2009. Wow! Where do we begin?Obviously with the kids, since we have a lot of ’em!
Dominic celebrated his 1st birthday back in September. He has grown so much! Walking, talking, and climbing like a pro, he continues to charm everyone and has a smile and cuddle for everyone. He is such a good sleeper, napper and eater too. We haven’t decided who he looks like yet but reviewing old pictures makes us think he most looks like Noah, especially with the blonde hair and same body build. But he’s developing his own personality and characteristics. This fall his favorite activity was just being outdoors exploring, he’s doing his best to keep up the exploring inside for the winter.
On to our little Molly Kay who turned 3 in October. She’s quite the little gal who loves to play “ballerini” (aka being a ballerina) and is quite active these days. Even though she is petite and tiny, she can sure hold her own against her brothers and boss her big sister around too. She recently had her tonsils/adenoids removed in order to improve her (and her parent’s) sleep habits. It has made a world of difference for her sleeping. She took pretty much a week to recover from the surgery and now she is a back to her old self except that she sleeps though the night and doesn’t fall asleep in odd places/positions during the day. She has a multitude of interests and her favorite thing to do currently is snuggle with mom and dad whenever she can get us one-on-one.
Calvin entered his second year of preschool and is loving every minute of it. He turned 4 back in March. He spends most of his days either at preschool or playing with his little brother and sister. We think he can make a car out of anything as he is really good at role-playing. Right now he can quote almost every line from the movie “Up” after seeing it movie twice and loves Star Wars even though he’s never seen the movies. He constantly goes around breathing and talking like Darth Vader. He’s such a riot (Calvin, not Darth Vader!)
Our princess Marie celebrated her 6th birthday in October with a very girly tea party complete with all her friends and favorite stuffed animals. As most of you know, Marie’s favorite animal is a hippo. For her birthday she received a very large stuffed hippo from mom and dad and now her bed is overflowing with a family of stuffed hippos keeping her company at night. Marie started Kindergarten this year and is doing extremely well in school and loves everything about it. Often she wishes she had more homework like her big brother but we get the feeling she won’t be wishing for that later on 🙂
The hardest thing of all is believing our “baby” Noah is 8 years old and in 2nd grade this year! Wow, how times flies. Noah has turned in to such a great boy and a lot of fun to hang out with. He has a great sense of humor and is a hard worker in school. He is also doing wonderful in school and continues to impress us with his knowledge and eagerness to learn new things. Just lately he has made dad’s day asking to learn how to play Axis and Allies. Nate may just turn Noah into a WW II buff yet 🙂
Nate and his dad designed and built the whole thing by themselves. The kids are thrilled and so are we now that they have something to climb and swing on. It’s big enough for at least 6 kids and should last for a long time! A huge thanks to Nate’s dad for all his carpentry expertise and help this past summer.
We were able to get away for a little while up to the dunes and Chicago this summer and the kids had a blast. The 3 oldest played baseball in the summer and that made for a really busy month back in June. Nate is still at the UI and really enjoying it. He’s glad to have some extra time in the evenings to work on fun programming and side projects now. Sharon is busy keeping up with the kids and school. She is due with baby #6 in March 2010 so we’re preparing for 6 kids, mentally and physically, trying to figure out where this little guy (we plan to name him Patrick) is going to sleep once he moves out of mom and dad’s room! A house addition is definitely in the plans in the next couple of years! We celebrated our our 12th wedding anniversary on Nov. 22 by going to the German restaurant in Gibson city. We both dream of traveling but reality could only send us to Gibson City so we’ll have to settle for that 🙂 God has certainly blessed us in the past 12 years with beautiful children and a great place to raise them.
We hope this note finds you doing well and looking forward to Christ’s birthday. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2010! We’ll be sure to let you know when our baby Patrick arrives in March!
Nate & Sharon
Noah, Marie, Calvin, Molly, and Dominic