Starfish Dreams

Our Christmas letter

A is for Africa, adoption, and attorneys (many of them this year)

B is for being blamed for B's bad behavior (as if his choices were our fault!), baba's (as in no more for the 3 yo), Bella (the kitten born in June), blogs (the good, the bad and the ugly – here's the good one - no names on this one, the bad is the paid one I quit and the ugly is shut down 'cause I  was stupid and used real names, which was then used to hurt us), bus (what dh takes to work now), baptism

C is for Charity, camping, canning, chickens, covenants (what keeps us moving forward when heck is raging around us) and Christ (who strengthens us far beyond our natural abilities)

D is for debt (which we are almost completely out of), dating up a storm (which ds-18 has been doing), and drought (again!)

E is for eternity (how long it feels like we've been fighting for the girls in Africa, how long we're willing to fight – and how long we'll be a family), England (where A is still on his LDS mission), and Ebony (the bunny)

F is for Faith, forgiveness (a lot harder for “big things” than I thought), food storage (LOTS of it!), fussiness (lots of that too, in the new baby) and friends (thank goodness we have so many!)

G is for graduating early (M will do that in the spring with his Associate's degree), garden (a big one) and gardeners (dh and I took the Master Gardener class together)

H is for Hope, hydranencephaly (the new baby's diagnosis), hottest summer on record (no air conditioning!), Hyundai (the new little car that Holly gets to drive), Hawaii (where K went with her BFF)

I is for ice cream (homemade!),

J is for junior high, judge, jury and jerks (the folks who don't look at the whole picture and decide to act as judge, jury and executioners without even meeting us)

K is for kisses and kittens (5 of them born in June),

L is for lay-offs (from Novell) and LDS church (where dh is now working in the family history department)

M is for Midnight, our mama kitty who is now missing, milk allergies, midwifing and Mt. Dew (sadly, what I live on due to lack of sleep!)

N is for Novell no more, Never a dull moment and nshima (the staple food of Zambia)

O is for operations – 2 this year (a “release” so ds13  can bend his knees and  a shunt for the newest one) and odometer (the van went past 200,000 and the bus went past 300,000)

P is for politics (that I am still involved in) and Papa Murphy's Pizza (where dd worked from January to September)

Q is for quiet (or the lack thereof)

R is for room mom (third year in a row),

S is for sleep – the definite lack thereof, soccer, shunt, Shadow (our older cat), school (where all the kids are now except for two, ages 3 and  6 months) and sewing (what I do a lot of this time of year)

T is for teeth, (the ones that fell out), totaled (what happened to the little car), thumb (what replaced the babas for the three-year old ), Tweety (The Magpie that joined us for a few weeks and learned to talk), temple (where I try to go every week) and testimonies (stronger than ever),

U is for UVSC (aka UVU), UCAS and unusually difficult (what this year has been, even for us).

V is for vacation – a quick, short one and variety (something our family is never without)

W is for Washington, where we went for a family reunion and wondering “why” all this bad stuff happens to us

X is for xenophobia (fear of aliens – OK, doesn't really apply, but we couldn't think of anything us. If it were going to apply, however, it would be K who had this – she hates anything different.)

Y is for yippee, this year is over! It's also for yahoo (where our email addies are

Z is for Zambia (where we spent 8 weeks and adopted three little girls who are, sadly, still there)