Dear Friends and Family,

It is with much happiness that we wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Most of you already know the reason for our happiness … the newest, smallest and, yes, cutest member of our family. On May 16th , we welcomed our son, Samuel Sebastian Cavender into the world. We had the great privilege and joy to be present for Sam's birth. We spent the next eleven hours just holding him and staring at him. Here's a picture of mama doing just that. And little Sam peeking out of the blanket is only a few minutes old!

And here he is all ready to go home the next day.

Those first days at home went by blissfully. Patrick took a long paternity leave and we all took lots of naps.

When Sam was three weeks old, Gram and Grandpa Cavender came to visit. Needless to say, they fell in love with their sweet grandbaby.

Patrick went back to his job at EA where he continues to enjoy working on the SIMS. And I have my dream job of staying home and being Sam's mom. It's messy work and my boss can be very moody and demanding - but I love it ! Here are some scenes from a typical day...

The summer went by quickly watching Sam grow and change. Sam loves to play with his toys, watch the fishies while papa gets ready for work, and go for walks with mama.

Some videos of Sam in action:

Here we are enjoying breakfast out with friends.

Quite a difference since last year!

We think Charlie has grown a bit too, believe it or not! He and Sam are great friends and Charlie is very protective of his baby.

In September, we did our annual Bridge to Bridge Run for Special Olympics, except this year, it was a walk with Sam. Here we are at the finish line! Go Sam Go!!

In October, Sam got to meet his Auntie Bird when Heidi came for a visit. She and Ryan are Sam's godparents so we took the opportunity to have him baptized while she was in town. The ceremony was held at Glide church in San Francisco and we felt very blessed to share the day with Heidi, as well as so many of our good friends.

Later that month, we celebrated Halloween by carving pumpkins and getting all dressed up for a party at EA.

Check out our jack-o-lanterns.
	Here's little hippie Sam with his Pirate Papa. Yo ho!

We spent Thanksgiving day hiking at Tomales Point in Marin County .

Sam got all bundled up for a day on the trail.	Here he is getting a ride from Papa.

Here are just a few of the Elk we saw.

It was a clear and beautiful day and we had a wonderful time. That weekend, we also did Run Wild in Golden Gate Park, a 10K run we do every year which benefits the California Academy of Sciences. (We walked this one too!)

We've been having an amazing time getting ready for Sam's first Christmas. We went to the tree lighting ceremony in Downtown Mountain View, visited Santa at the EA kids Christmas party and shook our groove things at the EA Holiday Party (Sam's groove thing was shaking too!) Here's Sam letting the big guy know what he's hoping to find under the tree.

We're so looking forward to seeing Sam's face fill with laughter and joy on Christmas morning!

Thanks for bearing with the proud new parents as our Christmas card this year seems to exclusively focus on Sam. Everyone told us the time would fly by – it really has! We've had an amazing year and we continue to grow more in love every day with our beautiful little boy.

We love you all and wish you wonder and joy in the new year!

Peace,

Michelle, Patrick, Sam and Charlie