Christmas Letter 2010

Dear Family and Friends,
I decided to write a Christmas letter this year. I’ve never really done one before and we usually just send out cards. I want to start this tradition. Hopefully it is good and works right. We’ve had quite the year. It started with baby #2, Emmett Michael joined our family on January 19th. He was 9lbs 4oz and 21in long. We were very excited to have him join our family. Chase is such a good big brother. He just loves Emmett. When we brought Emmett home Chase was sick so we tried to keep them distant but no such luck. Luckily Emmett didn’t get sick. Emmett was blessed on March 7th.
We visited lots of parks as a family and did a couple hikes in the spring/summer. In May we hiked up Ensign Peak. Chase walked maybe half the way and took turns being carried by his Aunt Kiera and Grandpa Peterson. We also went to Wheeler Farm for the first time on Memorial Day. We took Emmett swimming for the first time in June and he fell asleep in the water. Chase was able to swim by himself, with the help of a flotation device of course. Mark and I had to work on July 4th so my mom and brother took Chase to the Magna parade. We spent that evening at my Uncle Elgin’s house in Hooper for fireworks. Chase had a lot of fun and enjoyed the fireworks, the loud booms didn’t bother Emmett he actually slept through them. We then went camping at our family property in Malad Idaho for Mark’s birthday. I had possibly broken one of my toes right before we went up and while there Chase scratched up his legs from falling off a log. Despite our injuries we had a blast. Chase turned 3 on July 25th. We had a party outside. He had tons of fun and got lots of presents.
We took a trip in August to visit Mark’s mom in Cedar City, it was a surprise. On the way home we saw a beautiful double rainbow. In mid-August Mark and I (well mainly me and some others on Facebook) planned our 5 year high school reunion. We did it at the Pleasant Green Park and had a lot of fun catching up with our classmates. After that I donated about 17 inches of hair to Locks of Love. I had been growing my hair out for 2 years (since the last time I donated). We made another trip to Cedar for Labor Day and the Iron County Fair. For my birthday we hiked up to Doughnut Falls. Chase did much better on this hike. Kiera climbed up all the way to the falls, but we stayed down at the bottom with the boys. Chase kept asking where Kiera had gone while Emmett was dying to get out of his carrier. We paid off Mark’s car in September, so it is officially ours!
We moved from our 3 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom townhouse in the same apartment complex October Conference Weekend. It is an extra 250 sq ft, extra bathroom, and two levels with no neighbors above or below us. We had to get a new sectional for the living room to fill in the space. The boys really like it because they can run and play without having to worry about making too much noise. Halloween was a very busy day; we had several parties to attend. I dressed as a Cat, Mark was a homicidal lumberjack, Chase was Buzz Lightyear, and Emmett was a Teddy Bear. Chase was able to do his trick or treating at our ward Trunk or Treat (though it was done in the church’s gym due to rain). Then we went to a friend’s Halloween party and had a ton of fun. They had all sorts of goodies and chase was pigging out on the chocolate eyeballs.
November was fun filled with Emmett taking his first unassisted steps and lots of snow. We made our first family snowman, and Chase made tons of snow angels. We even had a snow fight. Thanksgiving was held at our house. We had 13 people including us so it was a little crowded. The dinner turned out pretty good. We played bingo afterwards, though Chase had a hard time keeping up. He just wanted to fill in all the spaces and yell “BINGO!” all the time. We have tons to be thankful for and wrote on a poster board everyday in November one thing we were thankful for. It really helped us to realize everything we have been blessed with.
December started off a little rough. We had to get a new daycare for the boys and had a hard time finding someone. We ended up finding someone that the boys seem to really like so were hoping it will work out. We got the Christmas tree up and Emmett is having a really hard time not playing with all the ornaments. We decided presents cannot go under the tree till Christmas Eve because Emmett would not leave them alone. We took the boys to Temple Square and Chase really liked seeing all the lights. Chase has been really cute this year because he is getting so excited about Christmas. He keeps telling us that Santa is coming, with Frosty of course. He has been watching Frosty the Snowman almost every day and has become a little obsessed. We haven’t taken him to see Santa yet, but will be going soon. We are really excited to see how he handles sitting on Santa’s lap. In previous years he has not liked it at all so hopefully he will be ok this year. Emmett isn’t walking on his own yet (Chase took his first unassisted steps and then 3 days later was walking like no other), but we have hopes that he will by Christmas.
This year has been full of family fun and love and we hope next year will bring even more not only for us but for you as well!

Love,
Mark, Deborah, Chase, and Emmett Peterson