Christmas Letter 2009

“Happy Birthday”! As Frosty the snow man would say. Well, another year has come and almost gone. We have had a lot of fun this year, and been blessed in many ways. I hope we all get the chance to take a moment and reflect on all the goodness in our lives; and on the true meaning of this holiday season, the birth and life of our Savior Jesus Christ.
Now for a verbal snapshot of life with the Lybbert’s in 2009. As you can imagine, a great part of our life revolves around our first, and for the next six months, only child, Thatcher. But, before I go into all the fun we have been having with Thatcher, let me give you a quick Mom and Dad update.
For church callings, I was called to be a teacher to the ten to eleven year olds at the beginning of the year. Briett has been serving as assistant camp director and as the young woman’s secretary. We have both been promoted from our nursery calling.
Briett, our friend Drashell, and I swam, biked, and ran in the Spudman Triathlon in Burley, Idaho, at the end of July this year. For the majority of the competitors there, it was an enjoyable sporting event, for me, however, it was a painful lesson on procrastination. We all lived however, and had lots of fun, especially after we got all the lactic acid out of our muscles.
We are expecting another child, and by “we” I mean Briettney; and by “expecting” I mean Briettney is sick and hasn’t felt good in over 12 weeks. She has been a pretty good sport though. We hope she starts feeling better soon or Thatcher may only get one biological sibling.
We were able to go to Europe this fall for a few weeks as a family, and that was alright, I guess. Just kidding! It was aaaaawwweeesome! Briett’s sister lives in Rahmstein, Germany, which also happens to be in the same area where I served a full time mission for the LDS Church for two years. We got to visit family, and see my mission. It was fun, and we both got to drive on the “Autobahn”, but the fastest I drove was about 80 mph when Briett was awake. We saw many castles, ate lots of German baked goods, chocolate, and malz bier. Yumm! Briett and I left Thatcher with her sister for three days while we went to Rome and spent three days wandering around mostly on foot. That had to be one of the highlights of our trip to Europe. We stood inside the Pantheon! We walked through the Vatican, toured St. Peters Basilica, stared up at the Sistine Chapel, and kissed on the Spanish steps. It was a ton of fun, but after three days, we were ready to get back and be with our little boy.
Now, for some of Thatcher’s firsts this year. He flew across the Atlantic Ocean and has been in four more countries than his Grandpa Lybbert, and all before the age of two! We had our first visit to the ER to sew Thatcher’s thumb nail back on after the hinge side of the door jam pinched it off. Ouch! “Thatch” started going to the Nursery at church this year, and the hardest part was getting him to leave at the end of church. “Mr. T” received his first buzz cut this summer, and I quickly followed by buzzing my hair; like son like father. The “Goober” celebrated his first birthday this year but could have cared less about his cake. Since then, however, Thatch has discovered the wholesome goodness of refined sugar and I don’t think there will be as much cake left over this next birthday. Since losing his thumb nail to the viscous jaws of the bathroom door jam, he has also lost one toe nail to Grandma’s big Maglite and gravity. Briett went off to girl’s camp this summer for three days and left me to break “Little T” of his most addictive substance habit to date, breast milk! But luckily, I have a highly effective twelve step program that he was able to complete in just three, long, days. “Thatchy” learned some very useful skills this year. One of the most useful of them being his awesome Kung Fu skills; which he has developed through months of repetitive viewing of “The Kung Fu Panda” starring Jack Black. He has been able to defend himself from all of his greatest foes (any cousin who is older or bigger than him) thanks to the aforementioned skills. He has also been able to hone his Kung Fu skills on all his cousins who are younger or smaller than him. Thatcher also likes to jump off anything he can climb on. We hope this behavior diminishes as his climbing skills improve! If Thatcher isn’t practicing his Kung Fu skills, or jumping off stuff, you are likely to find him trying to convince Mom or Dad to let him take another bath “hot tub” or eat some ice cream “ice ceam”. His favorite bed time story to date is “Everyone Poops”, we hope this book will expedite the potty training process. He has been talking up a storm the last couple of months. It has been a lot of fun to listen to him speak with Nana and Papa on the phone; another one of his favorite things to do. We are having a lot of fun being parents. It sure makes us more appreciative of all that our parents did for us that probably went unnoticed.
Well, we hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. We love you all and are grateful to have you be a part of our lives. Love Landon, Briettney, Thatcher and ???