2015 Christmas Letter

It is hard to believe that we are at the end of another year already. Nathan just turned 6, Austin will be 10 months on Christmas Eve, and we are celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary this month. Our year has been full of many happy memories as well as our fair share of challenges. We stay busy keeping up with the boys and trying to get outside and stay active as a family. We've had to adjust our activities a bit this year to accommodate having little Austin with us, but we still find plenty to do.

Highlights from our year:

In January, Nate went to St. Louis with my mom for my grandparents' 80th birthday celebration. This was his first long trip without Mom or Dad since I was too close to the end of my pregnancy to travel.

In February, after much anticipation, Austin Lee was born on February 24th. He came into this world in quite a hurry, but was a perfectly healthy baby boy.

In May, Eddie and Nate did a mud run at the South Point Casino.

In June, Nate completed his first triathlon in Blue Diamond, Nevada. It was such an exciting experience for all of us, and Nate had a great time.

In August, we started another year of homeschooling with Nate as a Kindergartner.

In October, Nate, Austin, my mom and I flew to St. Louis for a week to visit the Malmstrom side of the family. Nate and Austin also got to meet their Uncle Bryan and his fiancee, Sandy, for the first time. This was Austin's first plane trip.

In November, my mom, Austin and I flew to Salt Lake City to support my dance school at the Western Region Oireachtas (regional competition).

Austin is a very noisy baby and loves to scream and squeal and babble. He is currently pulling himself up on everything he can reach and army crawling everywhere, which is keeping us on our toes trying to keep him from falling too often. He loves to be read to and is very good at turning the pages of board books. He loves to eat real food as often as he can get his hands on it. He adores Nathan and loves to laugh at his silly antics.

Nate is very active and loves swimming, running, riding his bike, playing trampoline dodgeball, learning to play baseball and other sports. He still loves building with Legos and K'Nex. He attends monthly builds at the Lego Store and participates in a homeschool Lego Club as well as building at home. He is officially a Kindergartner and doing very well schooling at home. He also participates in many homeschool activities outside the house including a co-op, nature activities, PE and art.

Eddie continues to be very active and has gotten very involved in riding bikes. He started with mountain biking and has recently added road biking to his repertoire. He rides with my parents, does organized rides or rides by himself. He will often take Nate on bike rides around the neighborhood or to the park as well. He is great with Austin and likes to take him on little nature walks around the yard to calm him down. 

I spend most of my time taking care of the boys, but I have been getting back into dancing again. I am currently helping to teach a few classes on Saturdays and studying to take the Irish dance teacher's exam. The teacher's exam is quite extensive so I have a lot of work to do before I take it next fall or the following spring. I also stay busy planning or organizing homeschool activities. If there is something I want for Nate and it doesn't exist I usually end up creating it myself. 

We look forward to another year watching our two precious boys growing up and bonding even more as brothers. I hope to find some time to share more of those moments here on our family blog next year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Love, The Blubaughs