Seasons Greetings!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This year has been such a wonderful year. The highlight of 2006 was the arrival of our 4th child, Camille. She is such a joy in our life! She continues to grow every day. She is healthy and beautiful. Her laugh and smile is extremely contagious.

Erick is our happy and energetic two-year old. He'll be 2 this week in fact. All this year we tried to get him to say words and speak more, but all he would do was hum. One day he started to say a few words. Now we can't get him to stop talking! He talks all the time (in his language of course). We understand a few of his words and when we don't understand what he's trying to tell us, then he makes it known. He never walks ... he is always on the run. I've never seen a kid with so much energy! We love our blue-eyed boy!

Ben started pre-school this fall. He absolutly loves going to school. We think he's going to be very smart. We notice his behavior is much better on days when he's at school. As I've said before, Ben stopped sucking his fingers ... horaay!! The current conflict is what he wears for pants (he wants to wear shorts all the time). On the day it snowed here, he refused to wear long pants. It was after much persuasion that we got him to put some long pants on. Jill finally hid his favorite shorts one day only to find out that Ben found his swimming shorts! So now he's wearing those all the time. Ben is counting down the days to his 5th birthday in a couple of months.

Emma lost both her front teeth when her Grandma's were here this summer. So she's been toothless for quite a while. The new ones are starting to poke through. She's been doing great in first grade. She has amazed me this year with her reading abilities. In January she couldn't read and now she's reading the Book of Mormon with us every night. It is always fun to watch her learn and pick up new things. Jill told me a funny story about Emma tonight. We have this wreath on our wall and Emma asked Jill when she is going to change it. Jill told her that she wasn't planning on changing the wreath any time soon. Emma replied that Jill needs to change it because "it's really stressing [Emma] out."

Jill has survived a rough couple of weeks getting the house ready to sell. She's worked so hard organizing and cleaning and making the house presentable. The house has never looked better! She's done a terrific job. Besides changing diapers and cooking and resting, Jill enjoys quiet moments reading books. She's read several this year. Recently she's been reviewing homes on the market so that she knows what she wants when the time comes to buy. She also continues to work out at the gym where she enjoys here cycling class. She's considering entering the Tour de France in 2008.

As for me, I'm done with MBA school! I graduate on December 9th. My last class was last week. I'm not sure it's hit me yet. I've also moved into a new position at work. We thought we were going to be moving to Houston, but they found me a job here. So we'll be here for at least another year. Now that I have "all this time on my hands," I plan on hanging out with the family more often as well as getting back into chess. I play basketball a couple of times a week too, so I'm pretty happy.

We wish all our family and friends a safe and Merry Christmas! We hope to see many of you over the next year as we have more time on our hands to travel and be with family.

Love, The Putnams