Mathison Family Christmas Letter 2006- 2007
Wanting, to wish you a Merry Christmas!!


Year 2007:

Tamara is now three, and is still our busy little bee. She now allows her dad to call her his little Tammy, she is quite the little hammy. Singing is one of her favorite things to do, singing here, singing there, singing until she turns blue. Among all her growing talents, she has an amazing dancing balance.

Liahona is five and her art skills are really coming alive. Once a week she goes to an Art class, enjoying every minute never wanting the time to pass.
At home she colors and draws like crazy, it’s good to know she isn’t even lazy.

Caleb is six and each day he has to get his computer fix. He has had a love and talent for the computer since he was two, even before he learned to tie his shoe. He can change the computer display to install a game, so when something isn’t working right we usually know who to blame.

Tanya is still working hard at home, taking on home-schooling the children in our own family learning dome. The children are enjoying being with mom, having her be their teacher instead of some public school teacher named Tom. And yet you may say if that isn’t enough, she is expecting again without even a fuss. (Due May 1st!)

Eric is still our super-dad, taking on both work and school could almost make one go mad. However enough he is such an amazing lad, so hardworking and helpful never taking a moment to be sad.

We have moved out here to Lincoln Nebraska last spring as you all know, and boy does the wind sure blow. Allowing Eric to continue with school, to obtain his Masters in Nurse Anesthesia, he is no fool. But Smart, as smart can be, as you can see. The program will take about 3 years, but have no fear you will still be hearing from the Mathison dears. Our plans are to move back, yet our plans are not set in stone but rather lack. Even though we do not know where he will get his first job, but in spite the unknown do not sob.

We love you all, Merry Christmas one and All. May you be filled with happiness and cheer, for you all are special and ever so dear! With Much Love, The Mathison Family: Eric, Tanya, Caleb, Liahona, Tamara, and baby (found out it's a BOY!!)

P.S Year 2006:

We apologize for not sending out a Christmas letter last year; we would like to briefly sum up the year for you. Beginning of last year Eric applied to graduate school, in the field of Nurse Anesthesia, and was accepted into the programs in Arizona and Nebraska. The middle of summer Eric’s sister, Carmen got in a terrible car accident, age 22, and left us by returning back home to our Heavenly Father. The middle of fall, we were expecting with our fourth child. We were 12weeks and 5days along, due on March 12th of 2007, but lost the child. However, this year has had its up’s and down’s, but over all has turned out well. We are hoping that next year will go even better for us.

Our Thanksgiving

In spite of being away from family this year, we still had a rather enjoyable Thanksgiving. We invited two other families over from the ward to share Thanksgiving with us. One family with three children, the other family with six children. All the kids played together rather well, allowing the adults to have time to chat and relax. Eric made the Turkey for the whole party, and it turned out wonderful. The winter has started up here, and we got our first snowfall the day before Thanksgiving. But three days prior, it was up in the mid 70's. It was the last of the fall, and that evening a whole dozen homes in the neighborhood put up their Christmas lights. We still had our Thanksgiving lights up, so we couldn't be apart of the Put Up the Christmas Lights Party with all the neighbors. It was really funny to see, every street you looked down there where ladders up and lights being put up. But now that Thanksgiving is over perhaps we will attempt to hang up our Christmas lights, in spite of the freezing snow/wind weather. Yesterday was the start of our Christmas Holiday season. We watched Santa light up a big Christmas tree at our local outdoor mall. As we had free cookies and hot cider drinks and listened to a band playing Christmas music. After watching Santa light up the Christmas tree, the kids for the first time, wanted to go visit Santa. So we waited in line, about a 25min wait, to have them sit on Santa's lap, and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. Liahona was really the main reason why we waited, she really wanted to see Santa, so when it was our turn she wanted to go first. She told Santa she wanted Art things. Then Tamara was next to go, she was a little nervous, however I reminded her that Santa was just like a nice big grandpa. This must have helped her because she went next. And she told him that she wanted a cat, but I however had to remind her that Santa knows we can't have a real cat right now, but perhaps he could bring her a toy cat.=) Than last but not least was Caleb, usually in the rear of the group, he likes to hang back and see if his siblings are really going to go through with doing things, because if they don't he won't. But since both of his sisters went, he too went. And he told Santa that he wanted battleship game. We were rather amazed with their growth within the past year. Now we can make plans to go to Disneyland in three years or so when we have the time and money, and they won't be screaming and crying when they see people dressed up in costumes. HOORAY!! They are getting so big, we are so proud of them. Anyhow Hope everyones Thanksgiving went well. Happy Late Thanksgiving!!

Happy Fall to All...

Nothing major to share,

We just wanted to wish everyone a happy fall...

The trees here in Lincoln are really pretty, all yellow, red and orange.

As a family we went to a nearby pumpkin patch and had lots of fun.

The kids had a hayride out to the pumpkin field and picked out their own pumpkins.

We had brought our lunch along knowing that it was suppose to be a nice day.

And we had a relaxing picnic at the Farm. Than the kids enjoyed some

time in a bounce house that the Farm had rented. Fall is here and the weather

has been nice.

We are all ready for Halloween, and the kids are getting excited for their

trick-or-treating day to arrive. Have a happy halloween too everyone.

Love The Mathison's

Huskerville

After 7 long months our house in Oregon finally sold. We had a Realtor for 6 months, and for 1 month we did it for sale by owner, with my parents help holding open houses for us. They did a great job for us and found us a buyer. We are truly grateful to only have 1 house payment again, and paying utilities one only 1 house as well....phew!! Life is good, and we are happy!! =)

Eric's school is going well keeping him rather busy, using his extra time working part time in the Burn unit at the hospital nearby. It has been quite the experience for him in the burn unit, he has decided that he enjoyed working in the ICU unit better. In the ICU units, there was more busy work, and Eric just likes to stay busy and focused to help make the shift go faster.

The kids and I are having a great time with Homeschooling, we are buying a Children's Museum membership this week, to give us more fun indoor field trips with the winter and cold weather coming up soon. We went two weeks ago using their free coupons from the summer library reading program, and they had a blast. Well, We have decorated our home for Halloween already, being my second favorite holiday, we have lots of decorations. We will have to take pictures to post of our SPOOKY house.

My birthday was fun. It is weird to think that I am 27 years old, I still feel and look like I'm 19 though. Both Eric and I have that young look about us, I suppose that will come in handy as we get older. Eric is second to the youngest in his class of 11 people, and even though he looks young, people are always amazed when they find out that he has been married for 7 years and has 3 children.

Eric and I share the same church calling, we are part of the Activities Committee, and we just got done with being in charge of a Roadshow. Of which we only had 1month to put it together, needless to say the bishopric knew about it since the beginning of the year. This was truly the task, seeing that I am not gifted in singing or dancing or acting.... I personally hated these kinds of activities as a youth and I felt like the biggest hypocrite. But it went rather well. The youth thankfully in this ward are extremely gifted in sing, dancing, and acting. Many of they are in drama, and perform in school plays and musicals. We are glad that this rather "Fun" assignment is over, and we can relax now.

So we are doing well here in Huskerville. Lincoln has a college football team called the cornhuskers and the whole city is just totally crazy over this team. On game day everyone wears Red, and has garage parties watching the game on their TVs in their garages. Weird..... I most likely will never become a cornhusker fan, but Eric is slowly converting to be apart of this rather weird huskerville lifestyle. Since they have no Pro anything here in Lincoln everyone is just so crazy-nuts over their Cornhusker College Football Team. And the funniest thing of all is that they aren't even a good team, they stink pretty bad, and yet they still have sold out home games each time. On game day the stadium holds 80 thousand people making that the 3rd largest amount of people gathered together in one area in the state of Nebraska. With the City of Omaha being the 1st, and the City of Lincoln being the 2nd. We are proud to say that we are so far surviving Huskerville.

Spring Sunday Snapshots

We took a couple of Sunday SnapShots before church, since we missed their Yearly Birthday Photoshoots. They aren't exactly Professional, but it was nice for the memory purposes.

Homeschool Smiles

We are back in school here in Lincoln Nebraska. Public School started on the 20th here, however we started school the 1st week of August. And the kids love doing their school work at home, not to mention that I love it as well. It is the most enjoyable, rewarding service that I can do for my children. I am feeling must closer to my children, not just because I choose to be a mother, but because I am also choosing to be a loving teacher. I am finally able to have more one on one time with Liahona, my middle child. I never got one on one time with her, even when she was born, and I am glad to be able to fill that hole now. She has been a really big Daddy's girl, which technically wouldn't be bad, but she would never let me help her with anything: brushing her teeth, reading her a book, sitting next to her... she always wanted her dad's help over mine. I am proud to say that within these 3weeks, she is finally coming to me when she needs help, and she will sit next to me and hold my hand. Which has brought tears to my eyes many times. So I am very thankful for the this time to be together doing school at home with the children. We have been doing lots of fun projects. The one hanging mobile is from their science lesson about Tornado, and lighting storms. Since we are living in the Midwest, I felt that it is important for them to learn about the types of weather conditions, that do and can take place here. There are weird, dry Thunderstorms here that seem to appear out of nowhere that go all through the summer. We thought they were fun at first because they were new, then after awhile the kids grew to be sacred of them, and I however grew to be annoyed by them. The lighting lights up the sky all night long, making it really hard to sleep during the night, and then amazing enough it goes away for the day, and then usually starts right back up at night again.

Last week we got a really bad thunder and lighting storm, that placed our City on a tornado watch. That was really scary, especially after just teaching to children about tornado's and telling them that Tornado's don't come into Lincoln. (This is because Lincoln sits down in a bowl, and the tornado stay up on top and just go around Lincoln.) But it was good to have explained to the children before hand what we would need to do to be safe if one did come. So we were prepared, Thankfully the storm died down, and the Tornado warning was not in effect anymore.

We sure are learning lots here, it has already been rather eventful.

Eric has started school this week, and we are glad to get this going.
Our house still has not sold, which is making things rather tight, but faith, prayers, and trust are so far holding us together in spite this confusing and frustrating time.

Other than that we are going well here in Lincoln Nebraska...(by the way I still think it's weird that I am actually here.)

Check out my Slide Show!

Fireflies and More...

Trying to saty cool here in Nebraska requires the kids to get dirty. In Oregon there was just clay, here it's real dirt, needless to say the kids rather enjoy it.

Thhe trampoline and recently new pool helps keep the kids from complaining too much about the heat. This rental house didn't do very well with keeping the cool AC within the house, so we were either outside getting wet and dirty, or downstairs in the smelly-but cool basement. This rental house also had lots of bushes and big trees meaning that throughout the day we were being eaten alive by bugs: horse flies... and others. After living in that rental home for a month and a half, we moved again.

Our new rental house was built in Jan 2007. It has that new house smell, and it's so new that the Owner has yet to seed the yard for grass to grow. The back yard is 3x's the size of our Oregon home. The kids call this the Frog home, because there is a small pond (that is drying up everyday) which is home to lots of frogs and toads. They love to go back there and catch as many as they can. We are really happy here, and it's just so nice to be able to call a new place home again. However we really miss our Oregon home, and friends and family there, but we will be back in 33months. Nebraska is a nice change, but it will never be home like our great NW!! The people are rather friendly here; I was going for a walk one day to find my husband and children at the park and 3 people stopped me to talk to me. Two were just saying Hello and telling me about the beautiful day, and Another asked if I was looking for something, and wanted to help. It was a rather different experience than compared to Oregon, I remember going for walks passing by homes and if there were people outside they would just glare as I walked past there property. People wise, we like Nebraska- Weather and landscape wise, we love the NW. Other than that we are well, and glad to be done moving about until 33months from now. Assuming we can get our Oregon House sold. Trying to pay two house payments can be a little tight, but that's part of life to test our faith I suppose.

Oh these firefly pictures aren't the best, I will try to get a better one sometime to post. But In case you haven't seen one before like myself until now, this is for you. =)

Here in Lincoln Nebraska

Just a quick note to let everyone know that our 3day trip from Salem Oregon, to Lincoln Nebraska went rather well. The kids did great, amazingly enough. It was an 8 hour drive each day, however we drove 4 hours than stopped and ate lunch, strecthed our legs and then finished the 4 other hours...for 3 days.We are at our rental home which is pretty white trash, and we are currently looking for another, making that our 9th move. Our house in Salem is still on the market, in which we have decided not to buy a house in Nebraska, but just rent for the next 33months that we will be living here for.
Overall we are doing well with the move so far. As you can see on the poll, We are currently doing all of those at once which is rather stressful. Not to mention with moving to a new rental house making that our 9th move as a family, were getting a little tired of moving. However it is nice to try new things. We are still trying to get use to Nebraska's humid heat...yikes...I choose Dry heat over Humid heat any day! There are really neat fireflies that come out every night at dusk. The kids love to catch them. I have no pictures to post at this time, seeing that our computer and all our picture disks are still packed away. But we will be on that as soon as we can.So that's all for now from Lincoln Nebraska, stay tuned for more later......=)

Shrine Circus

Having fun while we still can!!! As a family we went to the Shrine Circus here in Salem Oregon. The kids thought it was really neat stuff. Eric and I got a kick here and there, but it was a little on the slower side for us adults. We brought treats with us, and the kids gobbled up the cotton candy, this being there 2nd or 3rd time having it, and they enjoyed it as much as watching the Circus. The kids got in free being 6 and under, so we thought that was a pretty good deal; buy two tickets get three in FREE.

We are moving to Lincoln Nebraska this Friday. Getting there Sunday the 11th. We are taking 3days, 8hours each, stopping at hotels with pools, until the last leg takes us to our Rental House. Our home unfortunately is back on the market, the offer we got fell through, and now we get to leave our house vacant. We are leaving our keys to very special, trusted neighbor to watch over, and take care of things for us. We were really blessed to have such great neighbors. We are going to miss them, but we could be blessed with great neighbors again. And we will know this weekend. Keep those fingers crossed for us, and keep those prayers coming our way, that this move won't be too bad as it seems.