Happy Christmas 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy Christmas! We cherish this time of year when we remember the birth of our Savior and reconnect with those we love. Here is what we have been up to this year.

Jared continues to be a wonderful husband and father. He loves his job working as a neurosurgery physician assistant. In his free time he enjoys reading, gardening, rollerblading, biking, and trying out his new BBQ grill. I have also kept him busy with home improvement projects--he painted all the bedrooms and built shelves for the children's closets. He has taken up woodworking and so far has built two beautiful end tables for the living room and shelves for the garage. He also serves as Elder's Quorum President for our ward and sings in the ward choir.

I love being a stay at home mom and cherish all the time I have to spend with my children. In addition to my many mommy duties, I am doing home school pre-school with the girls and have started watching an one year old girl during the week. Whenever I have free time (which is rare) I enjoy reading, rollerblading, biking, and decorating. At church I am serving as a Relief Society teacher and enjoy attending the R.S. sewing, book, and lunch groups.

Abigail (4 1/2 years old) is Miss Enthusiasm. She is always dressing up and playing pretend. She did ballet this year and loved the opportunity to dress up and perform. Her favorite activities are dancing, swimming, playing outside, singing, and riding her new bike. She is curious and loves learning. She amazed us this year by how quickly she learned to read. She is a kind and responsible older sister and a good helper to her mommy. We love having her in our family.

Madeline (3 years old) wants to be just like her older sister and copies her in everything she does. She loves coloring and is quite the artist. She constantly amazes us with her realistic pictures and the way she colors in the lines so carefully. Like Abby, she loves princesses and dressing up. She also loves swinging and going for walks by the Columbia River. She is a good friend to Abby, and is always looking out for her little brother Nathan. We feel very blessed to have her in our family.

Nathanael (16 months old) is a busy, happy boy. He crawls everywhere and is good at getting into mischief. He loves cars, dogs, hats, swinging, his star blanket, exploring outside, and most of all, food. He has fun with his older sisters and tries to be a part of whatever they are doing. We love his sweet, happy smiles and cheerful disposition.

For vacation this year we attended the Collett Family reunion at Time Lodge, and then we spent another week with my family in Utah. We took several trips to Boise to see Jared's family. We also got a new tent and attempted our first family camping trip (but that's another story).


We hope all is well with you. We love to hear from you, and if you every happen to be in Washington near the Tri-cities, we would love a visit from you too. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and wish you the best of everything in 2011.

Love,

The Colletts (Mary, Jared, Abby, Maddy, and Nathan)

Thanksgiving 2010

We were surprised when we had a big snow storm right before Thanksgiving. Here are the girls making a snowman with their dad.

Halloween is long over but the girls are still in the Halloween mode. Here they are pretending to be witches as they "fly" around my kitchen.

Jared finished Maddy's birthday jewelry box--purple at her request. As you can tell she loves it.
The night after this picture was taken Maddy fell asleep with the box cradled in her arms.

She knows daddy loves her.

Nathan's new favorite pastime. He climbs in the sled and whines until his sisters pull him around the living room in circles.

My mom making some delicious stuffing for our Thanksgiving dinner.

My dad helped by keeping the kids entertained. Here they are singing Little Bunny Foo Foo.

As you can tell the kids loved all the grandparent cuddles and attention. We wish we lived closer so they could get it more often.

Nathan loved getting rides on grandpa's shoulders.

All of us enjoying a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. Since we did all the shopping and cooking on Thanksgiving day, we decided to do salmon instead of a turkey. Jared went out in the snow and barbecued us some delicious pineapple salmon.

This turkey on our apple pie was the only one we ended up eating, but it was delicious and we didn't even have leftovers.

Nathan with his new favorite hat from grandma that he insisted on wearing everywhere. He loves that his hat is black just like his daddy's.

After much looking we found a sled big enough for Grandpa and a hill small enough for the girls. So much fun!

The kids playing in the backyard with grandpa.

I think my dad burned off all his Thanksgiving dinner by running around the yard as he pulled the kids in the sled.

Abby making snow angels.

We had a beautiful thanksgiving with my parents. Along with the gospel, family is at the top of our list of things we are grateful for. We are grateful for my parents coming up to spend Thanksgiving with us and for the rest of our family that we were able to talk with on the phone.