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Augustine Christmas Letter 2008

Greetings from the Nathan and Carolyn Augustine family! We hope your family is happy and healthy, and that the Lord is carrying you through these trying times as he has cared for us. If our family had a theme this year it would be Ch-Ch-Ch-CHANGE!

Really early in 2008 we got a big surprise when we realized we were expecting baby number three! Evangeline Brooke Augustine joined our family July 2, almost two weeks after the due date we were given! We call her Evie (pronounced E-V). Zane, who just started talking in October, calls his baby sister Evie Cakes or Baby Cake.

Evie was due in mid-June and at the same time Nathan was presented with an exceptional opportunity to start a job at a new museum in Phoenix called The Musical Instrument Museum or just The MIM. The MIM is basically being funded through the Target Corporation, so Nathan has access to a good benefits system and a really good career growth opportunity. The museum is collecting at least one musical instrument from each country around the world. Since the museum is in the early stages of collecting these instruments, Nathan is responsible for shipping instruments from exotic places like Kazakhstan, North Korea, or China as part of his job. We are ever so grateful for this new direction in Nathan’s career but also recognize the great opportunity and quality of life we had in Wickenburg.

Evie was due and Nathan was offered the job and completed the interview process while he was on leave for Evie’s birth, so we found ourselves in a whirlwind of packing, finding a place to rent in Chandler, AZ, about 90 miles southeast of Wickenburg, and getting Veronica ready to go to school all in the space of about three weeks. Nathan’s parents thankfully came and helped us with these arduous tasks, and we had a tremendous amount of help from friends in Wickenburg, especially Kristy Hancock and her family, Kris Johnson, and Milena Smith. We could not have done it had it not been for these wonderful people. They helped us watch children during the birth, collected boxes and donated packing materials for the move, helped us pack, and helped us load our truck. We are too grateful for words for their selfless service to us. Then even as we were leaving, we were showered with gifts from our Wickenburg ward family and various friends and coworkers in Wickenburg. We were stunned and again very very thankful for this generosity and friendship.

Then while we were moving we decided that finding tenants for the Wickenburg house would be the prudent thing to do, so we proceeded with efforts in that direction, and discovered that while we had been out of the house for a few weeks the carpet had flooded and the roof had leaked behind the wall in the kitchen. We have been working with an insurance adjuster and local contractors and our wonderful tenants who are now good friends to rectify the issues with the house. That is a story much too long for this breezy Christmas note. But suffice it to say that one new carpet, brand new kitchen wall, and 2 replaced kitchen countertops later, it has consumed more than its fair share of our time and energies!

In Chandler we have focused on taking care of the issues with our house in Wickenburg, going to the local Desert Breeze park that has a splash pad (a fountain spray/play structure) to keep cool, and playing at the same park on the playground under its shaded sunscreen. We had the chance to attend the World Music festival at symphony hall. Veronica and Nathan saw gypsy rockers and Chinese world music, while Nathan and I went and attended a night of Celtic music where we watched in amazement as a 6-month pregnant celtic fiddle player danced and played for two hours almost continuously! And we have been going as a family once a week when we can to the evening story time program offered at the Chandler Sunset Library, which is just a few short blocks from our house. Zane was delayed a bit in his speech and we had some concerns about it so we had him tested by a speech pathologist. Just about that time Zane decided he was ready to go ahead and try to talk, so he wasn’t able to participate in the speech therapy program we had him tested for. Instead we are taking him to the library often and working more specifically on helping him develop his language skills.

Now Zane can identify all of the letters of the alphabet and the numbers from one to ten, so I jokingly tell people that he will probably be reading before he talks in complete sentences. I spend my days primarily taking care of small babies, doing laundry, changing diapers, talking on the phone, writing hubs (when I have time), yard sailing a bit, and dreaming about selling our house and moving into a big foreclosed home ;). Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

Gladly we spent Thanksgiving with family at a beautiful house in Santa Cruz California this year! Veronica and Nathan spent the better part of a day on a kayaking trip up a slough at Moss Landing with selected aunts, uncles, cousins, and even Grandma. They saw California sea otters, seals, sea lions, and lots of different wild birds. I took Zane and Evie with the other baby families (there are five new babies in the Augustine clan this year and three were in California for the trip) to the Redwoods just north of Santa Cruz for a picnic lunch and a stroller walk through the redwoods that day. Zane especially enjoyed pushing the B-O-B stroller and then the umbrella stroller, and was fascinated by the steam-powered train. On another day during this trip we went to lovely Natural Bridges State Park beach and played in the surf, built sandcastles, went tide pooling, and I, of course, took lots and lots of pictures. We visited a grove of trees near the State Beach where monarch butterflies stop on their winter migration. We saw hundreds if not thousands of monarchs in the wild. It was a sight to see! We really appreciated Nathan’s sister-in-law Kris Corbett for planning and organizing this wonderful family vacation. We had a lovely time. We even participated in a reader’s theater using the book Good Masters, Sweet Ladies, and enjoyed the performing talents of many participating cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.

So much has happened this year and I have only touched the high points. Veronica attended Camp Imagination and the Summer Science Spectacular as in previous years, had play dates and sleepovers with her friends, and then had to suddenly move away from all that was near and dear. It has been a challenging time but she has adapted in many ways and shown a lot of courage and maturity in helping with her younger siblings. But sometimes she is just really annoyed to have a little brother who demands her attention and idolizes her at the same time. Ah, to be a sibling, and an oldest sister at that! Zane has really enjoyed his experiences at the play park and made some new friends in Alex and Ariana Hancock. (Wherever we go we run into Hancocks!). He has adjusted beautifully to the routine of the nursery here in our ward, but it took a little bit of time. Evangeline is an alert and joyful baby. We are so pleased she has joined our family. I have especially enjoyed snuggling and loving her. So what will be in store for the Augustines in 2009? Time will tell, but we trust in the goodness of God and know we are surrounded by caring friends and loved ones. With that knowledge we know we can face what comes next!

My Jealous Toddler

I have proof positive that my son is jealous of his baby sister. Today I gave them both a bath, which I suppose is "some kind of small accomplishment." First I bathed my son. He loves to play in the tub and entertained himself with his tub toys for a good long time in my master bathroom's oversized bath. Then, because I am such a great mother, I dressed him completely, including pants, shirt, diaper, etc. Dressing a toddler like him can be especially challenging on days when he is being contrarian, which is almost every day, but I must confess that today was a more contrarian day than usual. So when I say it was some kind of small accomplishment that I gave him a bath, you have to picture him running away from me gleefully while I tease him into his clothes.

Next I bathed the almost 6-month old baby. She's easy to bathe, but I try to be hyper vigiliant as I should when I'm bathing her, which isn't so easy when toddler boy starts climbing on me and saying "my bathtub!" With baby squeaky clean I wrapped her up in a fluffy clean towel and proceeded to put her in a new clean diaper.

But I made a fatal error, which I vow never to repeat again. I didn't empty her water. So toddler boy, all dressed and ready to go, climbs into the baby's bathtub, bathwater and all, and sits in it, saying "my bathtub!" Until he got cold. Then he climbed out, his backside completely sopping wet, and I said to him "Get back in there! So I can get my camera!" He didn't comply.

Speed is Life

This photo totally took my by surprise. I had taken about 200 shots of my son for a montage (yeah, that's about how many it takes for me to get 6 or 8 shots I like, but I'm trying to develop my eye) and I saw this scene and had to take the snapshot. Then I played with it for a while introducing different colors, which wasn't too difficult since the photo setting was monochromatic already.