Family Update...where has the time gone!!!

I can't believe we are already half way through January. It has been a crazy and good month (it looks like our last post was close to a month ago...wow)!

There is so much we can report on, but probably don't have the space. We feel so blessed and had such a great holiday season together as a family. Ryan hits the big first birthday on Sunday. We are so grateful for him, he took his first steps on January 5th. He is funny about it though because he can take a good 3 or 4 steps and just stand there for a while and then gets back down and crawls. He is getting more confident though and is, of course, climbing on to everything and getting stronger and more coordinated.

Sorry this picture above is a little out of focus, I really wish it had turned out better. This was a trip we took to the Tabernacle on Temple Square together as a family not too long ago.

Grace is so happy to be back in school and is such a good big sister. She loves to try to tell jokes and is so creative. She made her own iPod the other day with paper, markers, scissors, etc.

Kind of an odd post, but we just wanted to give a quick update. Derek has been so busy since the beginning of the new year with the great new job, still working at odd hours on his removal job for the mortuary, and busy being on the High Council. He has really been thrown into the fire with his new job and has been preparing a lot of presentations and will be visiting some cities soon to train resellers, etc. We miss having him around as much as we were used to, but are very happy when we do get him and we are all very happy that things are going well!

Melinda is excited to go to Arizona not to far down the road now to spend time with the family as they are now settled in Queen Creek in their new house. She has also received a new calling as the Secretary in the Primary and that has been keeping her busy too as she has been spending a lot of time getting lists updated, making a lot of visits, etc.

Grace and Ryan are so much joy and we love them. We will be excited to see how Ryan digs into his traditional 1 year birthday cake and make a real mess. It is crazy to think that a year ago at this time we were preparing for his arrival.

We love you all and promise to send more pictures and updates soon! We feel very blessed and appreciate our associations with all of you. Hope you are all doing well.