Warm greetings from our family to you! As I type our Christmas letter this year, I think about each of you and how my life has been blessed by you. Perhaps you are one of my family members, knowing me since birth and wondering each year, "How did she get to be so old already?" Maybe you are one of the friends I have picked up along life's way in grade school, college, camp, church, or work. Maybe you are one of my friends connected through adoption, and maybe we have never even met in person yet. Regardless of how we know one another, I am grateful for you. My life is rich because of you.
2012 was a big year for us, namely because of the sweet face in the center of this photo. We were blessed beyond measure to welcome a daughter into our family this year. Feven joined our family in April, and life has been a wonderful, crazy ride since!
Feven has a tender heart which we see in the way she interacts with us and also with her baby dolls. We will often find her rubbing her dolls' backs to help them get to sleep, or feeding them food with a big wooden spoon from the kitchen. She surprises us with hugs and kisses, and enjoys getting them in return. She is also inquisitive; she tips her toys over to figure out how they work. Zac is sure she'll be an engineer like him someday!
Parenting, while wonderful, has also given us a good kick in the butt! Transitioning from a family of 2 adults to 2 adults + 1 child-who-needs-you-all-the-time has not been easy. I'm grateful for my husband Zac who walks this journey beside me and sometimes picks me up and carries me onward when the going gets tough. The first 6 months were overwhelming and trying, but in the last few months we've felt ourselves getting in the groove more and more. Our family is getting our rhythm down, and it feels good. I hesitate to write that down for the world to see because inevitably acknowledging it will mean something will change and go incredibly wrong to make life fall out of the groove. However, in desperate hope that this won't prove true, I will let that sentence stay in the Christmas Letter. :)
As far as other life updates go, Zac still works for General Mills and still loves it. His job fits him perfectly and he enjoys going to work everyday. I left my work outside the home when Feven came and began work as a full-time mom. I occasionally substitute teach at my favorite school or babysit my niece, both of which infuse me with new life and make me a better person and mother. Our hobbies have taken a backseat to our new job as parents, but from time to time Zac will get out in his workshop and build beautiful pieces and I will take pictures or make cards or sit with my knitting friends and pass the time. My love of reading has been challenging; each time I pick up a book I become so relaxed that my eyelids quickly drop. I enjoy reading, but I'm just too tired to do it well these days!
It has been a good year. A year of much learning, much leaning, and much joy. As each year is completed, I feel like I'm seeing another segment of a tapestry come together. As I sit and look ahead toward 2013, I have no idea what it holds. What will I experience and how will it shape me as a person? However, as I look back on the 31 years completed, I see how each year fit together with the one before it and after it to create something beautiful. What will my tapestry look like when my life is done? I don't know. But I am certainly enjoying watching it come together.
Thank you for your love, support, and prayers in our lives in 2012. We look ahead to 2013 with anticipation and gratitude.
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