Merry Christmas from our home to yours

Every year I have grand ambitions of sending out a letter with our Christmas card.  You know the typical ‘this is what we've been up to the past year’ letter.  Well, I sent out my Christmas cards last week with no letter.  Call me the queen of good intentions.  In fact, I was lucky I even managed to get the card out. Even though I didn't have time to sit down and write out my letter before I mailed the cards, I still wanted to write one.  So, if you have a moment, grab a cup of coffee, have a seat somewhere warm and cozy and pretend you just got the mail and received this little letter - my attempt to eloquently share a short recap of our lives in 2011.

Dear Friends and Family,

I can’t believe I’m wishing you all a Merry Christmas. The past 12 months have flown by at an alarmingly fast pace.  Life certainly keeps us busy and we’ve had a host of blessings and challenges this year. 2011 has been a year of ups and downs for our family; thankfully more ups than downs.  Our biggest blessing and most exciting news is we are expecting a baby boy at the end of April. What an amazing gift! I’m so excited for Avery to be a big sister, for Matt to have a son, and to get to be a ‘boy mom’ and experience the differences of raising a boy and girl. This little guy will most likely complete our family and we cannot wait to meet him!  So far the pregnancy has been uneventful and fairly easy and I feel optimistic that this will remain the case.  My wonderful doctor has me on precautionary medicine that will hopefully keep me from experiencing preterm labor symptoms and being put on bed rest this time around.

As a mother, I feel like I continue to grow and learn more about myself than I ever expected. I am continually humbled by the pure innocence of a toddler.  I wish I could experience the world through her eyes for just a day - to laugh and play and live so fully. She brings so much joy to our lives I would love to bottle up her sweet little toddler personality and keep it forever.

Professionally, I started a new job in June.  It is still a challenge for me to balance a full-time job with my heart’s desire to be a full-time mommy, but the decreased stress and pressure from the new job have certainly helped me find peace. I continue to work as a business development coordinator for a nationwide engineering firm. I’d explain what that means but it really isn’t anything too exciting, I promise. In my spare time (ha!) I’ve also started a small Etsy business creating personalized baby gifts and I love it!! It is often hard to find time to sit down and sew but I enjoy having a creative outlet.

Matt had a major change in career paths this year.  He left DBU in January and after some soul searching, filler jobs and answered prayers, he started working as a real estate appraiser in September.  He is greatly enjoying his work and we are hopeful it will develop into a long-term opportunity to one day work for himself. He continues to teach a kinesiology class at DBU once a week and the stories from his students never cease to amaze me. 

We didn’t get a chance to travel this year but we did survive a 14-hour road trip to Colorado with a 15-month old and energetic puppy. It was well worth the trip; we had a wonderful time and were so thankful to get out of the Texas heat for a week.  

Well, that pretty much sums up 2011 in a nutshell.  New jobs, new babies, and countless blessings.  All in all, it’s been rather uneventful.  I hope you are able to take some time and pause to remember Christ in the everyday wonder of this Christmas season. I know it’s certainly been on my heart to take time to remember the reason for the season.

Blessings and prayers that this finds you in good health and surrounded by loved ones during the holidays.

Merry Christmas from our home to yours,

The Williams Family