Christmas Letter

Seasons greetings to all!

We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health and good spirits. Our family was blessed this year with the birth of Emily on May 16th. She’s had an exciting 7 months of life. She loves to sit up, giggles at her brother, and chews on everything. She’s not a big fan of baby food, but she loves Cheerios.

Eli started preschool two mornings a week at our church. His favorite things are painting and driving the toy police car. He’s also been going to Sunday school on his own this year since Alicia and Sam have been busy teaching elementary Sunday school and getting Emily home for a nap. (She’s made it clear that she has no intention of taking a nap in the nursery.) He turned four earlier this month and was excited to have a birthday party with his best friend from our street and his new friends from school. He wanted an art party, so the kids painted, sculpted, and decorated everything, including the cake.

We’ve had to start a banned book list in our house. It currently includes anything about Curious George. Apparently, George’s antics are irresistible to a 3 year old. Alicia went to check on Eli in the bathroom one evening and found him sitting naked in the sink slathered in toothpaste from head to toe. We had recently read about George making toothpaste pictures for the man with the yellow hat.

Eli enjoys using his tools to take things apart to discover how they work. He’s not so good at putting them back together though. Fortunately, Alicia’s around to help with that part. We had him take a tape measure to the Christmas tree farm this year. We discovered last year that they all look so small in the field. Our eyes were bigger than our living room.

Sam continues to work at Euronet Worldwide, where he was recently promoted to a senior programmer analyst. As he likes to say, same job, same desk, new title. He didn’t manage to travel to any exotic locations this year. His only trip was to scenic Rochester, Minnesota for a question and answer session with IBM.

Alicia still enjoys being a stay-at-home mom, though Sam questions her sanity on occasion. She even survived 4 days alone with the kids when Sam went on his business trip. In June, her duties as treasurer of the Little Rock MOM’S Club ended and she chose not to seek another term. She likes to work in the garden and scrapbook in her spare time, which is currently somewhat limited.


Sam, Alica, Eli, and Emily