2018 was a good year. Here’s what our family has been up to:

Ivan: Ivan found a hobby in working on a small train track at a park near our house last year and continued this Summer. This year they got the track finished and began running trains and giving train rides. They did rides at a couple events this year including our city’s Fall Festival, which was fun. They even let him drive the trains, and none of us feel safe in our neighborhood anymore!

Ivan also went to Romania for work twice this year. In February he went for a week and then we all went to meet him there for a week. It was frigid cold, but we saw several fun things there, including a castle and a fortress city. We ate delicious Eastern European food and managed to stay warm-ish. In October he went again and got to see a couple more cities including Brasov and Rasnov. He’s pretty lucky.

This year marks five years that Ivan has been with Adobe and almost five years since we moved here to Utah. We can’t believe that we’ve managed to stay in one state for so long! It’s been fun to have a neighborhood and a community to be a part of.

Rachel: Rachel spent most of this year keeping up with little people. Pregnancy went well except for low platelets, which seems to always happen and doesn’t cause any discomfort, so she considers it a pretty good complication to have. Martin was born on his due date and after her brother Jarom’s wedding, which was very important. He even managed to be born a few hours before Rachel’s parents left after the wedding, so he got to meet his Grandma and Grandpa when he was only a few hours old. He has been as lot of work as babies always are, but a really cute and happy person to love.

Rachel set a goal to run a 5k this year. She wanted to run the Jingle Bell 5k for the Arthritis Foundation, so she started the couch to 5k program in September. She’s made it to running 5 kilometers, but unfortunately the Jingle Bell 5k landed on the same morning as a performance the kids will be in. So she’s running her own 5k sometime this month. It probably won’t be the same, but it will be good enough.

Avery: Avery was in the play Beauty and the Beast this February, which she loved. She has started rehearsals already for next years’ play, which will be The Lion King. She’s getting a little frustrated that she doesn’t get lead parts or talking parts, but she still loves the play every year. Avery quit dance this year to start equestrian vaulting. She does dance moves and poses on horseback and has really enjoyed it the last couple months. It was a little agonizing quitting Irish dance after two years, but she likes vaulting and it’s much closer and less time consuming.

Avery started fifth grade this year and loves her teacher. She is still in the Chinese Immersion program at her school. She is sometimes frustrated with the Chinese part of school, but she sticks with it. Her teachers say she does well and is able to help other students in class.

Outside of school Avery likes Girl Scouts and Activity Days (a program for girls at church). She likes the arts a lot and likes to draw and enjoys piano. She wanted to learn another instrument this year, but will probably have to wait until next year for that because of time. She is interested in clothes and fashion and likes to shop and put together outfits. She is responsible and good at helping with Martin. She even helped with Thanksgiving dinner this year!

Evelyn: Evelyn was baptized this year. She was very excited and her baptism was a happy day for her. She invited a few friends and Grandma, aunts, uncles, and her cousins from Idaho were able to be here.

Evelyn is going to be in the play this year too! She is in an ensemble group and will dance in the play. She’s excited, but also fairly nervous. Evelyn started vaulting this year too, and really likes it. She can stand on a horse at trot and will tell anyone who will listen about it.

Evelyn is in 3rd grade this year and is also in the Chinese Immersion program still. She hates the extra 20 minutes of homework she has for Chinese, but her teachers say she’s doing well in class. She likes her teachers this year, too and her Chinese teacher teaches with music a lot, which is fun.

Outside of school, Evelyn is still in gymnastics and just got to move up to the intermediate class. She’s excited about that because she was starting to get bored in the beginning class. She is also in Girl Scouts and Activity Days and loves them both. She is a fun kid with a lot of imagination. She’s really good at playing with Hazel and the two of them spend hours playing house, boxcar children, school and all sorts of make-believe games.

Hazel: Hazel turned four this year and is doing two preschools. Utah has a free online preschool that we signed her up for. It teaches reading mostly, but some math and science. She does it on the computer for 20 minutes every weekday. She has really learned a lot from it. Mostly she likes it, but there are a few games that she dislikes and she is learning to get through things she doesn’t like so she can do the parts she does. She also has a neighborhood preschool that she goes to on Fridays. Sometimes it’s at our house and most of the time it’s at one of her friends’ houses. We do a lot of field trips and games and she really likes it, too. So far we have gone to the police station, fire station, and had a Thanksgiving celebration, among other things.

Hazel started vaulting as well - they have a mighty mites class for little kids. She loves it and asks every day, “Is today the day I get to go to vaulting at 4 o’clock?” She also loves story time at the library and playing on a kindle. She loves to play with Evelyn and has been a little bored with her sisters back in school.

Martin: Martin was born in April this year. He’s a very punctual little guy and was born at 7:30 in the morning on his due date. He was pretty fussy for the first month or so until the nurse practitioner we see told us he may have reflux and that Rachel should stop eating any dairy or caffeine. He was a much happier kid after she quit those two things. At that point Rachel had her own police squad. Anytime she even thought out loud about trying something with dairy in it all the kids would say “Don’t do it Mom!” because they didn’t like Martin’s crying. He had a hard time with a lot of foods at first, spinach, citrus, beans, and a couple others, but he grew out of those pretty quickly.

At four months he quit growing and we were worried about him for a while. We were referred to a pediatric gastroenterologist that gave us a whole bunch of ideas to help him bulk up because he hadn’t grown at all in a couple weeks. Martin pretty much absolutely refused a bottle, but he did like baby oatmeal. Rachel also quit eating soy, and eggs because those and dairy are the most common food allergies in babies. After that he started growing like a little weed and put on a pound a week for the next couple weeks. He’s doing great now, but eggs seem to give him trouble, so no eggs or dairy for him or Mom.

He’s a happy and very social little guy. He smiles at everyone. He likes cheerios and being thrown in the air. He loves pears and oatmeal. He gives great hugs and slobbery kisses. His sisters love him, although perhaps less so when he pulls their hair.

Love to all our family and friends and a blessed and happy 2019!
Ivan, Rachel, Avery, Evelyn, Hazel, and Martin