Christmas letter

As we reflect over the last year, we have so much to be grateful for with lots of fun memories and new friends. The year started out with me (Valerie) finding out just 6 days into the year that we would have a new member of our family come September. So most of the year I was pregnant, but it was a pretty good pregnancy and I stayed active up to the end. I went to Girl’s camp and Youth Conference with the girls from our church, although I was 6 and 8 months along, respectively. In February I also found a clogging group here in Spanish Fork for adults and I was ELATED since I missed dancing so much. I absolutely loved it and was 5 months pregnant when we had our recital, but I performed anyway, and it was a blast. I also served as a county delegate for elections this year and that was a very new and very good experience. I spent my summer going to a lot of different parks with the boys and just loving being in our house - I finally have a window in my kitchen...a dream come true. :-)

Life for Matt is going great. Early in the year he and some of my brothers/bro-in-laws plus a few friends started a “Guy book club”, which he has really enjoyed so far. He spent a lot of hours this summer getting our yard ready and building a playground for the boys. He did a great job, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want to repeat that. He played softball again this summer/fall and they were the fall ball champions of their league. He hit a grand slam and was able to save the ball, so that was a big highlight for him. He turned the big 3-0 this year and I was actually able to succeed in throwing a surprise party for him, complete with a UPS cake. J He has really enjoyed working for Extra Space Storage the past two years, but come January he is finally getting the job of his dreams and will be working for Salesforce.com as a Senior Customer Success Manager. He will be working from home, which is a major bonus, so no more commuting 2-3 hours every day - hooray!!!

The boys are doing great and growing up so fast. TJ just turned 5 and Cooper will be 3 the end of March. TJ is in preschool and a music class, and this summer he also took swimming lessons and absolutely loved them. He loves to color, count (he holds the record at our dr’s office for 5 yr olds - 259), and spell. He is a great brother to Cooper most the time, and is such a great helper with Eliza, whom he just adores and loves to hold her all the time. He also takes after his mom and LOVES fun socks! We just love having him around. Cooper is BUSY and keeps us on our toes (with activities such as pulling the fire alarm at church), but he is such a fun member of our family. He has a great sense of humor and some of his most common words are “Just kidding”. He loves to make a joke and he keeps us laughing on a daily basis. He was great when Eliza was born and has never seemed the least bit jealous. Quite often I hear him telling her she’s so beautiful. What a lucky girl she is to have brothers like them.

The newest member of our family is Eliza Mirae Evans. She was born on Sept 8th at 1:23pm after just 2 hours of labor (start to finish) and weighed in at 6 lb 12 oz, my smallest baby by over a lb. We didn’t find out the gender this time, but both Matt and I thought it was a boy, so we were more than a little surprised when it came out a girl. She’s got the cutest, chunkiest cheeks and a smile to melt your heart. She is such a sweetheart and we all just love her to pieces.

As a family we became owners of a mini-van, which we named Maggie, grew a garden which produced a million tomatoes and Anaheim peppers and not much else, enjoyed a trip to Chicago in March to see family and old friends and enjoyed a family reunion with Valerie’s family in July. We kept up some of our old traditions, such as Pancake Tuesday and Pie day (March 14 = 3.14) and we started a few new ones, including a Root beer tasting contest, dance parties in the kitchen, and going to see the hot air balloons on July 4th. We are happy and feel sooo blessed, especially as we think of our Savior Jesus Christ and all that He did for us as we celebrate his birth! We hope you are all doing well and having the happiest of holidays.