Hello everyone! As most know, we did have a bouncing baby boy near midnight on January 20th, 2005.
His name is Samuel James Valencic and his page is here, complete with new pictures and links to his "stories" about life in general while he was awaiting his own arrival. I have removed some of the newborn pictures, but not all of them. I updated his page with some of the pictures from his blessing, which was March 6th.
He is now nearing 11 1/2 lbs, 22 inches or so, almost 2 months old, and just all around great at fitting into our family and life. Everyone is absolutely in love with him, including Nathanael, and we can't imagine life without him.
We are still loving Texas. The weather is confusing, it's odd being in a town that we don't have to leave to go grocery shopping or do anything normal... it's strange being only 5 minutes from friends or church, still getting used to having neighbors, loving having a back yard, and it's very nice even with all the changes, hehe. They're good changes, but still need getting used to!
Oh, and we're on Central Time, very weird.
Never been in the Central time zone before, just Mountain and Eastern.
Tom's job keeps him busy, as well as his calling as ward mission leader.
(still less busy than being in the branch presidency!) (k, at least less meetings...) It is so nice to feel like we
see him around more than we used to, between him having lunches home and living so close to work.
(even stake meetings are close now!) For Valentine's Day he received a Lego Millenium Falcon from his lovely wife (lol)
(we love clearance... and we couldn't really give it to just one of the boys...) and we had a fun Lego party at our home with
3 other families (each of whom also have young children... plus we had an extra kid to spend the evening...) so we had 27 people here, 3 families with 5 children each, one family with 3 children, and one boy... 8 adults and 19 children (ranging in age from almost 12 years to just a few weeks old). It was a blast! Everyone brought food and snacks and we had the Millenium Falcon on the table for people to help with, and Duplo size blocks on the floor in the living room as well as our lego table set up nearby... 3+ hours of building and socializing... Star Wars episode 4 going in the background....
it's so nice having local friends!
Here are pictures of the finished product, with Tom and his boys. (k, one is of them building it)
As for Tabitha, I'm just busy being Mom. We are getting back into a more normal routine, and with warmer spring weather spending a lot more time in the backyard. Samuel takes a lot of time but we do manage to learn a lot each day along with our playing, reading, drawing, planning, cooking, laundry, coloring, cleaning, scheduling, working, and acting. I do not have a calling as of this writing, but I figure it will be soon. We now have 2 boys in soccer, and I guess that makes me a "soccer mom" although we only have the one car and Tom does half the shuttling to different practices. No games yet. We love homeschooling, scouts, and everything else we are involved in. In my spare moments I am cross stitching Emilie's stocking, working on uploading pictures and emailing them, and keeping in touch with family and friends. I have a stack of pictures to mail out lol.
Michael is 8 years old, a Wolf Scout, on a soccer team for 2nd graders, in 2nd grade technically, learning a mile a minute
many different things each day, reading constantly, and imagining and designing things the rest of the time. He's also growing, and his appetite is again showing it! He loves reading, drawing, designing, planning, projects, Harry Potter, airplanes, trains,
scouts, church, Star Wars, Legos, and many other things that he hasn't even thought of names for yet. He wants to be
either an astronaut or a Lego designer when he grows up. It is amazing being his mom. He is a wonderful big brother and takes
great care of his younger brothers and sister, a wonderful help. I can always count on him to help out. Michael is glad to have moved here and have closer homeschooling friends and more to do. He's lost his 3rd tooth. His site is here, and will be
updated in the next day or so.
Benjamin is 6 years old, on a soccer team for 4-6 year olds, in Kindergarten but doing many things at a 1st grade level, and learning more every day about how to read and practice many other skills. He likes going to Home Depot and Lowe's for their monthly kids' clinics where they have built some fun projects already. He also loves Legos, Harry Potter, Star wars, having closer friends, family, a new baby, and playing a lot! He is getting better every day at reading and it is a goal of his to get better at it this coming year. He can't wait to do Scouts and be baptized (next year). He loves getting letters and writing them to people. He is also a great big brother to Nathanael and Samuel (and sometimes Emilie) and loves helping with small children.
He is still our sweetheart, very snuggly and friendly! His site is here, newly updated with this year's pictures.
Emilie is, again, our ballerina princess who loves anything about being a girl, dancing, singing, dressing up, and princesses.
She loves Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony (all this great stuff coming back from when I was little LOL)
We are trying to find her a beginning dance class to take this summer with this intense interest. She also likes playing all the things the boys love, but it is so nice for her to be a girl sometimes, whether the boys like it or not hehe. She is a great big sister to Nathanael and Samuel and loves helping with whatever I am doing at any time. She loves her Primary teacher and going to
Primary. She just recently got new bunk beds and they are her pride and joy (just ask anyone who comes over).
Her page is here, and will be updated after her birthday in April.
Nathanael is astounding all of us with how fast he's learning new words, ideas, and skills. He knows all the ABC's by sight, and unlike his older siblings, all the numbers. He is talking constantly and it is so cute how he says some words that the kids are always trying to get him to say more. He has gone, in just the last 3 weeks, from saying one word at a time, to two word phrases, to 3 and more word sentences. Some of our favorites are: "Mem-a-mim" which can mean, Benjamin, Medicine, or, pajamas ( I don't get it either lol. ) and he says "Oopsy" but it also sounds like "poopy" or other sound alike words. One of his first new words was PIZZA. He says WEED COOK for read book... he loves to repeat after me when we are reading together. He still says "hoo" for shoe and also for "foot" in football, lol. He has given up his pacifier and only once in a while notices Samuel's. (who doesn't like them anyways) He is almost ready for a big boy bed (Em's toddler bed) and says NOO BED so cute. We're just waiting for him to actually be "well" for more than a few days. He's had a rough winter with illnesses.
Even with all that he is just a funloving boy who wants to be with his older siblings playing or learning, whatever they are doing.
We can't wait to see what he thinks of turning 2 in 2 weeks. His page is here, also to be updated as soon as we get new pictures taken.
Samuel is a small, sometimes loud, sometimes happy, but always cute, addition to the family and we are glad to have him here.
To see his new pictures and read more about him, here's his page.
We hope everyone is doing well and look forward to seeing you whenever we can either make it out to visit or when you can make it here. President's day weekend 2006 is the latest we'll see almost everyone, right? Give us a call if you will be out in our direction, we are a LOT closer than usual. We have room for friends and family to stay, just let us know!
HUGS!
Love,
Tabitha, Tom, and family
Michael, Benjamin, Emilie, Nathanael, and Samuel
plus Joseph in heaven!
Click here to
return to our site.
Click here
for
our newpictures site.
If you'd like to read some of the older newsletters, click here... for a list.