(note: Just noted that the pic is 1 yr after the newsletter... enjoy anyway - even though they don't "go" together!)
Greetings from the Huff Family!
It has been quite a year at our house… new baby, new house, new job (for Angela) and friends moving in to live with us! For certain, 2004 will be a year to remember!
As most of you probably know, baby Benjamin Stephen arrived three weeks early in February. Saying that Mom and Dad didn’t quite have things ready would be an understatement – no bed, no clothes – even the car seat was in Vincennes when we realized that the baby was coming. With lots of help from family and friends we finally got things together – the baby room was cleared out, painted and organized for baby Ben and we had just started getting the rest of the house back in order when…
April came along and Kathy Willer called me to tell me about a house for sale east of Greencastle. I told her the same thing that Jason did when she mentioned it to him days earlier – that we weren’t in the market for a house. As it turned out, Jason and I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to look at the place and the morning after we did, we made an offer. Impulse shopping at its greatest! We actually had to call my dad to come up and look at the place early on the morning that we made the offer to make sure that we weren’t buying the house from ‘The Money Pit!’
Boy packing and unpacking with a baby presents a whole new set of challenges. Jason and I have both moved a lot over the last 10 years and I have it down to a science. Everything wrapped, boxed and labeled well in advance of the move and unpacked and put away or hung within days of the actual move. Well not this time! When our moving crew arrived I was still throwing things into boxes – and unpacking… well I’m still working on that! We had so much work to do in the house as well – we pulled up carpet, scraped off wallpaper, painted, and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned! Fortunately we had great friends and family supporting us in these activities as well – and literally several members of my family came and stayed for days amidst the mess to make this all happen quickly before I had to go back to work in June…
I changed jobs within Lilly. Not a big deal to do this at Lilly but I’d been at the previous job for 7 years – so a lot of stuff to wrap up and hand off. I did get the new job lined out before I started back at work and set up the expectation that I’d be working from home 2 days a week. It’s been hectic – getting to work earlier than usual so that I can leave much earlier than I used to (no more 60+ hour weeks for me!), being on the road 2 hours a day when I drive in, and getting home in time to pick Ben up from the babysitter’s…
Though speaking of babysitters, we’ve been so blessed. We spent the summer with Kayla, a neighbor and friend from church, watching Ben at our house 3 or 4 days a week. My mom and dad come up at least once a week (versus the 2 times total that they came to my house in 2003) to spend the day taking care of Ben and Jason ‘s parents come regularly when they are in Indiana. After Kayla went back to school, another neighbor and friend from church, Hope, started watching Ben. She adores Ben and he loves her and her three kids. We couldn’t have asked for a better situation!
Backtracking to July – some friends of ours, Brad and Heather, bought the land next to us to build a house. They sold their house very quickly and due to constraints with Brad’s job, were limited on options for living while the house was built. They moved in with us during Putnam County fair week and will be continuing to live with us for at least a few more months while their house is constructed.
In August we started hosting a Home Fellowship Group in our home on Sunday nights. Now if you know my domestic skills (or lack thereof) – this is particularly interesting. I am not a great house cleaner or cook. While we do have pitch-ins to support the group of at least 12 adults and 4 kids under the age of 2, I am regularly cooking, baking and cleaning the house to make it presentable for this weekly activity. We love our HFG and love having our friends in our home so it is well worth it – but what a total change in habits for me!
Ben’s first Halloween and first Thanksgiving were great joys. We had a Harvest Party at church for Halloween (see pictures at: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/babybenhuff/my_photos) and had friends and family at our house for our Thanksgiving celebration.
As the year comes to an end, we are getting into the routine of being parents, working full time and managing to keep on top of this house (2 ½ baths to clean – yikes!). We are loving every minute with Ben – he grows and changes daily! He’s jabbering – ‘dadadad’ all the time, ‘MOM!’ when he’s mad (among others), getting his first tooth, and is probably weeks if not days from walking. He started really pulling up on things during the week of Thanksgiving and has fallen countless times in his attempts to let go and walk since then. Oh and this week he started climbing STAIRS – yeah! He does have a bit of a temper, but also so much personality – he’s just a joy! It’s funny – this time last year I just never anticipated how life would change so much with a child – nor did I imagine how wonderful the whole experience would be! We’d love for you to experience Ben as he grows as well – so we setup the Yahoo! Photo album mentioned above and will post pictures there regularly for you to enjoy.
Well, I hope your experiences have been as amazing as ours this year and that the coming month, as we all celebrate the birth of Christ and a ring in a new year, will be joy-filled for you and your family. For everyone that we don’t see often enough – we keep you in our thoughts and hope that the coming year will bring us more opportunities to share our lives with one another. We’d love to hear from you – stop by, write, call or email us at (email) anytime!
With Our Love,
Jason, Angela and Ben
P.S. Better late than never? Just about the time the baby announcements came we were in the process of moving – so most of you don’t have one yet. I couldn’t let them go unsent forever, so I’ve enclosed an announcement for you. Also, some of you didn’t get thank you’s for baby gifts yet – please know that they didn’t go unappreciated – just didn’t get the spare moments to get them all out. I’ve enclosed some thank you notes for those previously missed as well.
It has been quite a year at our house… new baby, new house, new job (for Angela) and friends moving in to live with us! For certain, 2004 will be a year to remember!
As most of you probably know, baby Benjamin Stephen arrived three weeks early in February. Saying that Mom and Dad didn’t quite have things ready would be an understatement – no bed, no clothes – even the car seat was in Vincennes when we realized that the baby was coming. With lots of help from family and friends we finally got things together – the baby room was cleared out, painted and organized for baby Ben and we had just started getting the rest of the house back in order when…
April came along and Kathy Willer called me to tell me about a house for sale east of Greencastle. I told her the same thing that Jason did when she mentioned it to him days earlier – that we weren’t in the market for a house. As it turned out, Jason and I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to look at the place and the morning after we did, we made an offer. Impulse shopping at its greatest! We actually had to call my dad to come up and look at the place early on the morning that we made the offer to make sure that we weren’t buying the house from ‘The Money Pit!’
Boy packing and unpacking with a baby presents a whole new set of challenges. Jason and I have both moved a lot over the last 10 years and I have it down to a science. Everything wrapped, boxed and labeled well in advance of the move and unpacked and put away or hung within days of the actual move. Well not this time! When our moving crew arrived I was still throwing things into boxes – and unpacking… well I’m still working on that! We had so much work to do in the house as well – we pulled up carpet, scraped off wallpaper, painted, and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned! Fortunately we had great friends and family supporting us in these activities as well – and literally several members of my family came and stayed for days amidst the mess to make this all happen quickly before I had to go back to work in June…
I changed jobs within Lilly. Not a big deal to do this at Lilly but I’d been at the previous job for 7 years – so a lot of stuff to wrap up and hand off. I did get the new job lined out before I started back at work and set up the expectation that I’d be working from home 2 days a week. It’s been hectic – getting to work earlier than usual so that I can leave much earlier than I used to (no more 60+ hour weeks for me!), being on the road 2 hours a day when I drive in, and getting home in time to pick Ben up from the babysitter’s…
Though speaking of babysitters, we’ve been so blessed. We spent the summer with Kayla, a neighbor and friend from church, watching Ben at our house 3 or 4 days a week. My mom and dad come up at least once a week (versus the 2 times total that they came to my house in 2003) to spend the day taking care of Ben and Jason ‘s parents come regularly when they are in Indiana. After Kayla went back to school, another neighbor and friend from church, Hope, started watching Ben. She adores Ben and he loves her and her three kids. We couldn’t have asked for a better situation!
Backtracking to July – some friends of ours, Brad and Heather, bought the land next to us to build a house. They sold their house very quickly and due to constraints with Brad’s job, were limited on options for living while the house was built. They moved in with us during Putnam County fair week and will be continuing to live with us for at least a few more months while their house is constructed.
In August we started hosting a Home Fellowship Group in our home on Sunday nights. Now if you know my domestic skills (or lack thereof) – this is particularly interesting. I am not a great house cleaner or cook. While we do have pitch-ins to support the group of at least 12 adults and 4 kids under the age of 2, I am regularly cooking, baking and cleaning the house to make it presentable for this weekly activity. We love our HFG and love having our friends in our home so it is well worth it – but what a total change in habits for me!
Ben’s first Halloween and first Thanksgiving were great joys. We had a Harvest Party at church for Halloween (see pictures at: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/babybenhuff/my_photos) and had friends and family at our house for our Thanksgiving celebration.
As the year comes to an end, we are getting into the routine of being parents, working full time and managing to keep on top of this house (2 ½ baths to clean – yikes!). We are loving every minute with Ben – he grows and changes daily! He’s jabbering – ‘dadadad’ all the time, ‘MOM!’ when he’s mad (among others), getting his first tooth, and is probably weeks if not days from walking. He started really pulling up on things during the week of Thanksgiving and has fallen countless times in his attempts to let go and walk since then. Oh and this week he started climbing STAIRS – yeah! He does have a bit of a temper, but also so much personality – he’s just a joy! It’s funny – this time last year I just never anticipated how life would change so much with a child – nor did I imagine how wonderful the whole experience would be! We’d love for you to experience Ben as he grows as well – so we setup the Yahoo! Photo album mentioned above and will post pictures there regularly for you to enjoy.
Well, I hope your experiences have been as amazing as ours this year and that the coming month, as we all celebrate the birth of Christ and a ring in a new year, will be joy-filled for you and your family. For everyone that we don’t see often enough – we keep you in our thoughts and hope that the coming year will bring us more opportunities to share our lives with one another. We’d love to hear from you – stop by, write, call or email us at (email) anytime!
With Our Love,
Jason, Angela and Ben
P.S. Better late than never? Just about the time the baby announcements came we were in the process of moving – so most of you don’t have one yet. I couldn’t let them go unsent forever, so I’ve enclosed an announcement for you. Also, some of you didn’t get thank you’s for baby gifts yet – please know that they didn’t go unappreciated – just didn’t get the spare moments to get them all out. I’ve enclosed some thank you notes for those previously missed as well.
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