Our oldest child, Jacob, received his mission call to the Chile Osorno Mission.  He reports to the Mexico Missionary Training Center in July prior to flying to Chile.

Since the last post, we have had a lot of changes. We now have nine children, to mention the most important change. A new photo from a recent family trip to Capitol Reef National Park has been added to the post.

December 2009 Update

With the recent move, the kids were not able to get involved in any sports teams yet. Allison has taken up an interest in gymnastics. So she may be getting involved in that. Her sisters have expressed the same interest, no doubt due to Allison’s influence. They do get involved in plenty of recess sports at their elementary school. It is evident in the number of grass stains and holes in the knees of their pants. The older boys are very involved in boy scouts and cub scouts. Allison is involved in the Activity Days program at church. Jacob has earned his first class scout rank, with enough merit badges to qualify him for the star scout rank. He actually has almost enough for the life scout rank, but he must fulfill some service project and leadership requirements first. Kevin has earned his wolf rank in cub scouts and is working on the bear rank. The smaller children do a lot of playing.

The children are all doing well in school. From parent teacher conference, we learned that Allison, Kevin and Rachel are favorites of their school teachers. Rachel may be an elementary school teacher in the making. Jacob and Melissa also are doing very well. Melissa likes to stay a little late in her kindergarten class to help clean up, even though she is not assigned or asked to do so. Kyle is still full of energy. He still loves to wear baseball caps and likes trains, sticks, toy guns, toy cars, and whatever little boys can get into. Katelyn is beginning to talk. Some of what she says is understandable, most of it is not. No matter to her, she will go on telling you what she wants in her gibberish.

There were two major events this year in our family, beside the move. Jacob was ordained a deacon by his dad last month. So we now have two people with the priesthood in our family. He now passes the sacrament to the congregation and helps collect fast offerings to help the needed, which he did this past Sunday. The other is that we found that we are expecting our eighth child. The baby is due in March. There is more to this story. During one of the ultrasound visits, we found that the baby had a serious irregularity in her heart beat (we also found out that she is a girl). Anyhow, we had a somber conversation with the doctor about some fetal monitoring at the hospital, decisions that might need to be made about a C-section delivery as much as 3 ½ months early so surgery can be done on the heart, potentially losing the baby etc. We scheduled a follow up for two weeks later. In the mean time, we fasted and prayed as a family—Holly’s family joined us. Then Brett and Holly’s dad gave her a blessing to heal the baby. During the next appointment, the heart was found to be performing normally. This was also true during the last appointment a week or so ago. The Lord has healed our baby and we are grateful.

New home

We've moved to Cedar Hills. Below is a photo of our new home. We are still settling in and finishing the basement. The yard is 0.31 acres, with raspberries, pear, apple, and peach trees. The neighborhood is friendly. There are more than 50 children living on our cul-de-sac, so our kids have plenty of company. The elementary school is within a 10 minute walk. The church is a couple blocks away. There's a park that is about two block away, as well.

Allison Receives Award from School District

Last month, Allison received an outstanding student award from the school district for making a difference at her school. She was chosen from among all the students in her grade at her school. This award is given only once every ten years. She was presented the award at the district's board meeting.

Jacob's drawing on Intermountain Health Care Christmas card

Jacob entered a contest being held at the local elementary schools for drawings that best represent the holidays. He drew a picture of a family having Christmas dinner and won $50. It wasn't until after the kids returned to school from Christmas break that we found out that his drawing was used in the Christmas cards given out by three Utah County hospitals. The card is a trifold. The front and back of the trifold are included below.

2007 recap.

December 2007
As with every year since our marriage in 1995, this year was full milestones for our family. Most important was the birth of our daughter, Katelyn. She was born on June 3 in Orem, at the same hospital where four of our other children were born. Katelyn is now six months old and is a cute little girl. She hasn’t showed much interest in eating solid food yet, but we are working at it with her. Her primary mode of transportation is rolling around the living room floor to explore wherever she can.
Kyle is an energetic boy who turned two in September. He’s developed an interest is football, probably due to Jacob’s involvement in it this past fall. He especially likes BYU—which he pronounces “ē-ī-ū”. His eyesight is doing well and we are very grateful for this. While participating in the preschool that Holly and her sisters hold for their children, Kyle has learned a favorite letter. “R” is a letter that he easily recognizes and lets you know when he does. It is fun to listen to him as his speech skills develop. One thing that is funny about Kyle is that he likes to laugh. Often, he will grab something that he is not supposed to have and will quickly run off with it, laughing loudly about having done so. When we pursue him, he laughs even more.
Melissa turned four this year (in May). She has learned the alphabet, and is learning to count to 100. She is a spirited girl and is a skipper. Melissa is often skipping around. When you picture a skipping little girl, this is her. She often asks to hold her little sister, but only does so for about a minute, then puts her down, and then asks to do it again a few minutes later—at least she asks. When Katelyn was at the stage when she was developing the ability to laugh, Melissa could really get her started. She spends a lot of time playing with dolls and with her sisters and cousins.
Rachel just had her tonsils removed the last week of November, so she is getting to begin the Christmas season recovering from surgery. She started school (kindergarten) this past fall and turned six in October. She is a smart girl, which causes her to sometimes get bored in school. So her time away from school while recovering from the tonsillectomy won’t hurt her any. Rachel is a very responsible girl. For example, she will remind us, with an amount of concern, if she hasn’t completed her reading assignment, with a parent, for the day.
Kevin is in second grade this year. He turned eight in September and was baptized in October by Brett. We are very pleased that our oldest three children have wanted to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. Kevin was also very excited to become involved in cub scouts, after turning eight. In fact, within a week of joining the scouts he completed most of the requirements for his bobcat badge. This was because he hounded his mom and dad to help him. He was awarded the badge at a recent cub scout pack meeting and he was sure proud. Kevin was also involved in youth soccer this fall. His game has improved greatly. His personal best is five goals in one game. Although it does help that he is a head taller than all the other kids on the field. Kevin is a very tall boy for his grade. We are also pleased that Kevin has been doing outstanding in school.
Allison turned nine in March and, as always, does well in school. She was also involved in youth soccer and has turned out to be quite an athlete. She can run the field well, has scored many goals and gets plenty of opportunity on offense. However, her coach always appreciated when Allison volunteered to play on defense because, as he said, “nothing gets past her.” She also has a strong leg and can clear the ball out very well. The elementary school has also been involved in a fitness program called “Run Across America” where the kids in the school try throughout the year to have a combined mileage that is equal to the coast-to-coast distance of the continental USA. Allison is in the lead for the girls and has racked up more that 35 miles in the past three months. They only run twice a week.
Jacob turned 11 in November, but before doing so accomplished a lot in cub scouts and boy scouts. He received the highest cub scout award, the arrow of light. Then he immediately moved onto boy scouts, worked hard and fast, and received his “scout” rank and three merit badges the day before he turned 11, which is the age when you can start boy scouts (you can actually join the month you turn 11, this is why he got the awards while still 10). Jacob was involved in a youth tackle football league this past fall. Anyhow, Jacob wanted to play football badly enough that he worked hard over the summer to earn some extra money to pay for it—football costs more than soccer. He got his money’s worth. He played both ways and on special teams. Basically, he never came out of the games. He played tight end, defensive end, and was the punter. One memorable play was when he punted the ball 30-35 yards and then ran down and tackled the kid who caught the punt at around the same yard-line of the catch. He still does very well in school and is on the knowledge bowl team again.
Brett reached his 10 year anniversary at his work, which was recognized with a lunch, plaque and gift by the company, which has only been in business 11 years. He was also released from his calling as bishop in November, after having served five years. He is now serving on the high council. Holly teaches in Relief Society once a month. She has been trying to exercise more frequently with the onset of pre-diabetes. Most of her time is spent taking care of the children. She wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s very grateful to be the mother of seven wonderful children.
Our family is very blessed. For us, life is full and good. There are many things that we enjoy doing together as a family. We are grateful for every member of our young family. We are also grateful for the families we come from and for the many friends we have made.