Happy New Year from the Hendersons!

It has been a great year for us.  The year was dominated by one major event...the birth of our son Wyatt.  Shawna worked through 9 months of pregnancy and 22 hours of labor to surprise us with a baby boy.  His name is Wyatt and we've become very attached to him.  His birth was a miraculous and triumphant entry into the world.  If you've never seen the miracle of birth first-hand, it looked something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwSKkKrUzUk#t=2m06.  Incidentally, that is one of his favorite songs (but he still cries when his mom sings it to him).

Wyatt's first concert - The Avett Brothers!

Over the past 8 months, Wyatt has experienced many firsts in his life.  In fact, pretty much everything he does is a first.  Among them are live music, swimming, hiking, paddle boating, disc golf, dressing like a Lego man, crawling, tasting anything and everything he can get his mouth around, and assisted standing and walking.  He is a wild little man and we can see that we are going to have our hands full for the next 18 years or so.  Some of his favorite things to do are sing songs with mom and dad, jump up and down, and pull adults' hair from the roots while riding on their shoulders.

Shawna has made a graceful transition from managing 20+ wild children in the classroom to managing one wild child in our home.  After nine years of teaching, she was ready to become a stay at home mom for the foreseeable future.  She and Wyatt go to weekly library classes, where there are stories, songs, bubbles, toys, and a big parachute.  They attend a post-natal yoga class, where Wyatt has awed the instructor with his downward dog pose.  And throughout all this, Shawna has managed to keep up with her photography skills and had several photographs exhibited in a local art show, though the subject of her photographs has recently shifted from nature-centric to baby-centric.  Shawna has also learned how to make 80% of items we used to buy from a store, including cleaning supplies, diapers, baby wipes, Halloween costumes, baby carriers, etc.  If Shawna keeps up at this rate, we will probably be living off the grid in a remote log cabin soon.

Wyatt's first swim (and dunk!)

As for myself, it has been an excellent year.  The whole family is happy that I've finished my Software Engineering Master's degree and have more free time at home.  I even found time to try my hand at homebrewing, though I'm hoping the second batch goes better that the first.  Getting to know Wyatt has provided for the most fun and busy 8 months of my life.  Though since he was born, I quickly found that I am no longer man of the house.  Seriously though, Shawna is an amazing wife and I don't know how she cares for myself and Wyatt at the same time.  I was worried that Wyatt would not bond with me as quickly as his mom, due to my lack of mammary glands, but that was not the case.  He quickly showed that he knew when he was with daddy, as he always makes an extra effort to pee or defecate while I'm changing him, and he even managed to spit up on my face when I kissed him once.  He makes fonder gestures towards his mom, like crying when she leaves the room, but there are still times that he wants daddy to hold him.

Brotherly fun in the bath

The next biggest event for us this year has been the flooding of our house on the night before Halloween.  Due to some shoddy craftsmanship, water was able to flow unhindered into our house (animals too, as we think that this is how a snake got into our house several months ago, ask Shawna for the details of that encounter).  It was a frightening and surreal experience to have 2 inches of standing water in the house and little hope of insurance covering it, but we have pulled through and our house is back in good working order again.  Fortunately, Wyatt was unfazed by this incident.  It didn't bother Bozeman much either, but Casy was rather unnerved when we took her with us to our friends' house for the night.  She stayed in her crate all night, but the next morning, she was covered in cat litter and made a mess of the car on the way home.

Bozeman and Casy have handled the introduction of a new sibling like champs.  They quickly took to Wyatt and consider themselves to be his protectors, always wanting to know where he is and what he is doing.  Casy has managed to avoid most of Wyatt's attempted tail pulls.  Bozeman takes any time when Wyatt gets too close as an opportunity to lick his face with reckless abandon.  Wyatt doesn't seem to mind Bozeman's germs though, as he will gladly put Bozeman's toys in his mouth, and Bozeman does the same with Wyatt's toys.  Over all, nobody can deny that it has been a great year, and we look forward to what 2014 has to offer.  Happy New Year to all our friends and family!

Love,
Marty, Shawna, Wyatt, Bozeman, and Casy