Family Christmas Letter

Well, I could claim that I'm posting a family Christmas letter online instead of mailing it out because I'm trying to save trees (no printing all the letters) or save money (not buying extra postage). But the truth is that I just wasn't organized enough to get the letter done before sending out the Christmas cards!

So this year…

Started out in January with a trip to Disneyworld!! It was a great time. We took almost three weeks to visit places from Chicago to Orlando to Baltimore. We all really enjoyed seeing all the new places and had a WONDERFUL time at Disneyworld. We'll definitely have to do that again sometime. Preferably when I am NOT 6 months pregnant so I can ride the roller coasters! The one bad note was when I got a phone call near the end of vacation telling me I had been laid off. That's news that could have waited a couple of days! I had worked for Lehman Brothers in their mortgage division, and well, you all know what's been going on in the mortgage industry this year! Thankfully, Lehman Brothers provided a generous severance package, including paying for the maternity leave I would have gotten if I'd still been employed. So all together, I was home with the kids for 6 months and got paid for it. Can't complain about that!

So speaking of maternity leave, in May we welcomed another little boy to our family. Brekken Malachi was born on May 7, 2008. Not quite two weeks later, Preston turned 2. With the two of them being so close in age, they will probably go back and forth between being best friends and sworn enemies for the next 18 years or so!

When Brekken was 10 days old, I got a new job. Luckily they were willing to wait for me until I had taken all my maternity leave, so I didn't actually start the job right away.

At the beginning of July, we went to Utah for the Wardle family reunion. Since we had a very young baby, we stayed at my parent's place at night and went up the mountain each day to visit with everyone. It was lots of fun as usual, and we loved getting to see everyone.

All through July, Haley asked me every day if she could go back to daycare yet. She'd had enough of staying home with Mommy and was ready to get back to daycare where she could play with friends all day! Preston was also anxious to go back to playing with his buddy Cooper. So they were glad when I started my new job in July! They have both continued to really enjoy daycare and their friends. Haley also goes to preschool a couple of days a week and loves that. She can't wait for next year when she'll get to go to school every day. Brekken has also adjusted to daycare without any problem.

I love my new job. I create educational materials for the Nurse-Family Partnership. Nurse-Family Partnership is a nurse home visiting program that improves the health, well-being and self-sufficiency of low-income, first-time parents and their children. After working in the mortgage industry for several years, it's really nice to work somewhere with such a great mission!

In October, they realigned our ward boundaries for the wards in our building. We had 2 enormous wards and 2 tiny wards so they tried to balance that out. We lost only 2 families (unfortunately, one was our good friends) but gained around 20 families. So we have been very happy to get all these new people in the ward! After the realignment, Aaron was the only member of the Young Men's presidency left in the ward for a while! He was very glad when a new President, 1st counselor and Scout Master were called. It's the first time they've had a full Presidency in at least a year. Suddenly, the calling is much lower stress than it had been and he seems to be enjoying it a lot more!

Also in October, we started battling a nasty stomach bug. Poor Preston had it for a week. Then of course it made the rounds of all our kids, plus several of the kids at daycare.

In November we went to Grandma & Grandpa Shields' for Thanksgiving. It was lots of fun to see everyone. We got a bonus when Grandma & Grandpa Schurz and some of the rest of that side of the family came out to Salt Lake for a Jazz basketball game. We got to see everyone at the game and then made a trip to Temple Square to see the lights. Unfortunately, Preston came down with the stomach bug again while at Grandma & Grandpa Shields' house. We're hoping no one else caught it from him… no one has called us to complain about it, anyway! On the drive home from Thanksgiving, we got caught in a big snowstorm as usual. We are jinxed when it comes to Thanksgiving travel!! On top of that, Aaron got the stomach bug on Sunday night and I got it on Monday morning. Not fun while traveling.

In December, we have continued to battle that darned stomach bug. It seems to come back around every week or two. I have disinfected every surface and toy in our house, but it still keeps coming back. Everyone is healthy at the moment, so fingers crossed that we can stay that way at least until after Christmas and Haley's 5th birthday!

Other than that, everything is going well for our family as we close out the year. Brekken is growing like a weed. At 7 months old he is already wearing lots of 12 month sizes because he keeps growing out of everything. He's bound to start crawling any day now. He's already pretty mobile, because he just scoots and rolls himself where he wants to go. Preston is very independent and wants to do everything for himself these days. He can be very obstinate and frustrating, but he's also just the sweetest little guy. His smiles and dimples melt my heart. He loves anything to do with cars and trucks and balls. He's learned most of his alphabet and can count to 10 already. Haley is as smart as a whip – just this last week we realized that she was actually reading now, not just recognizing a word here and there. She's growing up a lot. It's hard to believe that she will be 5 here soon! She's looking forward to her birthday party and has been very involved in planning it, choosing her cake, and even making the party favors. She loves to cook and make crafts. Aaron is still working at Rockley Music, where he's pretty indispensible. They rarely manage to make it through a weekend without calling him for help or advice about something!

I am grateful that we have made it through the year in pretty good shape. We had some health scares with my grandma and grandpa, but thankfully both of them have recovered and are still doing well. The rest of the family is in good health as well (with the exception of that darned stomach bug!). We're happy that Christmas is almost here and wish we could see you all – but thank goodness for the technology that lets us all stay in touch!

If you'd like to see pictures from the past year, you can find them at www.dropshots.com/taradon.