To Unwrap a Present

For being only 7 months at the time, Jolee got pretty good at unwrapping presents. The hardest part was keeping her from eatting the wrapping paper. Here she is unwrapping her present from Auntie Meg!

O Christmas Tree

Here goes starting the old game of catch up

Every year for Christmas we go to the tree yard and find the perfect tree. I grew up with plastic trees, Randy grew up chopping down his own tree, so to compromise, the tree yard is where we go. This year Jolee helped us to find the perfect tree.

Randy and Jolee in front of "the perfect tree"




Sarah and Jolee with the tree at home 

Jolee helping to show off our tree

Our tree after decoration

The family. Jolee was getting tired and would play and cry, then play and cry, clearly we thought she was a little bit funny. She got mad at us for laughing.

Us with our presents.

Stealing a kiss while Jolee is focused on her new clapper :)

I, of course, couldn't wait to decorate our tree. It is one of my favorite traditions. I love all of the funny and weird ornaments that we have collected over the years. Each year we look for an original ornament and some sort of Santa ornament. Jolee actually did a great job at not stealing ornaments (too much). She loved staring at the tree. Once she realized that the boxes under the tree were covered in paper, it was a bit more difficult to get her out from under the tree. She actually really enjoyed unwrapping presents and trying to eat the wrapping paper.

Christmas was very enjoyable. We ended up celebrating early because I had to work on Christmas. Randy's favorite gift was his new laptop (I told him he wasn't going to get one, then I sneakily worked it out with my mom and surprized him with it. Thanks again Mom and Dad for helping me :) ). My favorite gift was the magic bullet and my fairy tale book (I love old classic fairy tales, especially ones I have never heard before). I am not sure what Jolee's favorite is. It is between her popping ball toy (not pictured, but I will post more later) from Meg and her bath toys from GrammE and Grandpa. My favorite of her's is her booster seat high chair (it is so much easier to feed her without making a huge mess). Thank-you for our gifts, we love them all, but so much better than gifts is the love of family and friends. This past year was completely full of blessings and love!

The Christmas Spirit

I thought that all of you could use a little christmas reminder. May it help to take some of the commercialism out of the Holiday.


The Christmas Spirit

Merry Christmas

Since our christmas cards are starting to arrive at thier destinations I will go ahead and post our news letter. I hope each and every one of you have a very merry christmas and a wonderful new year filled with happy memories.

Dear family and friends,

It is hard to believe that another two years has flown by. Where has the time gone? So much has happened that we hope we remember to share it all.

Two years ago Randy found a job that had room for advancement and better pay. He quit Table Talk after about three years and started working for ShopNatural Food Coop. He was the shipping and receiving coordinator and warehouse assistant manager. This position only lasted a brief 6 months when the company went bankrupt and they had to close their doors after 30 plus years of serving Tucson. But, it all worked out. He was planning on quitting at the beginning of the coming year to attend school and was able to keep working until December. In January, he started school full time for the first time since 2000, yikes. While he was attending Pima Community College in the Interpreter Training Program for Sign Language, he learned of a new program that was going to be starting in the fall of 2008. Northern Arizona University was expanding their distance learning site here in Tucson to include a dual major certification program. The program certifies teachers in elementary education from kindergarten through eighth grades and special education from kindergarten through twelfth grade. He applied and passed the interview process to begin. Being the first cohort, everything didn’t always go smoothly, but it all worked out in the end. The good news is that NAU’s main campus is revamping their dual certification program to make it run more like the one here in Tucson from the suggestions of Randy’s class. Randy will be doing his student teaching beginning in January and will graduate on May 7th 2009. Randy is looking forward to starting his teaching career.

Sarah graduated December 2007 and continued to work at the Veterans’ Hospital here in Tucson, but now as a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). She is working on gaining more and more experience and on becoming a valuable member of the ICU team. She has been working full time while Randy has been going to school and she loves it. She recently switched from working a day schedule to working nights. Surprise, surprise, she thoroughly enjoys living like a bat! Sarah looks forward to changing to part-time when Randy graduates.

The most important and wonderful occurrence in the past two years was the birth of our beautiful daughter, Jolee Sarah Swann, this May. Using self hypnosis and a water birth, Sarah was able to give birth to a healthy 9lb 5oz little girl naturally without the use of any medications (one of Sarah’s super goals)! Sarah describes this as the most wonderful and life-altering event to ever bless our family. Jolee is named after three of her grandmothers; JoAnn (Sarah’s mom), LeAnn (Randy’s mom), and Sarah (Sarah’s grandmother, who she is also named after). Jolee is growing so quickly that Mom and Dad are continually amazed. She babbles constantly and loves to have conversations with her parents (although we are unsure what she is saying). She scoots where ever she desires, rolls (especially during diaper changes), sits on her own, rocks on her hands and knees, and has even tried to pull herself up to standing using the couch. One of her favorite activities is bouncing in her jumper (she has amazingly strong legs for a 6 month old). She has a heart winning smile and giggles and laughs constantly. She recently learned how to imitate coughing causing her GramE (Grandma Ellsworth) to laugh hysterically; she will close her eyes, stick out her tongue, give a tiny cough, and then quickly look to make sure she has made you laugh, so cute. She truly is the light of our family and we love her dearly.

Randy and Sarah continue to be very active at church. Randy is now serving in the young men’s working with the 12-13 year olds. Sarah is now planning and coordinating meetings for Relief Society (the women’s group) and coordinating service for families during crisis, celebration, sickness, etc. Thus, we both stay very busy. Both Sarah and Randy continue to sing in the choir and their knees are shaking as they prepare for a duet for Christmas. These two years have been exceedingly blessed and brimming with happiness. We love each of you and wish you a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to 2010!

Randy, Sarah, and Jolee Swann