Christmas letter

Another year. Wow. MJ asked the other day why the older you get does time pass by faster. If you have an explanation, please let me know. And why I wait until just before Christmas to finish writing this letter baffles me.
We’re still plugging away here in the same place for the last 7 years. Wow. My husbands job is getting quite stressful because of money concerns and budget cuts. Even still, he says he is grateful for a job and doesn’t want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I am now the secretary of the Relief Society. It has been an interesting go of it. I don’t remember names very well, and I was supposed to memorize EVERYONE’S name in our ward Relief Society. Yeah right. I’ve got all the active ones down now, but when someone inactive comes, I need help. Even if they have come a couple of times, it usually takes me several weeks of “continual practice” to remember their names. I used to pride myself in being able to carry on many conversations with people without needing to remember their names. Now I can’t do that. SE turned 12 this year and I have found a new freedom. She tends the kids for us and my husband and I can actually go out “on dates” together again. She is doing well this year and loving it. She has some great friends at school, one in particular is so amazing, and it has made the biggest difference in the world. But we very seldom ever see her any more. She is always in her room reading. The other day, she went to the Book Mobile. (For those of you who do not know what a Book Mobile is, it is a library on wheels. It stops every two weeks right across the street at the park, I don’t know how we got so lucky.) She came home with her usual pile of books and then told me that the Book Mobile “guy” (Go figure, I don’t know his name,) calculated up how many books she had read that year from the Book Mobile and tallied up the worth to be almost $5,000 in books!!!! (And that’s not including the ones from her school library or the ones I get her.) I am just incredibly grateful she actually keeps track of them.
RD has really grown and matured this year. He has progressed farther than I ever dreamed possible for him, especially growing in areas the doctors claimed he probably wouldn’t. He helps me out so much now. He loves playing with MJ and AJ. He took up the piano and has really enjoyed it. He is progressing really fast too. (Not quite as fast as in the beginning because I am not as regular with piano lessons now, but he is still very self motivated.) In the summer, we decided to go to the “Texas Roadhouse” for family night. We had 5 free kids meal tickets that the kids had earned from school. When we first walked in the door, the waiters found out it was our first time ever going and started treating us like we were royalty. They brought out free samples for us to try, upgraded the free kids meal to the better kids meal, and even the manager came out to talk to us. As we left, they gave us more free coupons to come back next time. The kids had so much fun. RD asked if it would be like this every time we came. I told him it was probably just because it is our first time coming. He replied, “Well, how many first times can we come back for.”
BJ always amazes me with his progress. He is loving school again and has another great teacher. Looking back over the years, I cannot believe how far he has come. He is my little angel and has a way of getting right into the hearts of people. He is trying to understand this weird English language and has been asking what different phrases mean. One time he wanted to know what a “small window of opportunity” meant. (He thought it had something to do with your brain.) Then one night we were reading the scriptures as a family and how some of the Nephites were coming out in open rebellion; so Moroni said those who committed treason would be put to death. Little Blaine got upset and said, “I don’t want all the trees to die.”
MJ has this amazing personality and very giving spirit. He is quite the hard worker, (when he wants to be) too. For Christmas we pick Christmas buddies and then the kids can pick out a gift for them. He picked a present out for his buddy but then every couple of days he wants to try and make one for her too. So he sets to work carving wood or gluing things together. Usually though, by the end of his many hours of work, he likes it so much, he decides to keeps it. It’s the thought that counts right?
AJ is sure growing. If she had been born 4 days early instead of 8 days late, she would have gone to kindergarten this year. (Isn’t that crazy.) But I am grateful for the extra year with her. I babysit another little girl now and it has been good for her not be with just me. We got a little indoor trampoline last year for Christmas and the kids have loved it. AJ especially plays on it all the time. One day she made a “bed” on it. Then when I came into view she called out in that singing tone, “I’m jumping on my bed, I’m jumping on my bed.!”
As I look back on this year, I am amazed, humbled, and completely grateful for the changes, the progress, and the learning experiences we have gone through. I am so grateful for this gospel and especially for my Savior, Jesus Christ. I am grateful for this time of year when the spirit of Christmas (or in other words, the spirit of Christ) dwells so strongly in our hearts and homes. I am grateful for this life, for this chance to learn and grow. I am grateful for my amazing family who raised me and for the one My husband and I are raising now. I am indeed grateful for the amazing man I married who I fall in love with more with each passing year. I don’t know how I could make it without him.
I hope this Christmas will be one to remember and the following year will be filled with great memories. Take care and have an amazing new year.

From the Spotten family

Treasure is in the Eye of the Beholder.

Several years ago, my neighbor was moving and gave me a suitcase set. It was in great condition but it has sat in my basement collecting dust for quite a while now. The other day, I took it out and was checking it over to see if I should try and sell it. There was a lock on the zipper of the suitcase, but I quickly found the key in one of the pockets. However, the suitcase that fit inside the big suitcase also had a lock, but I could not find the key for this one. I checked all the pockets, in any crack or other place that could possibly house the key. Nothing. In my search though, I realized that there was something in the suitcase. We poked and prodded trying to figure out what kind of treasure would be in it. Finally, curiosity got the better of us and we decided to cut the lock. After a half hour of cutting and sawing and anything else we could think of that might work, we broke through. The kids all gathered around to see what was inside. I opened it and found the large bubble wrapping inside, and a sack of packing peanuts. The kids were elated. For the next half hour, they were jumping, popping and playing with that bubble wrap until every single bubble was popped. (I didn’t let them touch the packing peanuts. I have no desire for that kind of mess.) We truly did find a treasure, at least in the kids eyes.

And the key - it was inside the suitcase, pinned to the tag.

Emergency

Our family has decided to try and save for something. In order to do this, we have to have a smaller Christmas, and take every babysitting opportunity to get enough in time. Yesterday, MJ decided he wanted to help out even more than what he had already done. He went and got some card stock paper, made a little paper wallet, put 2 dollars and 4 cents, (the 4 pennies were to cover the cost of the card stock), and then in great excitement, he gave it to me to put toward the fund. My heart was just about to burst to see his generosity. (I do not pay my children very much. 2 dollars is the equivalent of what he would earn in almost a month if he worked really hard.) He felt so good about it, he too was bursting at the seems. (The other day, he paid his tithing, a total of 50 cents for the past 3 months or so of earnings. Just after he handed it to the bishop, he told me how good he felt inside. This kid is amazing.) But in his excitement, he was jumping up and down. At one point he put his hands on the counter to do an extra big jump of excitement, came up and hit his head smack on the corner of the cupboards. He went down hard and grabbed his forehead in pain. I was over to him in less than a second, took one look at his wound and freaked. I know, I am supposed to remain calm, but it didn’t happen on my end. The wound was a good one inch long and at least a quarter inch tall. It split it so far open, I could see his white skull very clearly, that is until the blood started coming. My reaction did not help my poor son. All my children started running around frantically. One grabbed me an ice pack, one a paper towel, another one grabbed my phone to call my husband, and the rest ran to their rooms to pray. I took RD with us to the hospital to help MJ hold on the ice pack and towel. SE stayed home with the younger kids. On the way to the hospital, MJ was saying he wished he could go back in time and change things. Then he said he wished it were just a bad dream. “It would be scary but at least I could wake up and it wouldn’t be real.” Seeing my baby hurt like that just about tore my heart apart.

One great thing about living in a small town with a hospital, the emergency room wait was a total of about 30 seconds - the time it took them to realize we were their. They got us right in, cleaned up the wound, (which extremely surprisingly had already almost stopped bleeding), numbed him up and started stitching him. The hole was so large I didn’t know how they were going to pull it all together. I guess there is a membrane that goes around the skull. It also had been severed. So they first had to pull that part together and stitch it. Then they pulled the inside of the tissue together and stitched that. Amazingly, they were able to pull the top part together and stitched him all up. He was home within 2 ½ hours. The stitch looks so much smaller than the hole used to be, thankfully.


When he got home, he was still literally shaking pretty bad. I think the shock of it all really got to him. But I am so grateful for hospitals. I am grateful for my husbands job and that it provides good enough insurance to cover things like this. But most of all, I am extremely grateful MJ is ok. With the way I reacted to this, I don’t know how I would be able to handle something much bigger. He is doing good this morning. I’m keeping him home from school just to make sure though. Maybe too, I just need that extra time with him to calm my little heart down also.