Christmas 2013

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas!  We love this time of year when we connect with loved ones and celebrate the birth of our Savior.  He is the only source of true peace.  We are grateful for the peace and comfort He has brought our family.  Here is what we’ve been doing this year.

Abigail (7) loves homeschool and is excelling in reading, French, and the piano.  She also enjoys being part of a Homelink poetry club where she memorizes and recites poems each month.  She likes riding her bike, playing with her dolls and ponies, and doing archery.   Abby is a wonderful big sister, and she was a great help to me as I cared for Thomas.

Madeline (6) started Kindergarten this year and loves school and learning.  She is good at the piano, math, and reading, but art is by far her favorite subject.   Maddy loves drawing and illustrating her own books.  She also loves kittens, princesses, ponies, dolls, and anything purple.   Maddy is obedient and cheerful and a joy to have in our family.

Nathanael (4) is busy learning at home and in his preschool co-op.  He is becoming a good reader, and has learned to write his name.   He loves building with LEGOs and had a fun construction birthday party.  Nathan began swim lessons this year and is already a really good swimmer. He likes to dress up as a knight  which is fitting for him since he loves to come to the rescue of people in need.  Nathan is a good helper, and was a great big brother to Thomas.    

In February Thomas’ heart was unable to keep up with his growth so we took him to Seattle Children’s for heart surgery.  The heart surgery went well, but he had a difficult recovery and ended up spending 6 weeks in Seattle.  Once he was home again and on oxygen, Thomas did very well.  He was happy and making good progress with his development.  In June we took him back to Children’s for a pull-through on his colostomy.  Unfortunately he had some complications after surgery which put him in septic shock and he coded.  He was revived and put on ECMO and CRRT, but after a 5 week fight for his life, his heart was unable to recover and he passed away peacefully on July 17th. We had a funeral service for him in Utah and he was buried next to Mary’s grandmother at East Lawn cemetery.   We miss Thomas terribly, but we are glad that he is no longer suffering.   We have found peace in the knowledge that he is part of our eternal family and that because of Christ’s atonement and resurrection, we will be with him again someday.  We are grateful for the 9 ½ wonderful months we had with our celestial baby.  

Jared (33) is still working as a neurosurgery PA here in Richland.  He enjoyed his trip to Washington D.C. for the National PA conference this year.  Jared loves his new calling in the Young Men’s presidency of our ward.  This year Jared spent a lot of time doing home improvement projects and installed some beautiful shelves in our master closet.  When Jared isn’t busy with work, his calling, or caring for his family he enjoys reading and doing wood working.

Mary loves being a stay at home mom and is grateful for the time she spent caring for her sweet Thomas before he died.  She loves teaching her children at home and cherishes this special time she has to spend with them.  Mary serves in the ward as a Gospel Doctrine Sunday school teacher.   In her free time Mary loves rollerblading, reading, and relaxing in the hammock in the backyard.

This year we took some fun trips to Boise to celebrate Easter and Thanksgiving with Jared’s family.  The kids spent 5 weeks this summer in Utah with their Grandma and Grandpa Donaldson and their Aunt Sarah who took excellent care of them while Mary was in Seattle with Thomas.  In August Mary and Jared celebrated their 11th anniversary in Cascade, Idaho going “glamping.”   Here in Richland, the kids had fun doing their first season of soccer as part of the local Family Friendly Soccer league.   As a family we love reading books together, taking family walks, and spending time in our backyard.

We feel blessed by all of you who reached out to us with prayers and service to help strengthen us during Thomas’ hospitalizations and death.  We pray that you and your family will find joy and peace at this Christmas time.

Love,

The Colletts

November 2013 Update

I got to teach Nathan's Preschool the week before Thanksgiving.  They were such cute little Indians.

Having our feast.

Maddy and Abby wanted to dress up too.

The girls even made costumes for their dolls to have a Thanksgiving feast.

Abby with her pinecone turkeys.

Nathan with his little turkey.

Maddy

The kids went on a turkey hunt with their cousins.

They found all 12 turkeys.

The kids all ready for Thanksgiving dinner.

Everyone gathered together

The feast.

Jared's brother Kevin took us shooting.

I had a problem aiming since I can't close one eye without closing the other.  So we solved the problem by taping paper over one lens of Jared's sunglasses.

Kevin was a really good shot.

I had a harder time aiming with the handgun than I did with the rifle.

Nathan had a great time playing with his cousin William.

The kids had fun helping Grandma decorate her tree for FHE.

Maddy's 6th Birthday

Maddy with a cute LEGO house that she built.

She was super excited to open her presents.

She got a Marie-Grace American Girl doll and set of books and purple Hello Kitty PJs from her siblings.

This was her year to have a family party.  She chose to have a Cinderella party.

Maddy loves art, decorating, and crafts, so she had fun decorating her cake herself using left over Halloween candy and marshmallows.

Blowing out her candle.

We also had a birthday celebration with her Collett cousins on our trip to Boise.

She got a delicious coconut cream pie.

She was excited by a beautiful doll-sized bridal dress sewn by her talent grandma.

Here she is with her Grandma Collett and her doll wearing the dress.

6 year old stats:
Height: 3 ' 8"
Weight: 36 lb 4 oz

Here are a few of Maddy's Favorite things at age 6:

Color: Purple
Show: Cinderella
Foods: Grill Cheese and Tomato soup, ham and pineapple pizza
Do: Color, draw, "play with my doll in her wedding dress," doing crafts
Sports: Dancing, swimming, soccer and archery
Book: The My Feelings Book that she illustrated herself

It is hard to believe that our little Maddy is now 6 years old.  I still remember 7 years ago when I was in the temple and I felt the Spirit tell me that the Lord wanted to send one of his choicest spirits to our family.  Maddy is always the first to obey, to clean up, to find ways serve, and to remind us to pray and read our scriptures.  She is an absolute joy and blessing to our family.

October 2013

PRESCHOOL

Nathan was excited to have Preschool at our house this month.  The kids did the 3 Little Kittens for their Nursery Rhyme, so we acted out the poem.  The kids had fun eating pie with their mittens (socks) on their hands.  (In this picture, taken the night before preschool, they are holding ghosts they made by filling nitrile gloves with water--a craft they came up with all by themselves.)

They had to wash the mittens afterward.

And of course, hang them up to dry.

We also did a field trip to the police station.  Nathan enjoyed seeing the cool police cars.

 JOG-A-THON

Maddy did the jog-a-thon and was a great runner.  She was just 2 laps shy of the record for the most laps run by a Kindergartener this year.

Nathan had fun running with Maddy.  He also was excited to meet one of his favorite characters--Clifford!

SOCCER

The kids finished up their last month of soccer.  Here is Maddy doing drills.

Nathan had a lot of fun with the other boys on his team and having his dad as the assistant coach.

Abby had an excellent coach that helped teach her the basics of playing soccer.

 HALLOWEEN FUN

We took a trip to Country Mercantile for our family Halloween outing.

Jared with our 3 little pumpkins.

We enjoyed the kid straw bale maze and the corn maze which was a little more challenging for the taller members of the family.

The kids also had fun climbing to the top of a giant straw bale pyramid.

Maddy riding on the carousel.

Nathan liked all the big pumpkins.

Nathan kept bumping into his sisters'  cars to make them go faster.

The kids think it's lame that I don't decorate much for Halloween, so they decided to remedy the situation by making lots of Halloween decorations for our home.

Here are a few more.  I told Jared that in our next house we need an entire wall for me to display all their crafts.

Here are the kids ready to go trick or treating with the new Halloween  pillowcases I sewed for them.

Maddy was Rapunzel.

Nathan was a knight in shining armor.

Abby decided to be Merida from the movie Brave.

HOMESCHOOL

Abby was learning about money in homeschool this month, so she decided to set up a store in her room.  She called it Kid World.

Abby labeled toys with price tags and worked as the cashier when Maddy and Nathan came to buy toys with their play money.

The kids decided to make their own kites one afternoon; here they are trying to make them fly.