Family, Friends, Friendly Family, and Family-ish Friends,
Merry Christmas and Cheers to 2022! We have had very good times, very sad times, and have made a lot of sweet memories this year.
At the beginning of the year we purchased our first house! It’s been fun putting our stamp on the place…aka, those freshly painted white kitchen cabinets constantly have tiny finger-prints on them and random toys are always scattered in the backyard. (I found this gem while I was raking leaves the other day:
We are lucky to share a chain-link fence with neighbors that have become like family to us, and our girls are constantly being summoned by their kids yelling “Elllllieee! Scarletttt!” from the fence. I am so grateful they get to have a childhood like that.
Ellie turned five in May which means she started Kindergarten this fall! She has made many good friends and has already learned so much. She loves to read us books every night and is constantly spelling things aloud. She thrives in her role as big sister and can be pretty intense with her hugs and kisses on baby Lila. She started piano lessons and works very hard in hopes of being a song-writer like her big cousins some day!
Scarlett turned three in February and man, is three just a great age or what? She likes getting crafty, getting fancy, helping mom in the kitchen and helping dad in the garage. She wants to be a baker, a doctor, an artist, and a mom when she grows up. She gives the best hugs of us all and can princess twirl better than anyone you’ve ever seen. She started speech therapy (or as she calls it, Peach Wear-uh-py) in the fall and is working so hard! She makes us proud.
This year we’ve watched Baby Lila go from the chillest of all babies to a little baby Hoodini. Her favorite pastimes are playing in toilet water, climbing on the table, climbing into the bathroom sink, getting her little mitts on cups of water that don’t belong to her, using her one tooth to chomp on ice-cubes, and poking her own belly button. She’s growing her vocabulary but it’s easy to tell that her favorite word and her favorite person is “Da-daaaa!!!” (She was our tie breaker kid, now he’s the favorite for two and I’m the favorite for one so…Dad wins.)
Michael is still loving his job as a project engineer. When I ask him about his work day he usually tells me about how many games of ping pong he won or lost. So he works hard, but he plays hard too. He is a busy guy juggling his calling in our church’s bishopric, his job, and the four emotionally needy women he lives with… Yet, he still finds time to do cool things—and he finished his first Spartan race this year and also joined me in a half marathon on Thanksgiving. I find him ever so dreamy.
And then there is me! Sometimes, when my head hits my pillow at night I try to pinpoint what it is exactly that‘s got me feeling so tired, but honestly, my days go by quick. To quote Kate Kelly from my favorite chick flick, You’ve Got Mail, “I lead a small life, valuable, but small.” I spend my days cleaning up the same messes, kissing the same scraped knees, and singing the same lullabies, but truly I wouldn’t trade it for a seven-day cruise or a million bucks or anything. I have enjoyed focusing on fitness and checked off completing my first full marathon in October. It’s hard to make the time for it some days, but I have a lot of support from my little family and I’m grateful. I‘ve got big goals for next year, but I’ll keep them secret just in case I fall short, ha.
This year we have truly seen how time with family is everything to us. While losing Michael’s mom and my aunt in the Spring was hard, we cherish the extra moments we got to spend with loved-ones reminiscing about better days and reflecting on the things that truly matter most.
Life is chaotic and even here in my thirties, I feel like I’m often clumsily stumbling through, making mistakes at every turn. However, at Christmastime, I rejoice in knowing that a baby boy was born in a manger long ago so that I could try, try, try, again. Wishing you all a very merry Christmas.
With Love,
The Petersens