MERRY CHRISTMAS 2010!!

We know it's been a while since we've been "bloggers"... So, for our Christmas card this year to all of you, we decided to place it here on our blog. We are saving our postage money for bigger things to come...hopefully sometime in 2011! (To Heather S.: yes, something that poop's, pee's, cry's and isn't an animal!)

As for our little family... here's a bit of what we've been up to this year... We've now been in Redding for a year. In that short year, we've moved twice and have now been in two different wards. We loved our first ward we moved into, however didn't particularly love our "landlords". We ended up selling our lease early to another family and found a nice older, smaller home just over the freeway from where we were before. It was a such a blessing that I found this house. We love our new landlords, who are also our neighbors and our neighborhood is nice and quiet. Our new ward is wonderful and we have made new friends. Tyler has already had offers from people to be hired after his current Bridge job he's working on and work afterward for Cal-Trans. As much as we love being here and love the scenery and all there is to do here, it is so far from our families. We miss them all so much. I guess we'll just have to see what the job market is like when he's done with the project here.

Tyler loves what he does, which makes it easier to get up and go to work. Of course it wears on him sometimes, but what job doesn't. Somehow after working 10 hours or more a day 5 days a week, he still has the energy to help me around the house and also be a wonerful daddy. He's such a good example to me! As soon as we moved into this new ward, Tyler was called to be the 1st counselor in the Elders Quorum. After just a few weeks of being in his calling, he found out that the EQ President was in the military and had a 4 month military assignment he had to leave for. Needless to say, Tyler has been quite busy serving in our ward. We have been very blessed through his calling though, and I'm grateful he has been able to serve here.

As for me, well, I've been busy being a mom. The greatest calling in the world. I do a little hair still on the side... mostly for friends and of course the missionaries. In a smaller town like this where everyone who lives here pretty much grew up here, it's a lot harder to find a clientelle. People here are pretty "set" in their ways of life (in a good way!). I am now licensed to do hair in 3 different states... Utah, Nevada and California. I guess that is kind of fun to say! For some reason, I am still always taking on more projects than I can handle, but trying to fulfill them all. Most of them are purely selfish and are mostly me trying to improve my skills at trying to be crafty. I have been serving as a Den Leader in our Cub Scout program. I think the bishopric counselor who extended the call to me thought I was going to pass out when he asked me if I would serve in Cub Scouts and saw the look on my face. I just got done serving as the 2nd counselor in Primary for 4 1/2 years in Las Vegas and also in the other ward we had just moved from... I thought for some reason that I was going to get a small break, even just for a few months. Obviously the Lord had another plan for me... little did I know that my name was in the works even before we moved into our new ward. (That's what you get for being friends with the Bishop's daughter! He knows everything!) As much as my "natural man" wanted to say no, thank you to the calling, of course I said yes. I have actually loved my calling in the Cub Scouts. I've learned a lot and these boys teach me so much. It's really been a lot of fun. I'm also starting school in January at the community college here. I never took the ACT in high school so I'll be starting at ground zero. No college credits either. It should be a lot of fun. I'm glad for the challenge that school will bring... I wasn't ready for it before now, and maybe there was a reason for that. We'll see how I do!

Griffin and I have been back and forth from here to Utah a lot this year... with Summer and helping my sister out with baby #5. We've also enjoyed having multiple visits to Redding from the Bybee family and Tyler's parents. We have loved their company! They better come see us again! As for our little-big Griffin... what can I say. He just gets more and more fun the older he gets. Doing new things, discovering new things. I just look at him everyday and can not imagine our lives without him or even remember what life was like before him. He is the most amazing blessing that has ever come into our lives. He just turned 2 this month and has a so much interest in trains, cars, trucks, planes, helecopters--how they work; basically being a boy. He is 100% boy. He is always trying to say new things and is finally putting words together to make more small phrases. He makes us laugh everyday. We just love him so much!

On that happy note, most of you have heard that we are trying to adopt again! It is quite the process to go through, but we know that it's the right way to go for us. Somewhere, there is another little spirit that is supposed to be with our family. Boy, or Girl, we'll be happy with whomever the Lord has in mind for us. We are so grateful for the opportunity to adopt, and we hope that each of you will help spread our names around again so that people will hear about us.

We hope you have all had a wonderful and blessed year like we have. We miss all of you so much and hope that you will continue to receive the blessings that the Lord has for all of you.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday's and Happy New Year!

With Love,

The McDonald Family

Tyler, Lanece & Griffin