Dear Friends and Family~

We are so excited to celebrate this time of year and remember the birth and life of our Savior. We are also grateful to have you in our lives and hope you are all doing well.
We have been very blessed this year with the opportunity to have so many “NEW” experiences. The best experience included~ no sleep, 3am feedings, shot-gun poop, toothless grins…yes, our sweet baby from above, Taysen. She is our little angel, she has been a delightful addition to our family. She is getting so big, she is already 6 months old and learning how to “BARK”. I guess she thinks she is part puppy or the dog has been teaching her how to speak. She is so dramatic when she “barks” ~ she does a long drawn out blink of her eyes and sighs a little “aughh”. It is too cute. She has us laughing for hours ~ we are so easily entertained!!
Taysen has also been taught some bad habits by her daddy. Clint will hold her in his lap with her facing outward, he will then hold her legs and pretend to have her kick her mother in the head, while Clint is making sound effects. Taysen thinks it is the most fun ever. So when our child is playing with your child and she kicks them and laughs, it is all Clint’s fault!
Taysen loves sitting in her high chair, she thinks she is such a “big” girl. She also loves to giggle, sing pretty, drink out of big people glasses and pet her doggy. She has quite a strong grabber and tends to pinch a little on the hard side. However, Dugan is very good with her and let’s us practice petting him “softly”.
Clint, is awaiting to use his birthday present. He will be certifying to scuba dive in the next few weeks…he is very excited, he is our fish out of water. He also will be starting a new job come January. He was offered the position of the maintenance supervisor for Island View, which was the treatment center he and Mindy both worked for. He is in the Young Men’s presidency and relates to the teen-age boys quite well, maybe a little to well! This summer Clint and my dad (Mindy’s dad - Lynn) spent the summer in our yard playing with tinker toys, I mean sprinklers and planting weeds, I mean grass. We still have a long to do list for next summer~ plant more shrubs, put in a fence, deck and awning, side the shed and get ride of the weeds!
Clint finally got his way this year and talked Mindy into getting a new car - we got a Toyota Camry - which is quite nice…unlike Clint’s old car (12 yrs) the Camry’s heater works in the winter and the air conditioner even works in the summer…and you don’t even have to have your sweet dad adjust the idol on the carburetor, like on Mindy’s (20 year old) car. However, Mindy is a very sad she isn’t driving Yolonda-the-Golden-Honda anymore.
Mindy is enjoying being a stay at home mom. She was so excited to stay home and thought she would have all this time to cook, clean and do projects…but it seems like most of the time goes to baby Taysen - which is ok too. Mindy also keeps busy working with the young girls, ages 8-11 in her ward, they do two activities a month…they are very sweet girls, it is fun to hang out with them. This month they did a “angel tree” gift for a needy child ~ needless to say, it was quite an adventure taking 13 girls to Target to go shopping in the middle of December (crazy but fun). She was also asked to be the primary chorister ~ she really enjoys playing with the kids and teaching them songs (even though she still has pregnancy brain and sometimes forgets the words)!
We love you all so much and hope your Christmas is or was (since I am writing this so late) wonderful.
Clint, Mindy, Taysen and Dugan