Happy Valentine's Day

We realize that this type of letter is generally sent out with Christmas cards, and indeed we had this written before Christmas, that is everything but the last paragraph. So we’ve updated it in time for Valentine’s day.

Elisabeth has had a crazy year, she was minding her own business doing usual mother things: cooking, cleaning, making hair bows, playing with her 3 kids, taking trips to the library and playgroups and going to the YMCA to exercise everyday, when in late June she was diagnosed with stage 3, grade 3, triple hormone negative, invasive ductal carcmoma. Or in other words breast cancer. She has since gone through chemo therapy, and has had surgery; she is currently doing radiation and has been a trooper though it all. She rarely complains and manages to remain positive and happy through it all.

If you talk to Cameron and ask “what’s up”, he is likely to say, “nothing. Same old, same old…” This is not exactly true. Besides the craziness mentioned above, He is also almost finished with medical school and has applied to do a 5 year residency in radiology. He has had interviews in Jacksonville FL, Mobil Alabama, Phoenix AZ, Albuquerque NM, Knoxville TN and Richmond VA, Houston and Temple TX, and Miami, Tampa and Gainesville FL. To say the least he has been out of town a lot. He will turn in his rank list the end of this month and we find out March 19th where we will be spending the next five years of our exciting life.

Katelyn is a sweet charming 4 year old. She loves everything princess, pink and beautiful. She is terrified of haircuts, I think she worries that mommy wants to cut her hair to be bald, so they can be the same. She has recently discovered Spanish Disney princess music and sings along to “Besala” (Kiss the Girl). She is a little mommy. She loves taking care of her baby dolls and younger brothers. Unfortunately little brothers aren’t always as cooperative as baby dolls and has, on occasion turned to Grant and in an exasperated voice said, “you are driving me Crazy!” (where did she hear that one?) she loves to dance and sing. She is into rhyming but doesn’t quite have it. She loves to come to us and say “watch this, Piiink, Dreeeam! They’re the same.” The proper response to that is, “Yep, they both have the long E sound huh?”

Dallin is a cheerful, excited, smart two and a half year old and is greatly influenced by his older sister. He this year requested a Pink Spiderman for Christmas, I’m not sure there is a big market for those. But if you find one let me know. Or you may want to keep it for yourself as I’m sure it will be a collector’s item. He has recently developed a fascination with “bad guys” which includes any toy that looks scary. He has also developed a deep, loud, nasally; sing song voice that he uses any time he plays. It reminds Cameron of Dumb and Dumber where Jim Carrey says “do you want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? Naaheahh” imagine that sound ALL DAY. Dallin is our most cuddly child, if he could have his way mommy and daddy would do nothing but hold him everyday, including holidays. He gives the best compliments. We often find him telling Katelyn that she has pretty hair or mommy that she looks beautiful.

Grant is a cute, happy, and excited about life one year old. He has recently joined us in the world of the walking. He has traded his speedy crawl (I’m telling you this kid could crawl faster then most kids can run.) for a much slower, unsteady penguin walk. Every now and then he tries to go turbo speed with walking….it’s frightening. Now that he can walk like the “big kids” he also feels that he can and should be able to do everything else they do. including eating with a spoon drinking with a big cup, and brushing his teeth by himself, in fact his favorite companion is a toothbrush, not a day goes by where he isn’t found trotting around with one in his hand, and he’s not picky about whose it is or where it gets left either. He does all of his communications by way of point and grunt and when that doesn’t get him what he wants he has been known to dramatically throw himself on the floor and have a full out tantrum, fake cries and all. Unfortunately for him Katelyn introduced us to that a while ago and so has lost its shock factor. Come to think of it, each year seems to reduce the shock value of so many wonderful kid behaviors….except for Dallin’s constant noise.

So that’s us in a nut shell, We love you and hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day…. That is if it hasn’t already come and gone before we actually get it sent off… Just to be safe, Happy St. Patrick’s Day too.