Happy Holidays!

Once again December is here and it is time to write our annual family newsletter for the Year! What a busy year it has been with the Twitchell's as we just found out in the end of October that we would be relocating to Tacoma again! We just sold our house last week after it was on the market for eight days and we got five offers! We'll be closing on our house in January of 2010.

Andrew is such a happy go lucky boy who is a magnet for markers! He especially enjoys coloring on the freshly painted walls much to his parents dismay! He turned 2 this year and loves playing any kind of sports! He was really upset that Jaden got to play T-ball and he couldn't go out and play with him on the field. He currently loves playing with cars, trains and reading books!

Jaden had a lot of fun playing ponyball this year! He especially liked getting tickets for a treat after the games. Batting the ball was his favorite part! He also had lots of fun with his cousin Evan at Six Flaggs and the State Fair. Evan got him to go on rides that we never thought he'd go on! He is very good at math and can't wait for baseball to startup again!

Shayla has been a busy girl this year! She was elected to her student council, ran cross country and was on the honor roll. She loves to read, cook, play the piano and has begun to crochet! She also started playing the violin and piano this year. She loves crocheting scarfs for everyone!

Meagan has also had a busy year! She was a WEB and Leadership Representative at her school, and was in CJSF. She also has great grades, a 3.71 GPA. She has also read many books, her current read is Gone With the Wind. She is in a disbelief of how a girl could be sooo vain, it annoys the heck out of Meagan. She has also made great friends and is grateful for them. She enjoys writing and has written several short stories.

Tami has had a busy year filled with teaching piano lessons, teaching social skills through music in Jaden's structured class, carpooling the children to all events, scanning in over 700 pages of genealogy, and enjoying her church calling as the education counselor. She was sad to be released but grateful to have the extra time to prepare her family for moving back to Washington.

Larry enjoyed another year of being employed and being with the family since the travel time has gone down. Big year for football as a Steeler fan!!! Tami got him with a surprise “funeral party” when he hit the big 40 this year.....Yeeeeaaahhhh!!! He sold his old cars to pay for renovations on the rental properties, so someday he will be looking the fill the void. Larry has enjoyed being a ward missionary and working with the missionaries. He did research on his family history this year and found out that one of his direct ancestors, Benjamin Hawkins, was in the Mormon Battalion and discovered gold near Folsom Lake, which is not far from where we live.

Merry Christmas to All!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we went to Kelly and Linda Taylors for a scrumptious feast! Mike and all of his kids except Jack was there along with Patrick, Stacy and all of us Twitchell's. Poor Jack had just gotten out of the hospital recovering from who knows what. Apparently something got his blood sugars out of whack but it isn't diabetes.
Andrew was just a cutie patootie and enjoyed sitting at the table instead of the high chair! It was a great day to be with family !

Happy Halloween

Andrew was a cute doggie for Halloween! He had fun at the trunk or treat espcially eating all the yummy doughnuts and climbing up and down the stairs. The next night he went trick or treating around the neighborhood and fell asleep in the wagon. All that candy collecting was exhausting work!
Meagan was Abbey Sciuto from NCIS. We had fun dying her hair black and dressing her up!
Shayla decided to be a lady in waiting. but she also had magical powers!
Jaden at first wanted to be a police officer and then changed his mind and had to be a ghost. At least I had an old white sheet with holes!

Larry's Over the Hill Party!

Larry Hit the big 40 this year and Tami got him with a surprise over the hill party! We had yummy Ham with Funeral potatoes , salad and rolls! John Taylor was an honorary pallbearer and brought the Cake to the table so we could sing Happy Birthday and bid adieu to Larry's Youth!


Shayla and Jaden had fun helping me decorate the house, while Meagan was on a mission--taking Daddy out on a Daddy /daughter movie date so we could prep the house! Mission Accomplished!

Meagan's Birthday Bash!

For Meagan's Birthday she enjoyed her annual "Better Than Anything" Cake and making Haunted Houses out of gingerbread and candy!

Here's Meagan and her friends making the houses. The girls had lots of creativity with them. Regan even made a cool abstract one. The neat thing because they were supposed to be "haunted houses", the girls had fun making the roofs and sides crooked etc. They even stuffed the houses full of marshmellow ghosts and candy worms etc.

Afterwards they had fun opening presents and just hanging out!

Here's Meagan and Regan!

Here's Kaitlyn and Meagan!

Shayla's Joined Cross Country Team

Shayla joined the cross country team at Rock Creek and competed for the 4th grade girls team. Here are some photos and videos of her events.






Shayla has really enjoyed running and hopes to someday get a medal. She also is busy with being on her School Student council, violin lessons and piano.

Gold Rush Days

Where has the time gone? I have been finding myself so busy between taking care of kids, teaching piano, doing geneology, and working in the RS presidency for our ward. I'm giving up catching up on the past and thought I'd start with our most recent family outing.
Over labor day weekend, we celebrated gold rush days here in Sacramento. The city poured tons of dirt on the streets and everyone dressed up like in the old days.

Here's Shayla and Jaden panning for Gold. They were so excited to receive they're gold certificate, thinking they could buy lots of things in the store until they found out that they could only buy a dollar's worth.
Here's Joanne Taylor, teaching kids how they use to make dolls back in the gold rush times.

A view of the decorated streets.


My cousin John Taylor, the pyromaniac who had fun loading and helping fire the cannon. It was a hot and fun day with the kids!

Twitchell 2008 Family Newsletter

Twitchell Family Newsletter 2008

Wow! I can't believe Christmas is almost here! This year seemed to zoom by! We had a wonderful family trip to Disneyland this year. The first time ever! The Gifford's were there too! After five days we were exhausted yet Jaden kept wanting to go back and go on Star Tours!

Andrew our youngest, is a wonderful delight! He keeps mom so busy!! He's active and loves getting into everything! He loves to golf (which consists of using a plastic bowling pin as a club and hitting the golf ball ) He also loves balls of all kinds! He enjoys kicking the ball, throwing the ball and playing catch! He has such a cute smile and laugh! And of course, he loves chasing and playing with Jaden and Shayla.

Jaden is enjoying going to a new school and is in 1st grade. He is at the top of his class in math. His teacher says he gets done quick and keeps telling the other kids to hurry up so they can correct the problems. He is big into golf! He love Tiger Woods' 09 on the xbox. He also enjoys playing baseball and is excited to play pony ball little league this spring! And like all brothers, he enjoys torturing Andrew.

Shayla is in 3rd grade this year. Her teacher says she's and excellent student and enjoys her in class. Shayla has also been involved with brownie girl scouts, activity days and a Sing and Dance group. She does 2 big performances one tomorrow and another in June! She enjoys reading, cooking and lately is big into weaving potholders,knitting and cross-stitching. She was also baptized this June by her Daddy.

Meagan is enjoying junior high. She's made some new friends and had a fun birthday sleepover party! She still loves reading and has been big into the Twilight series and movie. She loves writing to and posts her work on some of the Twilight fan fiction sites.

Tami is very busy being a mom on the go! With the kids at 3 different schools across town she does lots of carpooling and chauffeuring kids to activities and school. This year with Joanne Taylor, she made around 40 pounds of chocolates this holiday season. She still enjoys scrap booking and card making whenever she gets a chance and is busy teaching Jaden's primary class of 8 boys and 2 girls!

Larry is staying with Chrysler and opted not to take the buy out package. He has performed well and hopes to continue to move up in his career. He loves playing xbox with Jaden and spending time with our family whenever he can. He is also busy as the Ward Missionary assigned to the Elder's Quorum.

We wish each and everyone of our friends and family members a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Larry, Tami, Meagan, Shayla, Jaden and Andrew Twitchell

As of Today, Jan.4 ,2009, Tami received quite the shock as she was called to be the 1st Counselor in the Rocklin 3 ward Relief Society Presidency. Especially since she only was able to go to RS once, because she was called again to Primary when the ward boundaries changed. She's excited to go back to Relief Society once again!

Happy New Year!!

For New Year's Eve, we (The Twitchell's) celebrated with Grandpa Luker and John Taylor and his family. We had a lot of fun!

Evan had a lot of fun with Jaden's new remote control Firetruck! He kept wanting to squirt everyone with the fire hose and kept moving the ladder up, down, and all around!

Kelly brought Prince Caspian for all of us to watch! We really enjoyed it except Shayla and Jaden fell asleep!

During the holidays, we went to Johnny's Incredible Pizza where Shayla injured her fingers bowling. She tried really hard to stay awake but succumbed to sleep.

Jaden didn't make it to New Year's either but fell fast asleep around 9pm. After the movie we had snacks and got ready for silly string fights and celebrating.