Merry Christmas From The Spanglers!

Our year at a glance
Well, the time has come for me to wax eloquent and summarize an entire year of our lives for friends and family far and near. Not a small task, but I’m ready to try. For those of you who just visit this blog for the pictures, I apologize.



Family Trivia
As you would probably expect of first time parents, most of the exciting events in our year revolve around Addie. But how many of you (besides her grandparents) are really going to enjoy us telling about the milestones in her life? Instead, I’d like to try to paint you a picture of what each of us are like these days…

Addie is very much like Niki- likes crowds, people, activity… is stubborn (Greg says determined)… really likes what she likes, really hates what she doesn’t… thoroughly studies a new thing or person before deciding if she likes it… adores Greg! Yes, Little-miss-daddy’s-girl. Her first smile was for Greg. First laugh- for dad, first word- dada, first steps- to dad. She does the most peculiar things, like she always crosses her ankles when sitting and she skipped crawling, just went right to walking. She is NOT your average kid.

What Greg likes most about being a dad:
-He likes pushing the stroller. He’s a stroller hog
-He likes that he can say “his girls”
-He likes it when Addie rests her head on his shoulder
-He likes their special daddy-daughter “call” (each night after her bath, when Greg gives her her medicine, Addie makes a unique gargling noise. I have tried to make the noise and I can’t, but Greg can, so it must be a father-daughter thing)

What Niki likes most about being a mom:
-She likes watching Addie understand something for the first time- like how to use sign language to communicate
-She likes that everyone thinks Addie is cute (how shallow is that?)
-She loves looking at Addie while she is sleeping and peaceful
-She likes that Addie has SPUNK

It’s a Good Thing She’s Cute…
Niki & Addie have spent large quantities of their time this year at doctor’s offices. Addie was diagnosed with Acid Reflux at 4 months and it continues to haunt her and challenge us. Honestly, though this isn’t the perky upbeat news usually included in Christmas letters, it has dominated our year more than any other factor in our lives. We take each week individually, watching Addie for symptoms (crying, screaming, lack of sleep, spitting up), adjusting medication doses, and making due the best we can. Additionally, Addie has been sick with sinus or ear infections several times as well. We are really thankful for a good pediatrician and gastroenterologist (tummy doctor). Sometimes Niki feels like their offices are second homes! We also have visited a pediatric cardiologist, pediatric ophthalmologist (both for issues that have cleared up- praise the Lord) and for Niki- an Endocrinologist (also for an issue that has now been healed). We are thankful that Addie is probably going to outgrow the acid reflux eventually and that none of her health issues are a serious risk to her health. We can’t state enough how thankful we are for that!

In spite of not feeling well a lot of the time, we have tried to still have fun together as a family. We love living in Southern California where there are so many interesting things nearby! We’ve enjoyed the beach, the city, the sun. We’ve had visits from lots of family and friends and gone to do some visiting of our own too- to Phoenix and Seattle. Wow- traveling with a kiddo is a whole different thing than traveling before!

We still enjoy our cats. We still enjoy our great neighbors. We still enjoy our church- although we’ve had to be less involved now than our pre-children life. Everyone told us that having a baby changes everything, and it has, but we wouldn’t change it back for anything! As we celebrate this Christmas we are so thankful to be together. We wish we could be with each one of you too, but since we can’t, we hope this little blog will be the next best thing!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!