Christmas Letter 2015

2015 has been a year of new adventures!

The year started out with announcing our exciting news... Baby #4 on the way! And it just got busier from there. In February my grandma passed away after a long battle with dementia and I am so thankful we were able to make the trip up to Boise for her funeral. Just a couple days later Travis was offered a position in Cedar City Ut- still with Rocky Mountain Power.

He accepted and a whirlwind began. We hurriedly packed up our house and headed south. We were so blessed with lots of help from so many friends and family. My parents let us stay at their home in St. George while we sold our rental and our home. It's hard to believe we pulled it all off in just over 3 months! We are forever grateful to everyone who helped us pack, clean, repair, load and unload we couldn't have done it without the help.

We purchased a new home in the country just outside of the city limits in Cedar City. We got moved in and somewhat settled just in time because on July 7 we welcomed baby Hendrix Marcel Rhynsburger into the family! He surprised us by making his grand entrance 9 days early. He has been the sweetest most patient baby and the perfect addition to our - not so little- family. His siblings adore him and Axel has lovingly nicknamed him "teeny baby".

Ethan is now in 3rd grade! He has loved the new adventure of moving and making new friends. He tried playing flag football this year and learned he's not quite the athlete but he went out and tried! He loves his computer coding club at school and wants to be a video game developer. He's doing really well at school and loves to read and learn!

Chloë is just a year behind in 2nd grade and is loving it. She's our little academic and hates to miss a day of school, she adjusted quickly to the new school and has made lots of friends. She loves writing stories and reading. She took dance this year and had a ball. She's looking forward to signing up again next year!

Axel is 2 and is our little wild man. He doesn't walk anywhere- he runs! He loves to jump and test his limits... Which occasionally ends in injury but he's a tough little guy! Axel loves being a big brother and helping with Hendrix. He is so sweet always wanting to hug and kiss baby and even sharing toys with him!

I have been keeping busy with all the kids and their activities as well as making our new house a home. I always enjoy learning new crafts and making fun hats and things for the kids. Travis is enjoying his new position at work and living only 5 minutes away- and we defintly love seeing him more! Of course he now has lots of projects at home and is working on finishing the basement and fencing in the backyard.

We are looking forward to exploring our new area and hopefully settling down for a bit!

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

Love,
The Rhynsburger's--
Alexie, Travis, Ethan, Chloë, Axel,  Hendrix

2013 Christmas Letter

2013 has been a year of joy and happiness!

…And to get right to the exciting part of our year… we welcomed our new addition to the family- Axel Julien was born on March 23! He has been such a fun baby and has fit easily into the family. Ethan and Chloë love having a baby brother and love on him constantly. Ethan cannot wait until he is big enough to really play with him and Chloë is content just to sit with him on the floor with books and baby toys, she is the nurturer and hugs him approximately 100 times each day!

In May Ethan graduated from kindergarten. It was so fun to see his program at school and hear all their songs they worked so hard on. Ethan is doing well in first grade, although it has been an adjustment being at school all day and having a lot more expected from him. He is meeting his goals and acing all his spelling tests. Plus now he reads all on his own and will be starting chapter books very soon! We are so proud of him.

Chloë started kindergarten this fall and is having the time of her life. She gets upset when there is no school or if she is too sick to go. She is learning so much and has started reading books on her own. They are doing a sign language program with the ABCs and it has been really fun learning along with her. She will try to read almost anything she sees, she is definitely our little book worm!

Axel is 9 months old and crawling all over the place. He loves to be with people and is very social with the people he knows well but he is definitely in the “stranger danger” phase. He has the sweetest little voice and jabbers all the time- “dada” being his favorite word. Axel’s huge grin is contagious- he can make everything better with his smiles and giggles! We are enjoying watching him grow and seeing who he will become.

Travis took the leap out of the call center this year and got a new job (with rocky mountain power) working in a warehouse. It is a much better fit for him and he loves it so far. As a bonus he gets off work at 4 now so we see him a lot more during the week! And as usual he always has a project going in the garage, because what good is it to finally have one unless you put it to good use.

I’ve been up to my same old stuff, taking care of the kids at home and of course I always have a craft going. This year I have been doing a lot of crocheting and Axel gets a new hat for each month older he is. It’s been fun learning to make new stuff; Pinterest and HGTV always give me new ideas! My mom and I also learned to make fudge and divinity this year, and I must say we are pretty good at it- Yum!

 

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 Love,

The Rhynsburgers

                   

 Alexie, Travis, Ethan, Chloë, Axel

 

4, 5, 6 months and a 7 year old!

Its been quite a while since my last blog post, Axel was only 3 months the last time I wrote anything. Now he is coming up on 7 months! Hard to believe my little one is getting so big. Ethan is also growing up so fast, he turned 7 last month! We had a fun dinosaur party with the family in our back yard. Now we are coming up on Travis' birthday then Chloe's! Before we know it little Axel will be turning 1. As always I hope to keep up with the blog more but its hard to say with our busy lives! But for now here are some pictures of my cute munchkins!

 

 

 Pumpkin patch at Wheeler farm

 

3 months

    Its hard to believe that Mr. Axel has been here for 3 months already! He is growing way to fast. He is already 12 pounds and 24 inches long. He is such a happy baby, only crying when he is hungry or tired... or sometimes when he just wants his mama. Ethan and Chloë are really good older siblings always wanting to sit and "spend time with Axel" although Ethan keeps thinking that Axel should be ready to play with him and he isn't quite there yet! Chloë is like his second mom, always making sure he has his binki, blanket, socks, or anything else he might need. They both insist on saying good morning and good night to him every day. I love seeing all 3 of my kiddos together and Axel just smiling away at his brother and sister.

 

 

 

Axel has changed so much!

Axel at 2 months

 Axel at 3 months

 

Ethan feeding the ducks June 2013

Chloë at the Stansbury car show June 2013

right after his bath

I can't even count how many picture I have of Chloë kissing on her little brother, she absolutely adores him!

Ethan and Axel having a picnic in the front yard

All swaddled up just like baby brother!

A tour of the nursery

It took a lot of work and a whole lot of sewing but I love how Axel's room turned out! I made his quilts, pillow cases, changing table pad and all the wall art (except for the tree is vinyl), the lampshade and his name sign. I also painted the dressers and toy box. Travis helped me with the felt board on the wall. It goes from wall to wall and I hope he will like playing with it when he is big enough! It was so much fun shopping for all the right stuff for his room, the chair was the hardest to find but with my mom helping me got babies r us to sell us their floor model and got a really good deal on it too!  

 

 

 

Axel Julien

 

Only 6 weeks late but I am finally getting around to introduce AXEL JULIEN on our blog. Things have settled down and we have gotten into somewhat of a new routine. Travis was home for 18 days when Axel was born, it was so nice to have the help and important that they got some good bonding time in too! Ethan and Chloe are completely in love with their little brother, there hasn't even been any jealousy. The only problem is that they try to help a little too much! I love seeing them love on their little brother.

Axel was born Saturday March 23, 2013 at 5:01 PM he was 7 pounds 10 ounces and 19 inches long. At his 2 week appointment he was already up to 8 pound 12 ounces! He is definitely a good little eater! We just can't get enough of this little guy!

 

 

 

less than 24 hours old!

Easter Sunday- 8 days old

Baby #3

Our baby journey so far... We found out on July 24 that we were expecting baby #3! We were so excited and it was really hard to keep the secret from Ethan and Chloe and the rest of the family. Finally at just over 8 weeks pregnant we announced at my sister's birthday on August 19, 2012. We shocked everyone with the cake that said "baby #3 coming this spring" a week later we went to our first appointment and got a look at our little jelly bean. (9 weeks and 3 days pregnant)

By November we could hardly wait to find out what we were having. Chloe and I said girl; Ethan and Travis said boy. Turned out the boys were right! We were all ecstatic about the news, we went right to lunch with our families to tell them!

We are in the homestretch now, only 3 weeks until our due date of March 29, although we are hoping he will decide to make an earlier appearance. We cannot wait to meet our little man!

 

Snow Play

I may not be enjoying all this cold and snow but Chloë sure loves it! She even talked her dad into a snowball fight!

 

 

 

Christmas Fun

Christmas was so much fun this year. We celebrated and celebrated some more! We decided to spread Christmas out a bit so the kids would have time to play with all their new toys and not be too overwhelmed.

The night before Christmas Eve we all opened our new PJs! Then we woke up on Christmas Eve morning and opened our stockings and gifts. The kids had a blast playing with their new toys all day long. 

Then on Christmas Day we got all dressed up and headed to the Farnsworth's! We had so much fun opening presents, eating yummy food and spending time with the family!

 

While we were at the Farnworth's Wendell and Carole came over to do some more celebrating with. We of course opened more presents... and ate more food! So fun to have everyone together!

 

 

 

It was such a fun Christmas season! Thanks to all of our family for making it so special...a and spoiling us all rotten!

 

 

 

 

My New Years resolution is to be better at blogging so check back often!

 

Christmas Letter 2012

 

2012 has been year of many changes…

It started out with packing, painting and fixing- the old house that is.  In September 2011 we decided to build a house in Stansbury Park UT. The process was slow at first but they broke ground February 1 and we moved in the last week of April. It was an emotionally and physically exhausting journey but we are so happy to finally be settling in.

July brought us the most exciting news of the year… we are expecting baby #3! In November we found out that our peanut is a little BOY! We are all so excited about the addition to our family! He is due to arrive around March 29, 2013!

Travis worked the first part of the year on getting the old house ready to rent, finishing up projects and making sure everything was in working order. Then over the summer he had another big job of putting in a fence, sprinkler system and yard at the new house. It took lot of hard work and a lot of help from anyone willing! (Mostly Travis' dad)  Not to mention all of the honey do lists that came along with moving into and decorating a new house plus his full time job at the power company.  He really is a trooper!

Ethan graduated from preschool this year! After 3 years there he finally got to head to kindergarten. He could not have been more excited about it! Ethan has a great teacher and is learning a lot this year. He excels in math, doing addition and subtraction all in his head. Ethan turned 6 this September and with that came losing teeth! The count is up to 3 just since August. Hard to believe how fast time flies! Ethan is still our little scientist and animal lover, he can’t wait to teach his baby brother everything he knows!

Little Miss Chloë is 5 now! She is in her second year of preschool and starting to read! She goes to preschool at the elementary Ethan is at, they are right across the hall from each other and occasionally get to play on the playground together. Chloë is our little independent woman, wanting to do everything by herself and be “big”. She loves to take care of anyone who isn’t feeling well and can’t wait to be a big sister. She says she is going to change “stinky diapers”, read him stories, and snuggle him! We’re sure she will change her mind quickly about those diapers though.

I have been keeping busy by helping in Ethan’s class this year, it’s so fun to meet all his friends and see what his day is like! I also have done many projects for the house, painting furniture, making quilts and organizing everything! Decorating the nursery has been the focus lately and it’s all coming together just how we envisioned with a vinyl tree, whole wall felt board and handmade quilts and curtains!

With all the craziness at home we didn’t get to take many trips this year. However we did make time to drive 9 hours up to Montana to spend a long weekend with Travis’s sister and her family, plus meet their beautiful new baby girl. There was also the annual trip up to Bridal Veil Falls in Provo and many outings to the Hogle Zoo plus a trip up to Jordanelle in Park City to jet ski. Then there was swimming in Papa Mark and Nana Julie's pool which is always a favorite on hot summer days.

 
   We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and very happy 
                                             2013!
                                      
                 Love ,
                   The Rhynsburgers-
                        Alexie, Travis, Ethan, Chloë