Christmas Letter 2009

We decided not to send out as many Christmas cards this year, so I'm posting it here for those of you who don't get one. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family, Christmas 2009

This Christmas season finds the Thomas Family happy, healthy and very much blessed. Here’s our update since last year.

Last Christmas we spent our holidays in Houston with Jen’s family. We greatly missed having Jen’s father around but we still had a good time and were grateful to spend time with Jen’s Grandparents. A few days after Christmas, Grandma Fuller passed away so Jen and her mom and siblings hopped on a plane to fly to Sacramento, California for the funeral. Paul stayed home with the boys and had a good time with them. The week after that funeral, Paul’s Grandfather died so our whole family flew to Salt Lake City, Utah then drove up to Pocatello, Idaho for another funeral. While funerals are not the best way to start off a new year, being with family is and we greatly enjoyed the extra time we were able to spend with our loved ones.

We traveled two other times this year, both to visit Paul’s family. In June the whole family got together for a family vacation in Kawai’i, Hawaii and had a great time. We spent a whole week relaxing and playing together and loved it. In October we flew to Salt Lake City, Utah again to participate in the wedding of Michelle and Andrew (Paul’s brother). Again, we enjoyed being with our family and are glad we were able to stay so close to them despite living far away.

The biggest news for our family is that Christian John Thomas was born on November 9, 2009 at 11:52am and weighed 7 lbs 10 oz and was 19.5 inches long. He is a gorgeous little baby and is such a joy. Although he currently sleeps and eats most of the time we’ve seen several smiles and are so glad he’s a part of our family

Brian (3) has had a great year. He attends preschool on Mondays and Tuesdays for 3 hours and really enjoys it. He has gotten potty trained. He loves to read and play and while he is very strong-willed he is also very kind and sensitive and is a wonderful big brother to Christian

Aaron (5) still amazes us with all he can do. In the spring he played on his first t-ball team and had a lot of fun then this summer he and Brian took swimming lessons and Aaron made great progress putting his face under the water for the first time. In August he started kindergarten which here in Houston is a full day program. He rides the school bus, has lots of friends in our neighborhood, and is a happy healthy little boy.

Jen was pregnant most of the year and felt like that defined her, but she had an easy pregnancy and recovered after Chris’s birth very easily so she can’t complain. While she didn’t do much engineering or teaching sign language this year, she kept busy with her family and church callings and blogging and on facebook. As a part of our Young Women Presidency she attended the week long girls camp held this summer despite being 6 months pregnant at the time. She was sad to be released from her calling in YW this fall but has learned to love being a part of our ward Relief Society presidency. It’s quite a difference having responsibility for the women versus the youth, but she enjoys the women she works with and is learning a lot.

Paul is still working for ExxonMobil and has worked on several high profile projects and has gained great experience as a project manager. His big news is that he began an MBA program at Rice University this fall. Between his church calling of ward mission leader, his work at Exxon and his schooling he keeps very busy but is most happy when he gets to spend time with his wife and three sons.

As Christmas approaches again we are very grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ and we celebrate His birth by remembering all He has done for us. We express love and gratitude for how blessed we are to have such wonderful friends and family and so many blessings in our life. Merry Christmas to all and we hope to keep in touch with each of you all year long (check out and comment on our blog for more updates)

Love,

The Thomas Family

Paul, Jen, Aaron, Brian and Christian

It's a busy time of year

We've had a busy few weeks since Thanksgiving and thought we'd share the latest update on what we've been doing.

One week after Thanksgiving Grammy and Grandpa Thomas came to visit. We had a great visit with them although mostly we just sat at home and chatted with each other. We visited Rice University so they could see where Paul goes to school and Paul and I employed them as a babysitter so we could get some Christmas shopping done for the boys, but other than that we just hung out and let them hold the baby.

They must have brought their Utah weather with them because the day after they got here it snowed. Really snowed - in Houston! The boys were pretty excited to have us build them a little snowman and throw some snowballs. While it's nothing compared to what Grammy and Grandpa get in Utah, it was one of the biggest snowstorms we've had in Houston in many years.

The real reason for Paul's parents to visit was for Dave to participate in Christian's baby blessing. Sunday afternoon Paul, his father, our home teacher and our Bishop stood in a circle and gave Christian a name and a blessing. Chis cried throughout the blessing, but it was still a beautiful blessing and a beautiful event for our family. My mom and our friends Julie and Justin were there too and we all had a nice dinner at our house after. It it always fun to celebrate with family and friends!

This past Tuesday was Brian's preschool Christmas Program. He sang "Joy to the World", "Santa Clause is coming to town" and "We wish you a Merry Christmas." He did a great job and it was a lot of fun to see all the 3 yr old in his school singing and behaving as 3 yr olds often do!

Wednesday was Chris' 1 month birthday. I can't believe he's already a month old. He's getting bigger all the time and is doing great. He has more awake periods now and we've been able to see several genuine smiles which we love. He sleeps a lot better when he's upright (in his car seat or swing, or in the baby sling I wear) so we have started putting him to sleep in his car seat so that I can get more sleep at night. When I wake up every 2-3 hours to feed him, the sleep deprivation starts to add up and I turn into a grumpy mommy, but when he gives me 4 hours at night I become a better mommy and am much more patient. He's a joy to have in our family and both boys love him a lot!

Thursday night we woke the kids up shortly after we had put them in bed so that they could see Santa Clause riding through our neighborhood on the local Firetruck. He was checking to see if our boys were naughty or nice, and I guess they are nice cause he threw out candy to them and they were really excited about it!

Lastly, today was our Ward Christmas Party and our boys were one of the 12 talents for the 12 days of Christmas. The two of them stood at the front of the congregation and sang "Joy to the World" for everyone to hear. They did a great job and I was really proud of them.

We're almost ready for Christmas and I'm looking forward to having all 4 of my boys home the week before and after Christmas. I'm sure we'll update you then on everything we did.