Our Family Christmas Letter

Post-nap, watching football

I think my poor Spartacus is sick.

Yesterday he started coughing, and even after ten straight hours of sleep, it sounded worse this morning.  I did lots of scary Googling and thumbing through our copy of Dr. Spock's guide to babies and concluded that...he has a cold.  While his cough sounds dry and scary, he's eating and sleeping well, no fever; he just seems a little more content to stare at the toys hanging in his baby gym rather than eat them.  I stayed home from church with him this morning while Hubster represented us, and got a few unexpected moments to myself during his morning nap to think...I haven't realized how rare a commodity that has become the past five months!

With the Advent season upon us, I've been reflecting on what I would put in a Christmas letter.  We've never written a Christmas letter before.  Our first Christmas after getting married, I had been such a procrastinator I was literally still sending wedding thank you notes by Christmas (we got married in July...I'm still ashamed.  Our second year, I printed a cute photo at Walgreen's from Hubster's promotion ceremony to First Lieutenant and printed labels to stick on the back that said, "Merry Christmas!"  I bought my own envelopes at the Dollar Store; I think the stamps were the most expensive part.  Last year we skipped cards completely, but this year...with an adorable extra face to add to our card, I am determined to send out little Spartacus around the continental United States.  I'm not sure I'll actually get around to printing a formal letter, what with final exams this week for my students and us leaving Saturday to drive home for Christmas.  So instead, I'll include a letter on my blog - so many of my friends and family read it anyway, it might save them some time when opening their mail.  So here's a Christmas update from our family:

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Dear loved ones,

Merry Christmas!  As we celebrate the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, we reflect on the innumerable blessings He has given us in 2014, including you.  It has been an eventful year for our family, with lots of big changes and more to come.

Just as cute upside-down as right-side up!

Our biggest adventure was, of course, the birth of our first child, Spartacus, on July 5.  He was three weeks early, 5 pounds, 13 ounces, but has made up the slack - he goes into the Christmas season a respectable 20 pounds, at least according to my highly scientific bathroom scale and subtraction skills. Spartacus is the happiest, easiest baby I've ever met; he sleeps through the night, wakes up smiling, and loves watching the Green Bay Packers and his doggie Annabelle.  We found an awesome, caring daycare where he spends his weekdays while his momma and daddy are at work.  This past week we started him on acorn squash, and he has decided sitting at the grown up table eating grown up food is a pretty cool thing.

Hubster is three and a half years into his army contract, and is in a staff position.  While the current paperwork-heavy job is not to his liking, he looks forward to his next career move: beginning a master's degree at Concordia Theological Seminary next summer in our hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, with the ultimate goal of becoming a pastor and chaplain.  This fall he has taken Old and New Testament courses online as prerequisites, and starts Biblical Greek in June.  Assuming all goes as planned (and this is the army, so we have learned that that practically never happens...) we will be moving our little household after Lizzy finishes the school year.  We intend to move in with my parents for a bit; they have a giant five-bedroom home in desperate need of an extra dog and toddler to spice things up.  Since seminary involves multiple moves for vicarage year and the first call, we will be selling much of our furniture, storing some, and enjoying our time back in the Midwest close to family for the first time since we got married in 2011.

Outside of work, Hubster was voted as a lay minister at our church and has started assisting our pastor in services.  We continue to sing with the choir, and Lizzy continues to teach pre-K Sunday School and play her cello a few times a year.  In the spring and fall we led 9-week Financial Peace University classes at church, and the 13 families paid off in excess of $100,000 in debt during that time; we're pretty proud of them.

Lizzy is in her third year of teaching high school; this year she leads Advanced Placement English, American Literature, and World History.  She has a wonderful group of coworkers and students, and will be very sorry to leave them at the end of the school year.  She plans to teach in one of Fort Wayne's numerous high schools and join the Fort Wayne Community Orchestra and take advantage of having family close by for the first time in four years.

We wish you the most wonderful 2015 and pray your Christmas season is pleasant, relaxing, and filled with the peace that surpasses all understanding!

In Him,
Hubster, Lizzy, Spartacus, and Miss Annabelle

P.S. I can't include this in the paper version, but here is a gratuitous video of my infant eating squash:

I took this at the end of dinner, when he was getting less enamored  with the concept, but I still felt it important to capture the moment for posterity.