Another year is coming to a
close. As we take this time to reflect, it brings to mind our many, many
blessings.
We are grateful to be in our new house in Highland. It was a lot of work to get things done, but
we just love it. This summer we had a
lot of dirt brought in, a lot of rocks hauled out, and after a lot of patience
and watering we’ve finally got green grass!
We have a few little baby trees that we hope survive the winter and the
deer.
We are grateful that Ryan
has a new job! Shortly before we moved
into the new house, Ryan lost his job at Intel and spent quite a few months
unemployed. Thankfully, a wonderful
opportunity opened up and he in now working for Claredi, a company that helps
other companies become HIPAA-compliant (don’t understand that? Ask him yourself and he’ll give you a
lengthy explanation). He really loves
the commute to his workplace–it’s about 30 steps from bed to the office
downstairs. Having Ryan work from home
has been an adjustment for all of us, but we’ve gotten used to it and really
love it! It’s nice to have the whole
family here in the mornings and Ryan doesn’t miss traffic jams at all!
We are thankful for our
family. The kids are growing up, as
kids tend to do, and that gives us new opportunities and challenges to learn
from.
Cole
is now 8 years old and was baptized in March. He loves cub scouts and recently earned his
Wolf award. He is a wonderful big
brother to all his sisters. He’s been
taking piano lessons for about a year and a half and is really excelling. He likes to play fast and loud, and his
current favorite songs are “Frosty the Snowman” and “Book of Mormon
Stories”. He played soccer again this
year, and although he’s not the fastest or most aggressive player on the team,
he enjoys playing, and we can see improvement.
Megan
is our 6-year-old 1st grader, and she can usually be
seen with a pencil or marker in her hand.
She LOVES to draw and is quite good at it. Her favorite subjects to draw are animals, often of the cat
family. She wants to be “an artist and
a horse rider” when she grows up.
Although she has no real horse to ride, she was an awfully cute cowgirl
for Halloween, complete with her stick horse.
Megan also enjoys soccer, and scored more than one goal this
season. She has lots of friends and
loves playing with all of them.
Natalie
recently turned 4, and is our little princess. She loves everything girly—Barbies, pretty
dresses, wearing her gold princess dress for Halloween, and painted fingernails. She is also a wonderful singer and has a
great memory for song lyrics! She has a
certain “Mermaid Show” on the trampoline with singing and jumping that she
performs for anyone who will watch. She
also enjoys art—especially painting, and is quite computer literate and enjoys
playing on Barbie.com and other kid-friendly websites.
Jenna
is almost 2 and quite a charmer.
She’s got the whole family (especially Daddy) wrapped around her finger
and pretty much gets anything she wants.
She likes to do whatever the big kids are doing, whether that is jumping
on the trampoline or coloring pictures or playing on the computer. Her diet consists of mostly macaroni
and cheese and marshmallows, but we’re
hoping she’ll branch out a little more in the coming months. She’s obviously a genius and is going
through a language explosion right now (today she surprised me with a “bless
you” when someone sneezed)!
We just returned from a fun
family vacation. We went to Disneyworld
and took a Disney cruise. It was not
without incident and we had to deal with some sickness—perhaps you saw Paige on
the NBC nightly news—but we still managed to take about a million pictures
and had a good time.
We are especially thankful
for this beautiful land that we live in.
We’ve all learned not to take these blessings for granted and to thank
our Heavenly Father for all that he does for us.
We are so grateful for the
gospel of Jesus Christ and the miracle of his life that we celebrate at this
Christmas season. May the joy of Christmas
be in all of our homes and hearts at Christmas time and always.
Love,
The Ericksons
http://www.ericksonfamily.com
