Christmas Letter 2008

(thanks to my Aunt Julie for taking our family picture!)

Dear Family and Friends,

In December of last year our family moved. Since we were busy moving and getting settled, we missed the opportunity to send out a Christmas card. We love where we live! We felt the hand of the Lord guiding us as we made the decision about where to move and we have been blessed in so many ways since we arrived. Here’s a little update on everyone in the family.
Benson turned 4 years old in March and has grown up so much this year. We spent a lot of time at the pool this summer and Benson’s swimming skills amazed us. Benson started Pre-K in August. He goes every day in the afternoon from 1:00-3:40pm. His teacher’s name is Mrs. Gifford and he loves her a lot! It has been fun to see him so excited to learn new things. Benson has surprised us the past few months with his reading skills. He loves to read and is learning more and improving every day. I’m sure that his great memory has aided him in developing this important skill. Some of Benson’s favorite things are: his Zoobooks magazines that come in the mail each month, going to the library to get books and Reading Rainbow DVDs, watching anything on YouTube, and going camping (Mike took Ben on the Father’s and Sons Campout a few weeks ago and Ben loved it and can’t wait to go again).
Grace turned 3 in June and continues to shower everyone around her with her sparkly personality. Grace has such enthusiasm for life! She also likes to talk, a LOT. Every day when Mike comes home he asks everyone what they’ve been doing and Grace always launches into a detailed description of everything we’ve done, even the mundane, every day things like picking Benson up from school. Grace is our humble and forgiving child. We could all learn a lot from her! She is always quick to say “sorry” and give a hug and kiss or to accept an apology and quickly move on. It’s a great quality for a middle child to be blessed with! Some of Grace’s favorite things are: puppies and horses, playing dress-up, and riding her bicycle.
Sabrina turned 2 in November and relishes her role as the baby of the family. She is a very sweet and snuggly little girl. She loves to “nuggle” as she calls it and she never seems to have a hard time finding someone who is willing to “nuggle” her. Sabrina loves to sing! Primary songs, nursery rhymes, the songs Benson has learned at school, the theme song to “Reading Rainbow”…you name it, she will sing it with enthusiasm! Sabrina is also quite the little talker, we think having two older siblings has helped her to develop her large vocabulary. Some of Sabrina’s favorite things are: dance parties, playing with her baby dolls, and copying Benson and Grace.
Mike turned 28 in October and gets busier every year. He continues to enjoy his job as a Senior Credit Manager with Wells Fargo Financial and it keeps him busy. (Mike was actually promoted last week, after we sent out this letter, and is now an Assistant Manager with Wells Fargo Financial!) Mike was called to the Elder’s Quorum Presidency earlier this year and that also keeps him busy. In August of this year, Mike started work on his MBA, which we estimate will take him three years to complete. He has class two nights a week and that has kept him very busy! We are so grateful for Mike’s hard work for our family and try to enjoy any time that we get him to ourselves!
I (Jessica) turned 27 in March and I spend my days trying to keep up with everyone else. Not having a baby or being pregnant this year has made it much easier for the kids and I to be out and about, which I have really enjoyed. At the first of the year I was called to teach the 18 year old Sunday School class at church and then since the summer I have served as the Miamaid (14-15 year old girls) advisor. Teaching the youth of the church has been challenging and has increased my appreciation for all of my teachers and leaders as a youth! I have really enjoyed the opportunity to live close to my family again and hope it lasts for a while longer.
Our family has been so blessed by our relationships and associations with each of you. There is much negativity and pessimism in our world today. We are so grateful for our Savior, the Light of the World, who’s birth we have the opportunity to celebrate at this time of year. The knowledge we have of his mission and gospel give us peace in this life and hope of greater things to come. We pray that you will each experience peace and happiness in the coming year.

Love,
The Richards - Mike, Jessica, Benson, Grace, and Sabrina

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

There's a cat in the attic and other drama

I decided that I needed to record the events of last night because I would never believe what happened 20 years from now. Last night, Mike and I were up late being Santa's helpers (wrapping presents). We have been storing all the gifts in the attic above the garage, so Mike had pulled the van half-way out of the garage and therefore left the garage door open and the stairs up to the attic down while we were inside wrapping. As Mike was putting the wrapped presents back up in the attic, he heard the tinkling of a bell. Confused, he wondered whether the noise was coming from outside or up in the attic. After looking around for a few minutes, he spotted a cat in the attic that had obviously come up while we were inside wrapping presents. He spent several minutes trying to catch the cat, but it kept running underneath the floorboards where he couldn't reach. Inside I heard him talking rather loudly and came out and asked him who he was talking to. I got him a flashlight and he spent 15-20 minutes looking for the stupid cat, not finding it. I finally convinced him that we should just go to bed and we could try and get it down in the morning (if it hadn't already gotten out on its own). As we were getting ready for bed, I checked on the kids one last time and found Sabrina and Grace laying in a pile of Sabrina's throw-up. Definitely one of the drawbacks of the girls sharing a bed. So we had to wake them up out of a sound sleep and give them baths and strip their bed. By the time Mike and I got to bed it was almost 2am. We were so amused by the whole situation, which I guess is better than getting upset. The good news is that all the presents are wrapped and ready to go, so we should be able to get to bed early tonight! Merry Christmas to one and all!

P.S. We still have no idea what happened to the cat. Hopefully it got down while we weren't looking.

Christmas Sunday

We want to say a big THANK YOU again to Grandma Stacey and Aunt Chelsea for sitting with the kids during Sacrament Meeting on Sunday so that Mike and I could sing with the Ward Choir for the Christmas program. Grandma and Chelsea also took these pictures for us since Mike and I had to be at the church early.

Gingerbread Houses

Last Friday night we made a gingerbread house and some Christmas candy (carmels and fudge). We had lots of fun and the gingerbread house actually almost got as much candy on it as the kids put in their tummies.

Meet the cousins

On Monday morning we woke up to this:

Let me clarify that this is not lovely snow that is fun to play in, nope it is rock solid ICE. We could have gone ice skating on the roads in our neighborhood until Wednesday afternoon. Yuck! So school was cancelled Monday-Wednesday. My sister Chelsea, sister-in-law Molly, and nieces Olivia and Aislee flew in from Utah on Tuesday night so we headed up to B'ville on Wednesday to see everyone since Benson didn't have school.
The kids were so excited to meet their cousins and hold them. That morning as we were getting ready, Sabrina was playing with her baby dolls and I heard her calling them Olivia and Aislee, so sweet!
It was interesting to watch each of the kids interact with the babies. Benson was trying to teach them to talk. At one point, he was talking to one of the girls and they were looking off the other direction and he tapped her on the head and said "hey, I'm talking to you."
Grace was not feeling well, so I tried to keep her away from them as much as possible. But she did plenty of touching their toes and patting their heads. She laughed a lot at noises they made. Next time we see them I'm sure she will get her holding in.
Sabrina was definitely the most interested in Olivia and Aislee. She wanted to hold them and touch them and help change their diapers. She liked to give them their binky's and would have been happy to give them a bottle if there had been anything in one.

I would love to be able to tell you which baby is which in each picture, but I'm a lousy aunt and I'm not sure so I'm not going to risk being wrong.

We are really looking forward to spending time with all of my siblings and their spouses over the next few weeks. But let's be honest, we are most excited to have 3 babies around to hold and play with! Yeah for cousins!

The case of the mysterious rash

On Sunday morning we all woke up extra early so that we could be at church by 8:15am for a song practice. We had just put Sabrina in the bath when we noticed a rapidly developing rash. We went ahead and continued to get ready for church and we all went together. By the time church was starting we decided we needed to take her to the doctor to get it checked out to rule out anything contagious. So Mike left and took Sabrina to Urgent Care where the doctor told him it was an allergic reaction and not contagious and that we could just give her some benadryl. But it kept getting worse all through the day. By that night we were even more concerned so we got a prescription from my Uncle Ryan for a steroid. The rash hung around all day Monday and Tuesday, getting better for a little while and then worse again. By Wednesday it was mostly gone and she has been fine since then. I'm sure we'll never know what caused the reaction, but we sure felt bad for her. Here are some pictures of her on Sunday night:





And a few from Monday during the day:

End of Semester!

On Wednesday night Mike took his last final, so his first semester of graduate school is officially over! To celebrate, Mike and I went to the Oklahoma City Temple on Friday night. The kids got to go stay the night at Grandma Stacey's house since we went to the last session and got home so late. Mike and I really enjoyed being able to spend some time together, it has been a long semester. We decided if we can take a short little over night trip at the end of every semester, we just might survive Mike getting his MBA. Sorry no pictures, just imagine lots of smiling faces at our house because for at least a few weeks we will be seeing lots more of our husband and father!

Christmas Time is Here

Because Mike has been back in school and very busy lately, I sort of wanted to wait until after the end of finals (which is this Wednesday, HALLELUJAH!) to get into full Christmas preparation mode. In the past our kids have been young enough to definitely know and understand what Christmas is, but haven't been as aware of the timing of the big day. Now that Benson is in school, waiting to begin Christmas preparations is apparently a thing of the past. He has been looking forward to Christmas for months! As soon as Thanksgiving was over he began telling us that we needed to get ready for Christmas. Every day he comes up with something new that we need to do to prepare. First it was the Christmas Tree. We actually didn't get the tree up until Wednesday night and didn't decorate it until Thursday. Can you believe what mean parents we are? He's been asking to do Christmas crafts and decorate Christmas cookies. He's ready to make a gingerbread house and put up lights outside. So much for waiting.

So here's a recap of our Christmas activities this week:
1. Decorating our Christmas tree

Please note that we let the kids put all the ornaments on, so the concentration is on the lower right side of the tree...I have since more evenly distributed them. Also in the bottom middle picture Mike and the girls were making silly faces and looking at their reflections in the ornaments, not the best picture, but it was a funny moment that I want to remember. Daddy's make everything more fun. :)

2. Christmas craft - decorating a paper gingerbread man (this was actually a school project for Benson)






3. Ward Christmas Party - no pictures, we forgot our camera. There was a visit from Santa and Benson was the only one who would sit on his lap. I think someone was taking pictures so hopefully I will have one to post later.

4. Bass Pro Santa's Wonderland - on our way home from the Ward Christmas Party we stopped at Bass Pro. They have a fun little Christmas area that the kids really enjoyed. Benson sat on Santa's lap again and we convinced Grace to this time. And we got a free 4x6 picture of each of them with Santa!




5. Reindeer cupcakes - today's Christmas activity. Much easier than making Christmas cookies which was Benson's original request. I think they turned out pretty cute.