2008 Christmas Letter

(FYI - The links throughout this letter will take you to various posts with pictures detailing the events listed below. Feel free to click and browse around to see photos and videos of what our little family has been up to.)

Welcome to our 2008 Christmas letter. We are still residing in North Carolina, and love living here, even though we hate being so far away from family.

Our biggest news of 2008 is the announcement of a new member of our family arriving in February. We are expecting a little girl, Rachelle Corinne, due on February 6, 2009. Shaelyn, who turns 2 on December 12th, seems to know on some level that there is a baby in Mommy's tummy, and is preparing for big-sisterhood by playing with friends' newborns and showing what a big help she can be. We are excited for our family to grow!

In February we made a trip out west to see our families - Shaelyn's first trip out there. Shelley's sister blessed her new baby boy, so we were able to go to the blessing in Arizona and see Shelley's family, then head up to Utah so Shaelyn could see Michael's family and meet her cousins for the first time. We went to a BYU Basketball game, enjoyed seeing our old haunts, and remembered how freezing it can get in Utah during the winter, but had a great time.

In May we went to Topsail Island (on the coast of North Carolina) with some friends and stayed in a house on the beach for almost a week. We had gone to the beach in 2007, but Shaelyn had been terrified of the water and hated the sand, so it was a bit of a disappointment. This year you couldn't keep the girl out of the sand or the water! It was a little chilly at times, but we had a blast and saved a bunch of money going before the big summer rush.

This summer we also bought bikes to ride around the many trails in our neighborhood. This became a favorite summer activity of Shaelyn's, along with splashing around in her kiddie pool in the backyard. Michael and Shelley also enjoyed watching the Olympics, but turned into zombies for the two weeks since the live broadcasts didn't end until 2:00 am on the East coast each night - and yes, we stayed up to watch it every night! We enjoyed watching Michael Phelps win his 8 gold medals and Team USA beat everyone in basketball.

Then in the fall, while trying to prepare our finances for a new little member of our family, we got rid of cable - a true travesty for Michael, who loves watching all things sports. We've been cable-free for about 2 1/2 months now (we still have basic network channels) and have been surprised with how little we miss it (ok, we being Shelley...). We recommend it to anyone looking to save some money and have some more family time! We also had our "first snow" in the beginning of November, and had a fun morning playing as a family and building a very small snowman together.

Most recently, we've been working very hard on projects around our house, painting rooms and furniture to turn our house into a toddler haven so Shaelyn can have some fun around here while we're back in "I'm stuck in the house all day with a newborn" mode.

Individually, Michael is still working for VF Jeanswear, doing market research and analysis for Wrangler's product, marketing, and branding strategies. He has been there for going on 4 years and loves his job. This year has seen a vast increase in responsibilities and projects, so we are hoping for an increase in salary at the end of the year as well! He has traveled more this year than in years past, working in about 20 different states, and even Bogota, Colombia! It's been harder on Shelley this year to have him traveling so much since Shaelyn is now aware when he's gone and more demanding to take care of, but we've made it work. Plus, Michael's been able to enjoy some sightseeing while traveling, taking small side trips to Rocky Mountain National Park, Niagara Falls, the Las Vegas strip, and several Church history sites.

He is still ward mission leader in our ward, which demands a lot of his time when he is in town, especially since we have two sets of missionaries serving in our ward. He is keeping busy with Shelley's never-ending honey-do list, as well as playing in two Fantasy Football leagues and a Fantasy Basketball league. He is very excited for the Gators to be back in the national championship game. He plays basketball with friends every Wednesday night and comes home feeling like an old man! The skills are still there, but the back can only take so much. This summer, he participated with a friend in a local "amazing race" and did very well - coming in second place out of 60 teams! We both love the show The Amazing Race, and Michael is so competitive, so it was fun for him to act out his TV fantasy in real life (even if the ultimate prize was $100, not $1 million). He is a great Daddy and puts Shaelyn to bed every night and makes her laugh like no one else can! He loves watching The Office and Lost, and "playing i-Pod" (which means sitting at the computer for hours finding and downloading new songs), so if you ever need to get him a gift for anything, an i-Tunes gift card of any amount will be sure to make his day! He loves being a Daddy of little girls and can't wait for Rachelle to get here to join in the fun.

Shelley has been loving being a stay-at-home mom, but still not so great at embracing "the homemaker within herself." She spends her days at the playground with Shaelyn, at playdates with Shaelyn, running errands with Shaelyn... This year, since Shaelyn has become a sponge for information, Shelley has started "school" with Shaelyn - a 30 minute period each day of "structured" learning. So far it has been successful and Shaelyn loves the lessons, so Shelley has even further considered home schooling in the future, an idea she's been toying around with for years. Luckily she still has plenty of time before she has to make any decisions like that.

This pregnancy has been a little harder on Shelley than Shaelyn's pregnancy was. Generally, Shelley has been more tired and in more pain - but that can't be the result of chasing a very active toddler all day, can it?! The pain has been bad enough some days to make even walking difficult, but she's taking in stride and trying to keep as normal a routine as possible. She's also been having decently-painful contractions since about her 25th week. Now with less than 2 months to go, if things keep following this pattern, she's worried that she also won't have the easy labor and delivery this time like she did last time. She's excited to be a mom of two, but sad to be leaving behind the days of just her and Shaelyn, her "little best friend."

New this year for Shelley: becoming a sewing and crafting queen! Being a SAHM and being around all kinds of crafty people has inspired her to bring out her own creativity and has since completed several projects. It started with a quiet book for Shaelyn that was supposed to be simple, but turned into a very elaborate project that took 3 months to complete - all completely sewn and hand-embroidered. She then built a playhouse for Shaelyn, sewed her a doll, sewed her Halloween costume, sewed curtains for Shaelyn's room, and knitted Shaelyn a Christmas stocking. She is also the Gospel Doctrine teacher for our ward, a calling she loves because it reminds her of her days teaching seminary in Utah. And this week she's been able to sub for the ward's seminary teacher - a dream come true!

Shaelyn has been a joy this year, and has changed so much as she's turned from a "new toddler" into a "big girl." This year she has learned, and now knows, her letters, colors, shapes, and numbers (up to 14). She loves to sing, and her favorites right now are "The Wheels on the Bus," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," the alphabet, "I Am a Child of God," and any song from the Singing Time DVDs. She is starting to speak in little sentences and is so much easier to understand. She has really latched on to signing and now says and signs most things. We didn't plan on doing any kind of sign language teaching, but she started watching Signing Time over at friends' houses, and loved them too much for us to ignore any longer. Since watching the various DVDs, her vocabulary has exploded and her desire to learn new songs has increased dramatically. Shelley is now teaching herself most simple primary songs in ASL, and Shaelyn is learning them as fast as Shelley can. We now also sign our prayers as well as say them, as Shaelyn is more likely to participate in prayers if she can sign them while saying them.

Shaelyn is quite the agile, active girl, so this summer we enrolled her in a "Mommy and Me" gymnastics class (but Daddy comes too, so it's really "Mommy and Daddy and Me") that meets once a week for an hour. She started out a little timid, but can now climb to the top of and jump off of almost any surface, walk across the balance beam almost by herself, pull herself up on the bars, and "monkey walk" across the parallel bars. She still refuses to do a forward roll, but loves to put her head on the ground and look at the world upside-down from between her legs. The class has really helped her learn to follow directions and she's starting to get the idea of taking turns, although that's a concept she still struggles with. She loves being around other toddlers her age and her favorite activity is when we get out the big parachute on the floor. She loves to hold onto its handles and walk or run in a circle, shake the parachute, and most of all, sit on top of it while the adults pull it around. I would say Saturdays are her favorite days because it's the day she goes to gymnastics (or "nahs-sticks" as she calls it).

She also started nursery this year at church and loves it. She had a hard time letting Mommy or Daddy leave at first, but now loves her nursery teacher, and Shelley has dubbed her "Shaelyn's second Mommy." Her nursery leader is the mother of one of Shaelyn's little friends and lives in our neighborhood, so Shaelyn frequently walks down to their house to see if they can play. (Yes, she knows exactly where they live and how to get there.)

Her favorite activity right now is coloring, or anything else art related (she must be getting the bug from Shelley...). Her favorite shows are Curious George, Super Why!, Sesame Street, Signing Time, and Cars. We watch at least one of these on a daily basis. This year, she has enjoyed the holidays since she has been able to understand them a little better - she loved Easter egg hunting and dressing up for Halloween, and is really looking forward to Christmas. She can identify Santa, reindeer, snowmen, penguins, Christmas trees, and jingle bells, and loves talking about these things all the time.

Shelley documents Shaelyn's crazy antics each month in a monthly blog installment called Baby Talk. Click here to see this year's archives.

We hope your families are safe and happy this holiday season. We are grateful for so many things, especially our friends. We'd love to hear from you, too. Feel free to leave a note or just say "hi" by clicking on the link below that says "friends who have responded." And come back and visit soon.


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!