A great battle has been waged in the Adams household this fine holiday season and I am sad to say that I did not come out victorious.  The battle, of course, was over who would have to write the annual Christmas letter.  Erik won simply by his power of  unavailability.

Ellis turned 2 this July and has been lovingly bestowed the title “Queen Baby” by her older brothers (if that tells you anything).  You can often find Ellis carrying around two blankets and a variety of random stuffed animals demanding “shows” which include Little Einstiens and Dora the Explorer.  She is a great cuddler and has her dad wrapped around her little finger.

Rulon is 4 and if you ask him at any given moment how he is doing he simply says, “happy.”  He truly is happy and has a very kind heart.  He is also a good big brother who puts up with a lot of tormenting from his baby sister.  Rulon has enjoyed preschool, primary at church, and his weekly playgroup with his best buddies this year.

Lincoln is a big bad first grader and turned 7 in November.  He is very inquisitive and never seems to have enough time in the day for all of his interests which have included reading the entire Calvin and Hobbes series, learning how to swim, piano lessons, math, science, computers and pokemon, pokemon, pokemon…..

I’ve had a busy year, some highlights have included running in the Boston Marathon and going to Disneyland for the first time in my life (I suspect the kids liked this too).  I expect 2009 to be even busier as we found out in August that we are expecting our 4^th child.  Our third boy will be born at the end of April much to the delight of his big brothers and to the chagrin of the current “Queen Baby.”

Erik is still happily employed as a Senior Designer for Cahan and Associates, a graphic design firm in San Francisco. He continues to nourish his love for education as he teaches at Academy of Art University and even had the opportunity to be a guest art lecturer at BYU-Idaho this fall.  Despite his hectic schedule he still manages to be the calming influence on our crazy home.

This has truly been a year full of blessings in which I attribute to the influence of wonderful friends and family and, of course, the Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ.  We’ve been reminded continually this year how precious families are in our Heavenly Father’s plan for us.  We send you and your family love and best wishes for a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year.

With Love,

Erik, Heather, Lincoln, Rulon and Ellis

I have a problem…I am trying to figure out what to do with:

7 snow globes

106 small fake trees

3 glass paper weights

A large bag of small alphabet pasta

4 random instrument-type things

…and 2 live fish (the other 3 had an unfortunate demise)

This is what I ended up with at my house after Erik’s last photo shoot. 

Erik is a graphic designer and along with that job he has the opportunity to art direct photos shoots for projects at work. I’ll admit, this is pretty cool and most of the time his subjects have been live people (who I am most thankful he doesn’t tote home with him). Unfortunately, the prop stylist at Erik’s last shoot found out that he was the proud papa of 3 kids and thought…hmmm… people with kids just love random weird things lying about their home, right?  Wrong, lady, we fight clutter like the plague!  As if the battle against Mcdonalds toys wasn’t hard enough, now I am scratching my head and wondering what to do with this stuff.  Seriously…a 106 fake trees….what do I do with those?  Snow globes? Live fish?!  Huh!?  Any solutions, people?

We found out today that we are having another boy!  We are excited (and just a tad nervous) to welcome another “high spirited” boy into our home.  I am sure they’ll have lots of fun together and we hope Ellis survives it all.  Baby Boy Adams looked nice and healthy and wasn’t at all shy about exposing himself to the cameras (already just like his brothers)!  Only 20 more weeks to go…..

It was an Adams’ Thanksgiving at our house this year with Kirsten (Erik’s sister), her husband Dallas and her friend Janelle, Mark and Kendra Empey (Kendra is Erik’s cousin) and Rocky Adams (another cousin) and of course the usual suspects (aka Erik, Lincoln, Rulon and Ellis).  Between the yummy appetizers that Kirsten and Mark brought over and a big fat Thanksgiving feast, we were in a serious food comma at the end of the night.  We had lots of fun and I was so grateful to have family close by to spend the holiday with!  

My first turkey.  I am ashamed to admit that there was much girlish shrieking that took place as I was handling that slimy bird…

My big strong carvin’ man.

The Adams Crew!