Christmas Letter 2010

Dear Friends and Family, 

During the busy-ness and exhaustion of this season, I wanted to take time and reflect on and share some of the highlights of our year.  In May, Sara turned 3 years old.  She has been attending preschool 2 days/week at the same school where Anna and Ryan attend.  She is doing great!  She is able to manage the classroom and activities just fine.  She paints by putting the paintbrush in her mouth, and uses her toes to play with some of the fine-motor toys, but mostly she likes to play “house” with the babies, dress-up clothes, and food/tea party.  Her teachers help her pull up/down her pants when she needs to use the restroom, but other than that, she’s pretty much independent at school.  She has lots of friends and loves school!  We continue to have many occupational therapy  and doctor appointments for Sara.  In the next couple of years, Sara may have surgery to help her gain more function in her arms.

Ryan will turn 10 in March.  He’s in fourth grade and loving it.  He started taking karate lessons and is in his fourth year of cub scouts.  His favorite things to do are karate and playing the Wii and he also enjoys skateboarding.  He’s managing as best as he can being sandwiched between his sisters...he and his dad are spending more “boy time” racing r/c cars together! Ryan is doing very well in school. He is proving to be quite the writer.  He loves his creative writing assignments at school and looks forward to completing them!  I equally love reading what he writes...creative he is! Ryan can’t wait to grow up and be on his own.  He thinks this childhood stuff is taking too long.  He wants to go to USC and be an architect when he grows up.  He’s going to drive his Nissan Z, go to college, get married, have 2 kids, and buy a Honda Odyssey for a family car.  Yup, my boy has it all figured out!   Oh yeah, and buy a house down  street from ours, so he can come over for dinner!  

Anna is doing very well also.  She recently turned 11 and she is in fifth grade.  She is doing very well in school also.  She’s reading and doing math above her grade level.  She continues to do ballet and performed in Act 1 of The Nutcracker as a “boy” in the party scene and a “horse” in the battle scene.  She loves ballet and she got her pointe shoes in September!   She’s looking forward to being a company dancer at the City Ballet someday.  Anna continues to play the flute also.  She is not taking lessons this year, but plays during chapel at school and she also performed during the Christmas program.  During Anna’s (little) free time, she enjoys reading and knitting.

Rich and I are doing well.  Our lives are very busy with work and raising up 3 kids, but we consider ourselves very blessed.  We will be celebrating our 13th anniversary in June.  We’ve had some adventures in our RV and RV trips continue to be our favorite family activity.   Over the past several years, I have taken a serious interest in photography.  I am part of the photography ministry team at our church and I plan on starting a professional photography business (in all my spare time!) next year.  More about that story in next year’s letter (Lord willing, of course)!    Well, I could’ve continued and written a novel, but I’ll end here by saying that I hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas and a blessed 2011.  May God bless you all!

With much love, 

Rich, Lori, Anna, Ryan, and Sara