Christmas Letter and Pics

Well, I have been an absolutely horrible blogger. I have written more in my hand written journal this year than on my blog.  I also tend to over share on facebook as well, so this gets neglected. I did make up a Christmas Letter and Christmas card. However, I lost a lot of my mail addresses, so I ended up not getting out as many as I normally do.  So here it is:

Merry Christmas!  2014 has been an insane year of change for our family. The biggest life changers were the birth of our 4th child but first daughter, Vivian, and our move to UT after having lived in TX for 8 years. It was amazing how fast both of those events went. From the time we first heard of the job to the time we sold our house and left was about 2.5 months! We worked our tails off to get it ready to sell, and we were blessed to have one family look at it and one offer for our full asking price. It was amazing and I have no doubt it was a blessing from the Lord.. We’re under contract to build a house in Pleasant Grove, and that is scheduled to be finished around May of next year. It is a scary and exciting new adventure.

Vivian joined our family March 15th. She was a week early. Just hours before I had her, I told my mom I didn’t think I’d have her before my due date. I was just lucky we were able to make it to the hospital an hour away. I was telling Matt to run red lights (at 4 am) to get there faster. It was totally amazing my wonderful doctor was on call and walked in to catch my baby a whole 10 min. after we arrived!! She has been such a joy ever since. She is now about 9 months old. She is extremely mobile, crawls, claps, pulls to stand, waves, babbles, has 6 teeth, and loves music. She is trying her hardest to learn to climb the stairs (luckily she hasn’t made it past the first yet!)  and hurdles any other obstacles in her way.

Edward is 2 1/2, though he is currently wearing 4T clothing! He is by far my biggest kid yet. He is a loving big brother and generally a happy kid. He loves tagging along with the big boys when they go exploring, and he is quite a capable hiker! Never complains. He is incredibly good at remembering people's names, and he is a natural at making friends. While I know he is enjoying the activities and family here in UT, he still pines for TX 5 months after moving   Just this morning he said, “We have to go back to Texas. Utah is the worst ever.” It was sad and funny hearing that come out of a 2 year old’s mouth. He misses old friends and especially our playset and sandbox.  He is into trucks, Curious George, playing with friends, and hitching rides on our neighbors’ motorized toys.

he climbed in her mini crib to keep her company

Walter is 5 years old. We were able to celebrate his birthday in Texas the week before we moved. It was a fun send off for us. He started kindergarten this year and Matt works on reading with him every night. He’s made a lot of progress in the last few months. He loves living in UT “because we get to do a lot more fun stuff and it’s prettier”.  He is currently very into exploring the mountain that we live on. He loves hiking and “mining” and collecting stuff from his explorations. He wants to be a blacksmith, scientist, and an engineer when he grows up. He has really picked up an interest in art since starting school. He loves colorful things and has been enjoying watercolor painting.

Dean is 7 and in first grade. He has made some really good friends since moving here and has one “BFF” that he loves hanging out with as much as possible. A few times I’ve gone to pick him up from the bus stop and he wasn’t not there, so I had to drive across town to find he’d walked home with his friend without telling me.  He has an absolutely wonderful teacher, and I actually feel like he’s learning new things in school even though he’s still quite advanced in math and reading. He finished the entire Harry Potter series this year on his own and has started them over again. His favorite thing to do is play the computer and the game that occupies most of his free time is Terraria.

I, Celia, have had a crazy and emotional year. I wrapped up my spring studio piano recital the week before I had Vivian.  I started teaching again when she was 6 weeks old, but not long after that we heard about this job opportunity and our lives shifted dramatically. It was so hard to leave my students - it had been my favorite bunch to teach in 19 years - but we felt it was the right move to go. I sold my piano right before we left and it has been so hard not having one. Hopefully I’ll get a nice, beautiful dream piano when we move into our permanent house next year. Also, I have been accepted to teach Let’s Play Music out of my home next year. I’m excited for that new adventure!  I ran a half marathon at Halloween with a personal best of 1:42. I am currently serving as a ward missionary in our church. I love where we’re living, and I’ve made some great friends here. I love, love, love being near my sisters Julie and Amanda. It is amazing how fun life can be near family. There are times I miss our life and friends in TX and wonder how we're here, but I know the Lord directed us here.

birthday selfie

33 has been quite a year

While Matt wasn’t actively looking for a new job, he was contacted by a headhunter in June about a job opportunity in Provo. After looking into it more we felt good about applying. After he got his offer, it was a tough decision to make since we were settled and comfortable in Texas, but we were excited about the prospect of living closer to both of our families. He’s now working as a software engineer for Qualtrics programming survey software. So far he has been enjoying his job and programming in more relevant and up to date computer languages. They provide a lot of food, and they have a fun, young atmosphere. He works longer hours and has a longer commute, so we don’t see him quite as much, but overall it’s been a good move. He is currently teaching the 7 year olds (Dean’s class) at church.

We were packing the moving van on Matt's b-day, so this is as good as it got. No table or chairs...

Ate the 1920s themed work Christmas party

 We hope everyone is doing well, The Brasfields