Belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I neglected to remind people of our blogspot address when I wrote our Christmas letter, so I hope you will think to check back in!  (But I don't blame you if you don't remember! :-)  I also neglected to write about some of the fun things we did this year, as I took too much space updating on each member of the family.  So I thought I'd copy our Christmas letter into this post (because we didn't get a card out to everyone we would've liked) and then add some things that I didn't have space to write.

December 2010

Happy Holidays to our dear family and friends,

We hope 2010 was good to you!  Every Christmas we marvel at the blessings of the previous year.  We are always especially grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate.  We hope that in the hustle and bustle of the season, we can take time to ponder on the true meaning of Christmas and feel of the special spirit that brings.

We are so excited to hear from you and read your letters about your lives, your families, and to see how they have grown.    If you will indulge us for a moment, while we gush about our girls J…

Our 6 year old, Elizabeth, is now in 1^st grade.  She is exuberant and fun and loving.   She loves school and loves having her best friend in her class.  She has been taking piano lessons from mom and is really excelling!  Her favorite thing to do is to figure out songs on the piano by ear.  She has really taken mom’s piano talent and gone a step further.  She is also still involved in dance classes and is taking a trio of classes this year – ballet, tap, and jazz.  This is her first jazz class and she loves it. 

Molly is our 4 year old.  She is in a mom’s pre-school class that we do with 3 other little girls, which she absolutely loves.   She is our little peacemaker and shares everything with her sisters.  She loves books, is starting to read, and is also excited to start piano lessons herself soon.  She tried violin and gave it her best shot, but ultimately the “Mom, when is this lesson going to be done?” comments after 5 minutes in class, gave us the clues that she wasn’t quite ready for it.  She did develop a love for the violin and for classical music, though, which she didn’t have before.  And I loved learning how to play the violin, myself!  So I didn’t consider it a total bust.  

Julia just turned 3 at the beginning of this month.  Sometimes we’re hard pressed to know who is boss around here.  But, on the other hand, the things she says couldn’t be cuter and I always forget all the wonderful things about this 3-year-old stage!  She loves everything girl and is often found out and about in her princess dress-up clothes.   She loves puzzles and books and playing pretend and doing crafts with her big sisters.  Just don’t tell her she’s ‘gorgeous’ because she’ll reply ‘No, I’m Julia!’

Anna will be 2 in February.  She is getting to be as big as Julia.  Everyone thinks they are twins.  In fact, it is pretty commonplace for me to be asked if we have 2 sets of twins.  We’ve even fooled moms of twins.  Anna is the life of the party.  She will start tickle fights with her sisters and is a ringleader even though she is the youngest.  She is a true blue 2 year old and is more curious at this age than any of her sisters were.  I can’t take away one thing from her before she is getting into something else.  She is independent and is starting to put on her own coat, shoes, and clothes.  I find her trying to do things the big girls do all the time.   (Like cutting paper!  I should be grateful it’s only been paper so far.)  I guess that’s what you do when you are the youngest of 4 in row! 

I am grateful to say that I have experienced a tremendous amount of healing this year.  It has been hard work, but truly rewarding work.  I am so appreciative of all of your prayers and thoughts last year at this time when things were at their most difficult point.   Thankfully, this trial has led to some doors opening up that wouldn’t have opened otherwise.  I am now enrolled at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition to become a holistic health counselor.  I am truly enjoying it and, while it is helping me personally to continue to increase my level of health, I am so excited to be able to help others along the same path of increased health.   I have started a blog  – wholefoodswholelife.blogspot.com - that chronicles some of the things I am learning, if you’re interested in following!  I will be taking mostly phone clients at student rates for 6 months starting in February.  So let me know if you or someone you know may be interested in health coaching!

Greg is still enjoying his work with Vitamix.  He is a Regional Sales Manager and this year he was asked to take over a 2nd region.  For a while he was traveling a little bit more, but now things have evened out (thank goodness!).   He is training for an obstacle course type race called the Warrior Dash in June and is loving the preparation.   We have finally taken back up exercise in the past couple of months.  It has been a wonderful experience to get exercise into our lives after being on hiatus while having children! (I don’t recommend that anyone take that hiatus if you can help it, by the way. J)   Greg has also started taking classes at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition as a way to enhance his career, and at the same time help him figure out some of his own health issues.  It is so fun for us to be doing this together!  On the very day that I write this we are celebrating our 9^th wedding anniversary.  We’ve made it 9 years and are doing better than ever !

We sure hope that this letter finds you all well and enjoying your holiday season!

With Love,

Greg, Amy, Elizabeth, Molly, Julia & Anna

Our fun highlight of the year was taking a trip out to Utah and Wyoming this summer.  We have been wanting to get out there for years (ever since we visited when Elizabeth was a baby).  Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to see everyone who we know and love out there, but we were so happy to spend a lot of time with my sister and her family in WY, as well as spend some time with our dear friends the Finlaysons in UT.  We were able to stop in and visit my brother Andrew's family in UT as well.  They were planning on visiting Ohio soon after, so our time was short with them. But it was great to see them too!

We also traveled to North Carolina to see Greg's mom on her mission.  It was so wonderful to see her and see where she had been serving (she came back at Christmas and it was great to have her stay with us for a week before she went on to Greg's sister's house).

At the end of the summer we traveled to D.C.  We had an exciting reunion with my mom's whole side of the family to celebrate my grandmother's 95th birthday.  EVERYONE was there!   Even Trudy, from Austria, who was an exchange student with my mother's family when my aunt was in High School (and who has stayed a close family friend through the years), was able to come with her daughter!   We stayed at a wonderful hotel/resort and enjoyed many fun memories with the whole family.

Greg and I are looking forward to a trip to Miami Beach, Florida in February for our Institute of Integrative Nutrition conference.  We will be flying back home the evening of his 40th birthday.  Shhhhhh! Don't tell him I told you!

Pictures to come!!!!