Year in Review

Erik thought it would be appropriate to write a little about the highlights of our last year. I'll try to sum it up for everyone as best I can. I apologize in advance for writing a novel. The biggest event of the year happened on February 9th - our Owen Jacob was born. The delivery was rough, but he was as sweet as could be. Owen has been so different for me than my girls. He is such a mama's boy and needs to be held constantly. My girls were so independent. Owen never liked his baby swing or bouncy seat or anything that involved me putting him down. On the plus side, he is my first baby that is cuddly. He will give me hugs and kisses anytime and snuggles up to me any chance he gets. He's getting a little more independent now that he can crawl all over the house. He likes to get into everything he can (so maybe he isn't that different from the girls). Anyways, we couldn't be happier with our new addition.

Our next addition to the family was in March, Erik's camera. Erik LOVES his camera. It has been good for our family as well. As Erik has gotten more and more into photography, he has wanted to visit more places and see more things. Lucky for us, he lets us tag along, so we have had tons of super fun family outings. The camera is, by far, my favorite electronic purchase we have ever made.

The third addition to our family came at the beginning of the summer. This addition has brought a little more contention to our marriage than the other two - the boat. The kids love it! Erik feels like a kid when he's on the boat. I'm still trying to figure out how he talked me into it. Not only was it an expensive purchase, but we keep dumping money and time into it. We have had a few totally awesome boating trips with the family and Erik got to go halibut fishing a lot, so all in all I guess it's not too bad. I just find this is one of my favorite things to whine about.

Kaitlyn is doing well. She is as sassy as ever, but she also seems to be especially sensitive to people's feelings and goes out of her way to make people feel good. She has decided that she should be the greeter at sacrament meeting and has taken it on as her unofficial calling, passing out bulletins and greeting everyone with hugs and smiles. She is very social and loves being the center of attention (which she is quite often). She has been taking gymnastics classes and has improved a lot. She has decided her next sport should be soccer, so in March we'll sign her up for indoor soccer. She has proven to be a lot sportier than I originally thought. This last summer she ran an entire 5K with me, never complaining. She placed third in her division, but the other girls were riding bikes, so really she finished 1st in my book.

Kali is my mischievous and funny girl. She is quiet and sweet at times, but she can be just as social and outgoing as Kaitlyn when she wants to be. You can always count on Kali to say funny things. When all the kids at preschool were shouting out what they wanted to be when they grow up, firefighters, doctors, etc., Kali said she wanted to work at McDonalds. She was serious then, but she does have a sense of comic timing that I didn't realize was possible for a 3 year old. She must take after her daddy. She also just started gymnastics and loves it, though sometimes she forgets to listen to her teachers and just runs around like a wild hyena.

Erik and I are just plugging along and looking forward to our trip to Hawaii in January. It has been a fun and eventful year and we want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We're looking forward to seeing my side of the family next week in California.