Merry Christmas 2008!

Our little family headed out to Utah for the holidays. 6 weeks is a long time to be away from home, but we love our family and love being with them.

Joren turned 1!

We had a really fun little party for him at my parents house. Since his favorite thing to do in the world is take a bath we had a bathtub/swimming party. My cute mom bought a carpet remnant and put it in the garage under the swimming pool. We heated the garage and the pool water and had a swimming party for the cousins. I made this little bathtub cake and Joren was SO cute when he saw it because when he realized what it was he got really excited and clapped his hands. I love this kid! He loved swimming and loved all his new bath toys. He is so fun right now. He is learning to immitate sounds and is almost completly walking on his own. (close). He loves his brother and they are so cute together. He loves to be tickeled. He is very brave. He loves to climb on things. He gets so excited when he climbs the stairs and loves to wander off on his own and explore things. His first words were dad and mom followed by Jesus and all done. (my mom and I swear he said Jesus clear as day while we were looking at paintings of him at the museum.) He played peek a boo with me today in the car and was so proud of himself. He kept covering his eyes and peeking at me for about 5 minutes. It was such a sweet moment. He's also a very adept sword fighter. (you have to be at our house)
I have been thinking about all of my friends these past few weeks since I almost always send out Christmas cards and at this time of year, I love to gather up all the names and addresses of the many people that I love and think about the memories we have made and send out a little note of love. ... and this year I made the lists and the plans, and then never got around to sending the cards. My mom is a great example. I'm still trying to grow up to be like her. She sent out a giant stack of cards this year. One was to an 85 year old lady that she hasn't talked to in 25 years, but she has sent and received a card from her every year for all of these years. The lady's name is Harriet, and she helped and befriended my mom when she was a young mother in a new place. We got a card today from a family that lived down the street from us in Denver when I was in high school. The boys in the family were 5 and 7 when we moved away and in their picture we just got they are now grown men. Somehow my mom made a special enough place in their heart that for all these years they have sent her a Christmas card. I love getting Christmas cards. It seems like it's almost an old fashioned sentiment these days. Most of my friends have email and I could email a picture and an update and I do like the Christmas wishes/cards that I get through email, but I also love to have a picture of my friends to hang on my wall. The pictures I got last year are still up in my house. (If I was at home I would take a picture and post it.) And that's why I feel especially bad that I did not get my cards done this year. I think about my high school friends, my college friends, my work friends, my early marriage Provo friends, Missouri friends, Michigan friends and family friends and anyone else I have missed and well.. don't you just sometimes want to send out a great big "thanks for being in my life, that was such a great time, you really made a difference, you've made me who I am now, and Merry Merry Christmas, I hope you know how loved you are" kind of message to everyone you love? Well, it's pretty impossible to send that out to everyone who has touched my life, but if you're reading this you probably know you're someone I love.. so Merry Christmas to you, and sorry you didn't get a card! I'll be more like my awesome mom next year.

Paul did a great job on the Turkey this year. (as usual)

We hope you all have a WONDERFUL holiday! Merry Christmas!