Merry Christmas!

Friends and Family,

We hope your year has been great. Ours has certainly been the most exciting and busiest one we have had yet. Here are the top moments of our year:

·      We continued to work on our house and even got adventurous and started a garden (with mixed success).

·      We toured the great state of Utah via family reunions – St. George with the Wrights and Park City with the Davis’.

·      Trevor finished his first year teaching L.D.S. seminary at Hunter High School and still loves it.

·      Trevor started a Master’s Program in Religious Education at BYU.

·      Melissa finished the first year of her PhD in Neuroscience up at the U of U.

·      Trevor finally completed his documentary about Cambodia (check it out at www.riverofvictory.com).

·      Thompson Henry Wright came into our lives on October 4, 2010. He was born a whole month early and a little guy at only 4 lbs 13 oz and 18 inches long.

·      After three hospital stays in the first six weeks of his life, we finally have a chubby, healthy boy.

Although this year has been full of ups and downs, we have been truly blessed and absolutely love being parents. We hope you have a great holiday season!

Love,

Trevor, Melissa, and Thompson Wright

A beautiful mullet in the making

Business in the front. Party in the back. 

How to get your child to love tummy time.

Thompson hasn't really been into the whole tummy time thing. Usually when I lay him on his stomach he just buries his head into the ground and tries to lick the floor (which I only let him do long enough to get a picture).

I finally tried using his boppy the other day, which helped him last for at least a few minutes before he got bored. Plus he looked pretty cute using it.

Then I tried a variety of toys/books to hold his attention for longer until I found his favorite. 

Maybe he just wants to get into the Christmas Spirit. Or maybe he appreciates a good classic children's book when he sees one. Or it might have something to do with the high contrast illustrations. It's hard to say. But whatever it is, it's working. 

Playtime

Thompson is 10 weeks old today and starting to enjoy more than just sleeping all the time. He is learning a lot of fun new tricks and becoming more and more interactive each day.

Here is how his playtime usually goes...

He first stares up at us with his big eyes until we succumb to his charm.  

Then he is so cute that both mom and dad have to play with him.

And he gets so excited he starts talking and smiling at us.


And then he starts to get tired.

And tiredness turns to grumpiness. But even his frown is cute.

We love all ten pounds of our chubby cheek little man.

Second Place Forever...

I've always heard/known that children have a special affinity for their mothers. I mean as hard as we dad's try, it just can't compare with how kids feel about their mom. Although I knew this, the reality of it sunk in yesterday when I got home from work. I took Thompson and he was in one of his happy, awake moods so I just sat and talked to him and tried to get him to smile. He seemed like he was having a grand ole time, but he wouldn't look directly at me. He was always looking above me or the side. I just thought, "Well this must be a developmental issue and he will be looking right at me in no time." My naivety was quickly exposed as Melissa came over to say hi to him. Thompson looked directly into her eyes and smiled! Being the jealous dad, I put my face in between theirs, trying to force him to look right at me. He just turned his head to the side or up or down and no matter how I tried, he wouldn't look directly at me. Then Melissa would take him and he would just stare right into her eyes and smile. I finally had to admit it. Game over. I lose. He already loves his mom more than his dad.

Melissa will likely deny this up and down and sweetly tell me something to try to make me feel better like, "He is just used to me," or "He is just tired right now." Well, I've come to accept the fact that I will always have to settle for second place. But you know what? I'm ok with that. I'm not sad or discouraged at all. Instead, when I try to get my rebellious little son to look me in the eyes, he reminds me how amazing his mom is. In fact, if I were him and I had a choice, I would definitely choose her over me any day.

With a first place as good as Melissa, I'm just glad I'm still in the running.

I hope our child has a sense of humor

I was looking through some old pictures today and I realized that for his sake and ours, our child better have a sense of humor so he can handle his parents.

A few of the things about us that I hope our child will find as funny as we do but will likely just embarrass him:

Trevor has a not so secret love of growing white trash facial hair. If I could change one thing about this picture, it would be that he would be wearing a nascar hat.

We like to take awkward pictures and hope people think we are being serious. 

We believe that things like music stores named after Russian mystics make life amazing.

We have an affinity for giving away random items as party favors. Like this fake chest hair that one of our guests won at our labor day party.  

We got a free trip to Cambodia because Trevor accidentally became a Cambodian rock star.

Thompson's Blessing

Last Sunday we blessed Thompson. It was a wonderful day and Thompson did great through the blessing and his first sacrament meeting. He didn't seem to mind all the attention afterwards either.

The wife of one of Trevor's coworkers made these adorable little shoes for the blessing. I am still amazed at her a.) talent and b.) thoughtfulness and generosity in giving them to us. How do you make such perfect tiny shoes? To quote Trevor's younger brother, they are pretty g.

During the blessing he wore this white blanket that I was blessed in back in the day.

Thompson was perfect during the blessing. He didn't fuss at all and even gave me a big smile when Trevor brought him back. 

Trevor did a really great job as well and gave him a beautiful blessing. I gave him two stipulations for the blessing: 1.) don't drop our baby and 2.) say the right name. Both concerns were completely unfounded, but I had to tell him anyway.

We were lucky to find a time when most of our family could come to the blessing. Thompson is lucky to have so many people in his life to love and support him.

 
He is also lucky to have his great grandparents still alive. We were planning on all 4 sets of great grandparents to be there, but it snowed like crazy and my Grandpa and Grandma Cannon were not able to drive up from Provo.

Here he is with his Great Grandpa Emery. 

We feel so grateful to have been able to bless our little boy and for the priesthood that allowed us to do it. We love our little family.