All together (Almost) for Christmas

Our home was filled with laughter and even more love this Christmas! Carynn, Jamie and Ty who live locally; Lynette, boyfriend Chris and Lynette's dogs Sammy and Daisey from the Seattle area; Bret, Laura and Ethan from Utah; Melinda from nearby and finally, thanks to modern technology, Landan from the Middle East joined us for Christmas. Follow the pictorial and narrative below for more.

A shot of our Christmas Eve dining table. Many hands in

the kitchen (and dining room) made cooking, set-up and

clean-up non stressful for Shanna Claus!

Michael and Shanna with newest family member Ethan Thomas

who turned 4 months old during his visit

Lovely Laura and Adorable Ethan

The children take turns putting the angel

on the tree.This year was Lynette's turn.

She used a "human" ladder to help her reach

the top of the 10' tree.

One of our traditions is reading Polar Express after the tree

is decorated. Ty really enjoyed listening to it

and following along this year.

Everyone stayed over Christmas Eve and on Christmas

morning here are the children and grandchildren

(and grand dogs) as they wait

in the stairwell for the all clear to come up and check their

stockings before presents are opened.

Left to right. Chris, Lynette with Sammy; Melinda holding Daisey;

Carynn holding Ty; Bret and Laura; Jamie holding Ethan.

All right everyone come on up....It's Christmas!

Melinda and Landan Skyped this Christmas after

presents were opened. (With the 12 1/2 hour time difference

it was late at night in the Middle East.)

In the background you see Carynn, Jamie and Ty

enjoying our traditional slow baked (all night) ham,

potato rolls and orange juice Christmas morning.

It was wonderful to be all together (almost) for Christmas!

Love, NS

Batteries Not Included

Another fun "Ty" thing....He's made the connection that batteries are sometimes needed to make a toy work. His mom told me that he sometimes runs out of batteries and you have to get him new batteries to make him "work" again.

Michael and I saw that during one of our visits in December. Ty "ran out" of battery power and his mom and Papa pretended to open up his back and put in new batteries.

In real life... he is more like the Energizer bunny-his batteries seem to seldom need recharging or changing.

Sometimes my batteries do!

NS

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We did a different format for our Christmas card this year, Because I don't consider it a family picture unless we are ALL in it and we weren't ALL in the same place at the same time this year, I opted to do something that would have us all together. So here we are. I've included the narrative that I put with the card.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

NS

2010 Miller Family Pro’s and Con’s
Listing the positives and negatives about a proposed plan can be a great strategy when making decisions. This year we thought we’d share with you a different sort of pro’s and con’s inventory: a brief catalog of some of the times we have felt protected and have connected as a family.
Beginning clockwise on the right you’ll see our lovely LYNETTE. She and her dad connected this year when he made a trip to Seattle to watch his favorite baseball team, the Chicago White Sox, play the Mariners. They really enjoyed attending the game; and though she would usually be pulling for the home team, this time Lynette cheered on the Sox. :)
BRET, LAURA AND ETHAN standing outside of Laura’s parents home in September. We’re so thankful that Laura and Ethan were protected through a difficult delivery this past August. We were able to connect with them this fall both in Utah and when they visited us in Washington. Ethan is adorable and we’re excited to welcome him to our family.
MELINDA AND LANDAN celebrated their first wedding anniversary in 2010. In a skateboarding accident in August Melinda fractured her pelvis in 2 places and cracked it in another. Her bones have reconnected nicely and she’s almost at 100%. Landan is in the Middle East on assignment for the State Department. We pray for his continued protection.
Our Hudson trio, CARYNN, JAMIE AND TY, would love to be a quartet! If you can help them connect to birthparents that would be wonderful. Their blog http://carynnandjamie.blogspot.com has a link to their adoption profile that you can share. We love having them live in our area and connecting with them often.
MICHAEL AND SHANNA-This fall we took the “long way” home from Utah after connecting with our Miller trio and revisited some of our favorite National Parks. We are grateful for the foresight of those that set these beautiful places aside for protection.
Not pictured is our dog, CLAIRE. 2010 brought an end to our earthly connection with her. She’d been part of our family for 15 ½ of her 16 ½ years. She was a good dog and a loyal friend.

May you be protected and stay connected with whatever is most important to you in 2011!

Latter Day Sentinel

Copy, cut and paste this link:

http://spokane.latterdaysentinel.com/archiveStory.asp?theArticle=319

to find out what our ward's been up to this year.

Yours truly,

NS

Welcome to my Playroom!

We stopped by Carynn and Jamie's home yesterday after we'd been to a movie. (Unstoppable--it was good!) We chatted with Carynn and Melinda (She had also stopped by) and were getting a bit "antsy" because we wanted to see Ty and he was still taking his nap.

Michael finally went into Ty's room to encourage him to wake up from his nap (which is Nanaspeak for what Michael actually did which was practically jumping up and down to encourage Ty to wake up.) Ty did wake up (No surprise there-given what Michael had been doing) and enjoyed a snuggle with his Mommy while he was fully waking up.

He played a while with his little train (the one from his birthday cake-see a previous post) and then invited me to go to his playroom. While they're waiting for another child to adopt Carynn has set up a playroom for Ty in the spare room upstairs. Ty loves his playroom. What he said and did next was priceless!

After I walked in after him he stood and spread his arms wide and called out with enthusiasm, "Welcome to my Playroom!"

We had a good time, but then again, we always do!

Love,

NS