Merry Christmas!

Well, here it is -- our Christmas letter.The first of the year was consumed in Ethan’s basketball days which were a tad stressful, but fun for the whole family. In March we took a weekend and visited Santa Fe and had a good time. Took way too many pictures: realized that this may be our big trip of the year (Santa Fe is 40 miles from Albuquerque so that’s really sad). Most of our spring was consumed in revamping our yard which was made better with many cubic yards of compost, new dirt, grass seed, and a lot of &*! hard work. So other than some bad parenting moments and wistful musings, some adoring and some humiliating moments, fun hobbies, a few birthday parties and smaller scale parties and some great family talent, we mostly just hung in there waiting for baby to arrive. Arrive she did . The kids had a little salty talk and made an independent film while I had a strange post-partum episode. The summer was so fun. The kids had swimming lessons, we visited with some old friends, and had a few fun family times. My birthday came, I loved my gift from Cort. The boys continued on with their production company but then got busted for copyright infringement. At the end of the summer, we got to visit my uncle’s cabin in Bozeman for a quick weekend and we let Great Aunt Charlotte meet little baby Charlotte. Then too quickly, school started. Ethan is in the gifted half day program which he is enjoying, and I think Elliot’s kindergarten teachers are enjoying him. Claire is home schooling for Preschool of the Performing Arts.

We were blessed in October to have visits from my dad, my dear best friend Carrie, and Cort’s parents -- all in about a two week span from each other. We held Charlotte's baby blessing around this time. Halloween was, of course, fun. We did a couple more little home projects here and there but mostly just watched Charlotte grow like a weed. We have spent the last few weeks thinking about what wonderful year we've had, how we’re thankful for our life, and how much we’ve been given . So Merry Christmas to one and all and here's to a wonderful and sunny new year!