Happy New Year!

We hope that you all enjoyed a lovely holiday season. This traditional “update” letter is late precisely because we enjoyed ours so much! In reflecting on the year 2008, we are nothing but grateful! Grateful that Heavenly Father blessed us with so many opportunities, good friends, and supportive family. We are most grateful for the restored gospel, our Savior and, a chance to be able to see the church grow here in Philadelphia.

In 2008 Marc made the transition from classroom to hospital. January through May he studied very diligently. He took his Board exam (and did fabulously!) on May 10th, spent a week relaxing/cleaning up and setting up the baby’s room, started his Internal Medicine rotation at the hospital on the 18th and welcomed his little baby daughter on the 25th. It was a busy month! Since then he’s enjoyed/endured another Internal Medicine rotation, pediatrics, surgery and a neurology rotation. He wears the white coat well and his patients like him. We hope that he’ll find his passion and specialty in 2009. He also keeps busy at church, with a third of the year spent as the ward mission leader, a third spent as the ward executive secretary, and now he serves as the High Priest 1st assistant. He keeps trying to get out of callings by growing his hair and beard out, but it hasn’t worked so far. Madeleine really loves his long hair though because she can pull it. He’s the best father ever – totally willing to change diapers, entertain and play, rock to sleep, and babysit even when Madeleine is cranky. Madeleine and I just think he’s the greatest man on earth!

Natalie transitioned from working full-time with a belly full of baby to a full-time mom with arms full of baby. She is a rather insanely happy mother. Natalie counts as one of the triumphs of her life surviving labor without an epidural or any drugs. Hurrah! This unexpected burst of courage and strength (as well as supportive friends and family) mentally sustained her through the first month of very difficult nursing and sleepless days and nights. She was also glad to have her parents there for two weeks right after Madeleine was born – it was such a blessing and lots of fun (for everyone!). She enjoyed a summer of maternity leave, doting on Madeleine every moment, then started her PhD in Public Health at Temple University in August. She’s grateful to have a boss and coworkers who were supportive of her decision to leave work and pursue her PhD (and motherhood) full-time, a scholarship that covers most of tuition, a babysitter who puts up with Madeleine’s antics, a husband who is absolutely handsome and supportive, professors who are scintillating and supportive, and a daughter who is an absolute joy. We hope she will finish her coursework by the winter of 2009 and perhaps be able to graduate with Marc in 2010. She has a new respect for all Relief Society presidencies as she has been serving as the Education Counselor in Relief Society since Madeleine was born. She loves it but she and Marc are still working to find ways to juggle who has Madeleine during Sunday meetings and church.

Madeleine May was born on Sunday May 25th at 1:20 am, weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces. Her arrival got her parents out of Sunday meetings, teaching two church lessons, and Sacrament meeting talks! Good timing! She’s a shrimp of a girl, still hovering around the 1st percentile for weight, but she gets her height from her daddy’s side of the family. She can claim 2008 as the year she made her debut on earth, learned to roll over, cut two bottom teeth, happily serenades all with her “aaahhhhhs,” learned to eat solid foods, gave her parents (and babysitter) headaches by refusing a bottle, and wrapped her grandparents around her little finger. We hope she will sleep through the night, pronounce her consonants, and crawl in 2009. She is what her parents euphemistically call “passionate.” Marc rues that her temperament slightly resembles her mother’s – not another emotional girl! She can win anyone in a staring war and up until recently preferred staring to smiling at people. She’s now 7 months though and really charming everyone with her coy smiles, big brown eyes, and more constancy in her pleasant nature.

In 2008 we enjoyed seeing friends and Marc’s brother in D.C. when we visit the temple, having Natalie’s parents come out after Madeleine’s birth, having Madeleine’s baby blessing when we visited family in Utah in September, and watching everyone (particularly the grandparents, and Marc’s brothers Ryan and Brett) spoil and dote on Madeleine during the Christmas vacation. We loved being home with family during this Christmas holiday and are most grateful to have Madeleine as part of our family.

Please keep in touch. We love you and are grateful for your influence in our lives. We hope this new year is full of the blessings you desire and deserve! We love you!

~ Marc, Natalie, and Madeleine