Christmas Letter 2010

Years in the past, Phil has composed a wonderful Christmas letter to accompany our Christmas card. This year, we realized that posting the letter on our blog may be a better idea!!! That way, if people are wondering what we're up to, they can check it out. If people aren't interested, well, they should probably be removed from our Christmas card list... but we won't go there right now ;)

No, really, we love getting Christmas cards and letters from our friends all over the US (and actually around the world!!!)... I love reading the letters, it's helps me feel less disconnected from the friends we've made as we've moved (or as they've moved... it's not always our fault!!!). We meant to get our cards out early this year because we've moved so much in the past 2 years, but, well, they're still sitting, waiting for me to address them :) Oops...


We didn't send out Christmas Cards last year. There was a lot going on, a whole lot of craziness!!! To take a step back in history we have to go back to December 2008 when Best Buy, Phil's employer at the time, offered buy outs to their employees (early retirement packages, as Phil calls them). Well, it was such a great deal, Phil got pretty excited about the prospect of a change, we he took it.


Our house was already on the market since I was pregnant with baby #3 (Jackson) and the house was getting a little snug. Then spring 2009, the house sold. We couldn't exactly buy a new house, Phil didn't have a job!!! It's pretty funny to think that we were then - pregnant, unemployed, and homeless!!! Wow, we put a lot of faith in God... a lot. Sooooo, all of our worldly possessions were moved into a really big storage facility and we moved in with my mom and dad in Ohio (I bet they never saw THAT one coming!!!).


To whiz through 2009:

- Phil (and my dad) golfed a lot.
- Phil ate a lot of Buffalo Wild Wings (He claimed that they have wifi and he was job searching. I believe he just ate wings and watched endless reruns of sports center).
- Phil traveled up to the twin cities quite a bit while he continued searching for a job
- I had a baby (Jackson James was born June 23rd... a whopping 9# and some odd ounces... the biggest baby in the nursery!).
- Phil (and my dad) still golfed a lot.
- Phil started looking for a job outside of the twin city area.
- Phil starting having much more 'luck' with his job search, much to my dismay :)
- We vacationed in Mexico with some awesome friends (our awesome family split the duty caring for three kids).
- We traveled to Austin, TX and Bentonville, AR to check out two job offers that Phil had.
- Phil moved to a bachelor pad in Bentovnille, Arkansas to take a job with Sam's Club - we are not a part of the Wal-Mart empire!
- The rest of the family and I decided to stayed in OH until we had a real house to live in.

Now, 2010... the hilarious, amazing, faith building story continues...

We quickly learned that living apart wasn't all that much fun. We'd gone house hunting a lot... really, a lot. We bid on a short sale in Bentonville in November, a house we really loved. We didn't quite realize the length of time it would take two banks to approved the short sale of a house (the owners had two mortgages). Who knew, when a bank (or two) is going to lose money on the sale of a house, they take a long time making that decision. So, we packed up all of the worldly possessions a family of now 5 can accumulate while living with parents for 9, yes 9 months (yep, I bet they really never saw that coming!!!) and we moved into Phil's two bedroom condo/bachelor pad on January 31st. Audrey was enrolled in preschool, Andrew was enrolled in a Mother's Day Out program (it's like flexible childcare), and Jack and I went to the gym a lot... it was a small condo.

The end of February, the short sale was finally approved. The end of March we moved into our new home, a few weeks shy of the 1 year anniversary of the date we moved out of MN. Crazy. God was doing some amazing things with our family... Sweet Jack was 9 months and had never slept in a crib!!!


Gosh... yep, we live in Arkansas and are beginning to make some friends and really settle in. Audrey started Kindergarten this year, Andrew's in preschool, and Jack goes to a Kid's Day Out program (same idea as a mother's day out... cooler name though!), and I work at that said preschool/kids day out!!! Yep, I got a little stir-crazy when Audrey started school.... so I'm working a whopping 10 hours a week while the boys attend the same program. It's great!

Audrey - 5 1/2 (my half birthday is January 1st!!! A very important point in the mind of a 5 year old). Tried soccer this year (I wouldn't say she was necessarily successful, but had fun) and takes swimming lessons at the Walton Life Fitness Center (everything down here is wal-mart). She's having fun being 5.


Andrew (or Drew) - 3 1/2 and smart as a whip... what does that mean, exactly? Smart as a whip?? hmmm... he's a jokester, loves getting laughs out of us, loves being crazy. We've had to stop calling him a train wreck because we were worried he was trying to live up to it :)

Jackson (Jack) - 18 months and nuts too. He's learning from his siblings. We did take a trip 3.5 hours away to Little Rock's children's hospital to get a nickel removed from his esophagus when he was 11 months... a shining day in mommy-hood. He's jabbering up a storm and quickly went from walking at 14 months to running at 14.5 months. Gotta keep up, right?


Hmmmm... what else... Oh, Phil. He works, a lot. Really. He does something at Sam's club around their entertainment and office products. He calls himself a DMM. I don't know what that means. I'm sure he's told me, I just don't remember. He's in the land of merchants. He's always looking at numbers. He wants me to buy all of our kids Christmas presents at Sam's club (apparently, kids toys are in the entertainment category... ). I love him and he's loving his job, that's all that matters, right?! He's happy at his job, I'm happy staying home (for the most part).

Oh, please, please, please come and visit us. The fall and spring here are amazing! I was shopping yesterday w/o a winter coat on!!! Lovely weather. Summer was miserable... really miserable... then we found a pool and started to enjoy it a bit more. It's HOT in the south in the summer. Of course, it's COLD in the north in the winter, right?! I guess it's just a trade off... the reason the retired crowd migrates back and forth???


I think that's probably long enough. If I missed something, shoot me a comment and I'll fill you in.

All of the Shellhammers wish you all a very, very Merry Christmas. God has been so faithful... we pray you have a wonderful 2011. As the kids would say... Happy Birthday, Jesus!!!