?

Ideally, we should have posted this a few weeks ago, since we referenced our blog on the couple Christmas cards we sent out. If you did not get a Christmas card from us, do not cross off your friend list, we were just serious slackers this year. Besides, the Christmas Card is now the lead picture on this blog, so enjoy.

Now for our year in review. I am going to recap, review, exaggerate, and maybe flat out make stuff up for each of us for 2009.

Haylee: Easiest baby ever, so far. Seriously. I have said before and will say again, if she was our first child, we may have been in for 10 more. She is rarely fussy, and when she is, it is so brief and hardly worth even labeling as fussy that we sometimes don't realize that she is even in need of something. Not yet crawling, but only because she can't figure out how to make her four extremities work together to make her move. She gets up on her fours, then pushes with her legs to scoot like an army man across the floor. She is also our first child to use her mouth for everything. I have always heard this about kids, but Haylee literally sticks everything in her mouth. She scoots across the floor and picks up crumbs or paper scraps and puts then in her mouth. She is a thumb sucker too. In addition to that, she is speaking in complete sentences (thats the exaggerated part!) That's our Haylee.

Eli: Growing up fast. Eli is our thoughtful, sharing child. He is so willing to share half of the last cookie with all of us except Tierra. I think the sibling rivalry thing is very strong in these two. I have been watching past Seasons of "The Office" on my computer. Eli loves the opening jingle so much that when he hears it, he drops whatever he is doing and sprints to the computer to see the opening and closing credits. It's so funny. He also loves it when I get the 5 in a row bonus on bejeweled and wants to know which color I obliterated. He yells from wherever in the house he may be. He loves preschool and is looking forward to Kindergarten next year. We also received a call from New York Yankees. They asked for rights to his future contract. We told them no, any other team but the Yankees.

Tierra: Loves, loves, loves Kindergarten. Loves reading. Loves discovering the new words as she learns how to sound the letters out. Tierra (both Tierra and Eli really, but mostly Tierra) loves to draw. She draws on every stray paper. Draws hundreds of pictures a month, so many that we are having a hard time storing them. They are very good drawings too. She has a talent for sure. She comes home from school each day and excitedly recalls her experiences with the hugest smiles. It makes me wonder if she has any part of me within her, I can't remember ever liking school that much. She also enjoys going to sleep because as she put it, she "watches movies in her head when she sleeps. Movies about girls that are superheroes." Tierra also sold her first picture on Ebay. It was a scribble job that looked a lot like a horse race. It went for 225 K.

Rebecca: Rebecca is still running regularly and actually enjoys it. She wants badly to run the half marathon in Disneyland this coming September. She serves in Young Women's in the ward. Loves that calling as well. She is still reading like crazy, always has her face in a book. Its quite amusing to see her balancing Haylee in one hand, feeding her a bottle, reading a book, and making dinner all at once. You mothers sure have a talent there. I am sure you can all relate. I have no idea how she manages to raise three kids–2 of which can be very demanding–keep the house clean, the cupboards stocked, read 8 books each week, and put up with me day in and day out. Amazing. Rebecca was recently approached by a marketing agent asking her to be the editor in chief of a major publishing company. She said she would think about it.

Chad: I just changed stations. I moved to a different platoon and different crew. I really enjoyed my last station and crew, but a lot of things culminated to make me want to move. An opportunity came up for me to get a spot at a busier station, in an area that was still close to home, and the crew I moved over to are still all good guys. I have been there a few weeks now and I am glad I made the switch. It has been awesome. I am still a paramedic on an ambulance for the fire department, but the new station is a ladder company, so I get to do Truck company work again when we have fires. Truck companies have a different job than the fire engines. I like the truck work best. I was released as scout master early this fall, after 6 years or so of doing it. Honestly, I was not happy about it. My new callings, yes callings, are challenging. I am an Elders Quorum instructor and Sports coach for the ward athletics. I am not a good teacher, so we will see how this goes. I recently took the entry level test with the Disneyland fire department. They offered me a job. Thinking about it now.

Overall, as a family, we are doing great and having fun. This past year was a blast, full of lots of changes for all of us, and we look forward to the coming year and coming experiences. We are grateful for all of you as family and friends. We hope this Christmas season brings you peace, joy, and happiness.

Thanks for reading. Pictures coming soon.