Seasons Greetings!
We hope that you are enjoying the holidays with your cherished friends and family. We are just digging out from a blizzard but loved the two days we had at home together. As for this past year, we had our share of ups and downs but we were able to identify God’s faithfulness through it all. We still love living in Lincoln and are grateful for our friends and neighbors here. We also had fun seeing friends and family all over the country through Eric’s baseball games and recruiting trips, my work trips, weddings and holidays. Here’s the latest on our family.
EJ is 2½ and loves life. His language skills are developing and we love communicating with him. For several months he called me “honey” which was rather endearing. He is a very polite child—says please and thankum (thank you) without being prompted and he recently apologized to the wall for accidentally hitting it when he walked by. He says bless you when I sneeze and when we finish our prayers he says, “Amen.”
While “thankum” is one of our favorites, we also think his verb usage is interesting. For a while now he’s been saying, “No, I don’t” for everything that he says “no” to. So if we ask him if he is ready to take a bath he’ll reply, “No, I don’t.” Last week, we were playing tickle and I got a great spot on his leg. He was laughing so hard. When I stopped, he grabbed his leg to tickle it himself and he immediately said, “Mommy, it’s not working!”
His love for Forsberg continues to grow and he calls Forsberg, “Biersey” and still likes to share his kennel. I thought it would be hard to teach him letters and numbers but he picked up on them easily. He is also really good at puzzles. This is, of course, when you can pull him away from playing with cars and trains.
Eric was grateful that the MLB signing date came and went without losing a lot of players like he did last year. He worked really hard this summer and fall to recruit players for the coming years and this year’s recruiting class was ranked #13 in the nation by Collegiate Baseball. As you can imagine, he is really looking forward to the 2010 season to get these kids out on the field. As always you have an open invitation to come and cheer on the Huskers!
My big accomplishment this year was passing my comprehensive exams for my doctoral program. I completed all my coursework and passed the exams so I have officially “moved to candidacy” for a PhD. Now I have to do a major research project called a dissertation. It will be over a hundred pages and will be guided and critiqued by three of my faculty. I have begun preparations for this and hope that the coming year will bring great progress on this. I continue to teach online classes and mini-terms for DBU and I taught several classes at Nebraska Wesleyan this year. I am going to cut back on my Wesleyan classes next year which is a big relief as I want to spend more time with EJ experiencing Kindermusic classes and going to the Children’s Museum. I am very cognizant that he may be my only child (born on earth) so I don’t want to miss any of this fun toddler stuff. It’s true what “they” say…it goes by fast!
Here we are picking out our Christmas tree--a fun family tradition--even in the freezing cold. So, that’s the latest here. We’re off to play in the snow, drink hot cocoa and enjoy the holidays. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2010!
Eric, Melissa & E.J.
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