This holiday season again finds us happy & healthy (but not wealthy or wise!) and we hope your families have been similarly blessed.

The big news is the birth of our second child, Darling Precious Angel Baby, this past June. After 9 uncomfortable months Precious arrived quite unexpectedly in a 2 ½ hour period to the vast amusement of everybody but the unhappy & unmedicated mother. ("But I DON'T want to have the baby naturally! Help me, Help me!!") So, along with the miracle of birth, it was a real blessing I made it to the hospital! At first Precious wasn't too thrilled with her post-womb accommodations. However, at age 3 months she discovered her thumb and decided this was an acceptable alternative to nursing for 18 of the available 24 hours. Thus, she had an abrupt attitude change and became The Perfect Baby. So she is an absolute JOY! What a precious angel baby!! She adores Pumpkin and saves her biggest smiles for her big brother. She has the world's biggest eyes and a fabulous open mouth smile - reminiscent of The Joker in Batman cartoons. She also has a man-killing pout, such that, at age 6 months, she already has her doting father tightly coiled around that tiny pinkie!

What to say about Pumpkin? What a glorious little kid! He's an opinionated, stubborn, territorial, sometimes exasperating, always delightful, terrible two-and-a-half year old. He is as energetic as the Energizer Bunny, and certainly keeps us on our toes! Boy what a gem! Pumpkin's got a heart of gold and loves to share, wash dishes, clean up, and throw temper tantrums in public places. He is obsessed with "Legos" and can spend nearly an hour at a time constructing vast towers. Hubby and I are hard pressed not to join him in the fun! He also must do everything the other neighborhood children do - they even gave him a midget skateboard for him to attempt to ride. So far he can stand on it, (an accomplishment rivaling flying), and sit on it and ride down the front hill (his father taught him that. I have a heart attack). Pumpkin simply beams with pleasure when he "joins" them in skateboarding.

Spock and Freud say that, supposedly, about now Pumpkin is supposed to fall in love with me and this in turn leads to all the human creative processes. Well, Pumpkin has completely bypassed this stage and is head over heels in love with the girl across the street - who puts up with his undying affection really well considering her suitor is less than 3 years old. AG is super sweet, and plays tag or "hide & seek" with Pumpkin - which works tolerably well as long as she hides in only the 6 places that Pumpkin knows to look. Also, last spring a family with another 3-year old moved in, so we had a long and glorious summer with Pumpkin and Kenny following each other around the cul-de-sac. It has been a magnificent lesson in unconditional love to see the two of them together. Their unabashed joy when seeing the other child is beautiful to see. Pumpkin vibrates like a happy puppy whenever he sees Kenny, and I can't describe how neat it is to see that love. Truly, children love then way God intended love to be shared!

After nearly 5 months of maternity leave, that first Monday back to work was harder than ever. My job is same ole, same ole so I won't bore you. I still work part time for the NLS, & still absolutely love my job. I work Mon. - Wed., so every week I get a 4-day weekend. Pumpkin & Precious obviously thrive on this, and so do I. Of interest, a press release that I helped write was mentioned in a little blurb on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, so I thought that was cool!

Hubby greatly enjoys his new position with the Army. (I would write down what this is but it's incomprehensible to me, Electrical engineering something or other.) Thankfully this has cut down on his traveling. That said, he was quite lucky to grab a two week trip to Germany! He went all over Germany, but spent most of his time in Heidelberg. Hubby had a marvelous time (calling me every night to boast of his travels.)

Finally, after 5 years and 2 kids, I've completed my Masters degree at GW. Hubby has been a real saint concerning his stressed-out wife, and he helped me stick to it when I was ready to throw in the towel. That said, our real accomplishment so far has been getting both kids to nap at the same time! Boy do your priorities change once you have kids!

Last, but certainly not least, our belov'd Capitals made it to the Stanley Cup finals!! (To show how queer we are, this ranks second in importance only to the birth of our daughter) Of course my extended family became rabid bandwagon Caps fans and came up for several playoff games and even Stanley Cup finals! To get invited my brother said he was a bandwagon fan and then had the audacity to show up at our house expecting to go the Finals in a RedWings jersey (Hubby immediately vetoed that idea.) So that was how we spent the last week of my pregnancy - with a house full of relatives and several exciting hockey games! (No stress there!) Yes, we got swept in the finals, but it was still a blast- there's NOTHING like playoff hockey!!

That's the main news from the Yates household. What A Great Year!! We hope you had a wonderful year and wish you all God's peace & love in this holy season and through out the new one. Hope your families are happy, healthy, and giving you lots of Christmas gifts!