2009: A Year in Review

by Taylor

Our big news is that Sara and I are expecting our fifth son in February. Yes. Five. Surprise! Let’s just say the Swiss Alps are very romantic. Which brings me to chapters closed. This August I finished BYU’s two-year EMBA program, and thus Sara got her husband back and I got back my family and my Tuesday and Thursday nights. The program ended with a foreign business excursion to Europe, and we were fortunate enough to both go. We started in Switzerland where baby #5 was, er, uh, yeah. (We’re considering “Dieter” or maybe “Magnus” in honor of his Teutonic launch.) Two weeks took us to Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and London. It was Sara’s first trip to Europe and my first time in three of those countries. It was as much fun to see how much Sara enjoyed it as it was to visit these wonderful countries.

Ethan took care of the household for the two weeks while we were on our trip, with a little adult supervision from great family and friends. Ethan is a wonderful helper: careful, conscientious, caring. I fear we might often expect too much from him. “Ethan, after you drop the kids off at school, could you get started on our tax returns?” The poor kid will have Alzheimer’s or break a hip by the time he’s nine! Ethan’s big milestone this year was his baptism on the 4th of July. We were thrilled and grateful to have most of our family and dear friends attend Ethan’s Baptism/4th of July Extravaganza. (“No fireworks in the church, Michael.”) This Fall he started third grade and his mind has bloomed. He reads everything and, when he finally starts it, finishes his homework before I can even get to DEFCON 4. “Now that you’re done with your times tables, do you mind helping me with my Finance homework?” He’s a good older brother to his younger siblings, especially with Christian, for whom he often translates – but not without rolling his eyes at Mom and Dad for being too dense to understand all ChristianSpeak words. The trade-off for his help with everything is his five-year head start on his teenage attitude. Better to get it out of the way now!

Christian is our best friend to the neighborhood. He’s happiest when he has three or four neighborhood boys in our unfinished basement, leading them in toilet paper mountain construction, and in creating Oreo/Fruit Snack… things. Slowly his speech is improving and he’s learning his numbers and letters in Kindergarten. But don’t let his beaming smile and easy-going demeanor fool you. He is clever, with a delicious sense of humor. One night during song and prayer Sara asked that we sing a song about loving each other. Christian replied, “Oh man. I don’t want to kiss anyone tonight.” And he’s very creative. Instead of making a Christmas list, he circled all the toys in a Toys R Us catalog he wanted. For extra credit he wrote Ethan’s initials next to all the toys he thought Ethan should get, which were all the girls’ toys. So helpful! And recently before a road trip to Boise, we asked the boys to race inside for a final bathroom visit. Whoever got back to the van first would get the first M&Ms. While Ethan and Michael tore inside to fight for bowl space, Christian ran to the snow bank outside the garage and, er, made yellow snow. Needless to say, he got to the van first and got the M&Ms. And just a few weeks ago, while Sara had him at the doctor for his regular checkup, she wanted to show the doctor how smart he is. So she asked Christian, while holding up two fingers, “What is one plus one?” With a grin Christian replied, “Eleven.” At least we know he has a future in Congress.

Currently, Michael is only happy when he’s getting under our skin, at which he is unusually adept. It’s uncanny that whatever we ask him to do, he wants to do the exact opposite. His Christmas season started with Sara asking him to make a Christmas list so that she could start crossing things off it. Oh! But in his teaching us patience there are little gems of Michael’s personality that give us hope. He is a consummate singer – primary songs, Thomas songs, Christmas carols. It’s great to hear him sing. And when we finally get him to primary and pre-school, he loves it. It’s getting past the fact that it’s Mom or Dad who want him to do it. We’re hopeful, though. The other day Christian and Michael were wrestling in the kitchen – a great knot of boy in the center of the floor – and from the pile Christian begged Michael to let go of him. But Michael wouldn’t let go until Christian said the magic word. “Say please” he growled through gritted teeth. “Pweeeashe,” sang Christian. And Michael let him go in an instant. Something is sinking in! He is sweet and darling with Luke, and he looks forward to his new baby brother. And when it’s his decision, he is an awesome helper. If we can just make it past his gargling the sacrament water (yes, really) and playing “action heroes” with the nativity scene (my money is on the angels), we’ll stay out of the nut house.

As Sara often says, Luke is our Balm of Gilead. He loves to dance, he loves baths, and he is desperate to be big like his brothers. He also must be in the middle of their games or in the middle of Mom’s dinner preparation, and we love it, usually. Like it was for Christian, the sound of running water is Luke’s siren song and he must be in it, or try to play in it in the case of the toilet. Yup, it looks like everything will be okay after his rocky start to life. He just started Nursery the beginning of November, but he’s not quite ready to let Sara or me off the hook. The one thing Luke loves more than anything is cars. Real ones. He loves pretending he’s driving the van – I think he’s happiest to see me come home from work because it means the door to the garage will be opened and he has a chance to play in the van. Shortly after Luke could walk, I found him in the garage hugging the front passenger tire. He'll also sing (la na na ne ni la na nee la) himself to sleep, it is so sweet. But most of all, he just loves you and beams you with his snaggle tooth grin.

Sara's Note: To say the least, 2009 was full from beginning to end with family events (seven new cousins, three baptisms and more birthdays than we can keep track of), romantic trips and road trips, broken trees and tons of weeds, lost teeth and new teeth, squash, squash and zucchini, family, friends and new friends. Our hearts are full as we look forward to 2010 with renewed hope. Church will start at 11 AM and, although it is during nap time, we may actually be on time! We hope this year won't fly by quite as quickly as last and we're 'excited' about the adventures that lie ahead.