18 December 2001

To Our Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Reeve family. We hope that this letter finds you and yours in good health. 2001 has treated us well and we are looking forward to 2002.

Stephen is still with Motorola. There have been lots of project changes for him this year, but he keeps plugging away and they keep sending him a paycheck. Stephen has started playing soccer with his co-workers at lunchtime. The young guys he plays with are often surprised that the "old man" (Stephen celebrated his 40^th birthday this year) can still out-sprint them to the ball. In addition to playing soccer, Stephen also coached Samantha's soccer teams. He was the un-official coach for her spring U6 boys & girls league team. Then, he was the official coach, along with another dad on the team for her fall U7 girls soccer league team, the Beetles. The U7 age (to play in U7, you have to be 6 years old on or before July 31^st) is the first year that they separate the boys and girls into different leagues. The Beetles definitely showed a great deal of improvement over the course of the season and were playing really well by the end. In addition to working and coaching, Stephen also volunteers one day a week to open doors in the car line at Samantha's school. The kids all want Mr. Reeve to open their door and let them out because he wears such silly hats, Spock ears, reindeer antlers, etc. Another of Stephen's activities is taking pictures (lots and lots of pictures). He occasionally adds some to his web page. You can see recent family photos at: http://geocities.datacellar.net/stephen_reeve/Family/family.htm

Samantha, who will be 7 on January 24^th, is in first grade at Holy Family Catholic School. She seems to really enjoy school and her reading skills have improved dramatically. Her teacher commented at our first parent-teacher conference how pleased she was that Samantha seems to read for pure enjoyment! Last year, the school was in portable buildings in a temporary location up in Cedar Park (suburb, north of Austin). This year, the school is in permanent buildings in its permanent location which just happens to be in our neighborhood. Samantha, therefore, gets to walk to school every day, which she really enjoys. You should hear her howl when we oversleep and have to drive (fortunately, that doesn't happen very often).

As I mentioned above, Samantha played soccer both in the spring and in the fall. Moving up to the U7 league was a big change. This was the first time she played with all girls; the field was bigger; and they played with a goalie for the first time. All the girls on the team took turns playing goalie. Samantha seemed to really enjoy being goalie ... unless it was a cold day. She is definitely her father's daughter in that regard, she does not like cold weather, at all. As much as she loves soccer, it was a surprise to me when she announced that she has decided that she wants to play softball in the spring.

In addition to school and soccer, Samantha has joined the Brownie Girl Scouts and is still taking gymnastics. I don't know if it is the gymnastics, or her natural tendency to climb everything she can, but she is very strong, especially in her arms. One of her favorite things to do when we walk down the street to the neighborhood playground is to run ahead of Christopher and me and shimmy up to the top of the stop sign at the end of the street and wait for us to catch up. When we get to the playground, the first thing she does is climb up to the top bar over the swing set. It really irks her that she can't climb up into the tree in our back yard yet. The tree is too big for her to get her arms around, and the lowest branch is just out of her reach. I refuse to help her because I know that as soon as she can get into the tree, she will be at the top of the tree. The top of the canopy for the tree is higher than our two-story house. With all the climbing talk, it should come as no surprise that Samantha broke her arm in July. The surprising part is that she broke it in a freak accident on her scooter, which she has been riding on since she was Christopher's age. She was riding up the sidewalk and let go of the handle of the scooter to grab hold of Stephen's hand, missed, fell, and broke her arm - right there is plain site of three responsible adults! Fortunately, it was not a serious break and she got her cast off before school started. Pictures of her x-rays, Samantha with her cast on, and the cast being cut off are all on Stephen's web page.

Christopher, who will be 3 on January 31^st, continues to be my little "wild thing". He goes to Kindermusik and Gymnastics. Christopher enjoys Kindermusik, even though his shy nature shows up in that he hardly says a word during the class. He loves gymnastics. Jumping is one of his favorite things; as in, jumping on the trampoline at gymnastics, jumping from the stairs above Mommy when she is sitting down to put shoes on and then putting hands on Mommy's shoulders and doing a handspring over her head into her arms (I haven't missed yet, but I live in dread of the day that I might), doing a handspring off of the sofa (believe it or not, I managed to leap across the room and catch him before he landed on his back on the corner of the coffee table - and he has never tried that one again), jumping off the headboard and onto the bed, etc. He frequently cracks me up with his commentary on the world around him. For example, he knows that he isn't allowed to jump on the bed, so when I spoke to him about jumping off the headboard and onto the bed, he replied "Me not jumping, me landing". Another time, he made a wild leap off of something just as I came into the room and I cried "Christopher, you are going to break your neck!"; he looked up at me with big eyes, took his hand and felt all around his neck and head and then looked back at me and said "me neck okay, Mommy" and proceeded to climb back up and leap again while I was trying to regain my composure. Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to administer any kind of correction when you are laughing?

Trains are another one of Christopher's favorite things. It seems like we have read every single children's book ever published about trains. I know that we have checked every single book out of the Austin Public Library listed under trains in the card catalog at least once. We have a Brio/Thomas wooden train set. We have enough wooden track to start at the front door, go down the hallway into the family room, back into the dining room, through the living room and back to the front door again. Whenever we go to the library, the first thing we have to do is check to see if there are any Thomas videos available to be checked out. After we put up our Christmas tree, we got out the electric HO train set that runs under the tree. Christopher is absolutely hilarious. He gets so excited about the electric train that he actually quivers all over with the joy of it. So far, I still have him convinced that only Daddy can run the train (otherwise, I would get nothing done all day but play with the train). As soon as Stephen wakes up in the morning, Christopher jumps up and down saying "Daddy, wake up, let's go downstairs and play with the train!!!" As soon as Stephen walks in the door home from work in the evening, Christopher is all over him with "Let's play trains!" After Christmas, Stephen is going to have a hard time convincing Christopher that it is okay to put the train away for another year. We recently cleared all the boxes out of Christopher's room, painted it, and bought a new big-boy bed for him. So, of course, I had to stencil trains all around the room. It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Christopher is not too sure that he wants to be a "big boy" and sleep in a big boy bed and wear big boy underwear. We haven't taken his crib down, yet, but that day will be coming pretty soon. You'll be able to tell when we do it ... just look for the dark circles under my eyes. As for the potty training, Christopher, unfortunately, inherited the Eastabrooks stubborn gene. This is the child that refused to eat any food for an entire 24 hours because I would not let him eat candy for breakfast one morning. He has decided that he doesn't want to use the potty ... and going potty ranks right up there in the "you can't make 'ems" with sleeping, and eating. So, I will keep searching for the thing that will motivate him and keep changing diapers in the meantime.

Murphy the wonder-beagle is 12 and is definitely showing her age. She is mostly deaf and doesn't move too fast, but her nose works just as good as ever. Christopher has decided that Murphy is actually his dog. He refers to her as my-Murphy. When Murphy scratches at the back door to go in or out, Christopher will jump up and open the door for her (and watch out for your ear-drums if you forget and do it before he gets a chance - I'm sure the neighbors must think that we beat him when they hear those ear-splitting screams). If Christopher is playing and doesn't want to be bothered with Murphy, he will say "Mommy, it's okay for you to let my-Murphy out", and then when I get up and open the door, he says "Thank-you Mommy". Murphy isn't too sure of all this attention that Christopher heaps on her, except for at meal times ... then she is right there under Christopher's chair, whether he wants her there or not.

I have, as always, been keeping myself overly busy. Actually, early this summer, the pastor of our church preached a series of sermons on the Christian Lifestyle. One of the sermons, the one about filling our lives with so much that we don't leave time for the things that are truly important. The one where he quoted several spots in the gospels where Jesus rested. The one where he described the mother that was so busy that she didn't have time to have a spiritual life or to truly love her family. That was the sermon that had me sitting in the pews with tears running down my face because Pastor Mike was describing me and it wasn't a pretty picture. That was the day that I decided that I was doing too much and I needed to remove some "clutter" from my life. So, I am no longer teaching Sunday School, I have resigned as chairman of the playground committee of our homeowner's association, I completed a year-long block of the month quilting class, I resigned from the parent education committee at Samantha's school, and I will not be teaching Vacation Bible School this summer. While these were all worthwhile activities, I have had to prioritize my time to include only the things that are most important to me and my family. These things include being the Brownie Girl Scout Troop leader for Samantha's Brownie troop, attending a weekly bible study, volunteering to open car doors in the school drop off line one morning a week (although, I am not nearly as popular as Stephen because I don't wear all the silly headgear), and helping out with Samantha's soccer team. I've also tried to pare the kids' activities down so that I don't spend all my time in the car running to and fro. In addition, I've made a commitment to myself to remove the extra clutter from our house. It's funny how expecting a houseful of relatives can jump start all of those household projects that keep getting put off. Most of Stephen's family is coming for Christmas this year; therefore, we finally got all of the boxes out of Christopher's room and the guest bedroom. I am slowly going through everything in the house and giving lots of stuff away to goodwill, away to friends and family and some of it away to the garbage can. Stephen remarked a couple of weeks ago that our house has never looked better (don't you just love him?), but of course, that didn't stop me from losing one of Samantha's school book (we still haven't found it - I think it got thrown away by mistake) or accidentally returning her school library books to the Austin Public Library.

I am still quilting. I have several quilts all getting close to completion. I hope to get them finished once the holidays are over, as partially finished projects add to the household clutter. In November, I took my first trip away by myself since Samantha was born. Stephen took off work and stayed home with the kids while I went to Houston, stayed with my folks, and attended the Houston International Quilt Festival for four glorious quilt-filled days complete with uninterrupted conversations and nights of uninterrupted sleep. I have always wanted to take a class at Festival, so this year I took two. It was good to get away, and then it was nice to come home again.

I have also discovered a brand new hobby: scrapbooking. I started working on all the photographs from the year 2001 and putting them into a scrapbook. What a joy-filled hobby! Think about it for a minute; what do you usually take pictures of? Fun things, family things, silly things, special occasions, vacations, family trips, holidays. When I've had a particularly frustrating day (Samantha is old enough to know better, but Christopher still thinks he can out-stubborn his Mommy - we may both have that Eastabrooks stubborn gene, but I am the parent and I've had more practice!) and need to unwind a little, sitting down and working on the scrapbook for just a few minutes can lower my blood pressure and bring a smile back to my face. The kids both love the finished product; they like looking at pictures of themselves and remembering the fun things that we have done. Fortunately for me, one of Stephen's hobbies is taking pictures and he takes wonderful pictures. Unfortunately, we have an entire box of pictures just from 2001. I have a feeling that it will take 2 or maybe 3 albums to hold just one year's worth of pictures.

Well, as usual, I have rambled on for much too long. So I will close by wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Please note our new e-mail address. Everything else is the same.

Stephen and Tana Reeve

Samantha, Christopher and Murphy

14808 Cordero Drive

Austin, TX 78717-4532

(512) 238-9036

reevefamily@austin.rr.com