After the busy holiday season, it’s time to sit down and reflect on 2020. I know 2020 was full of challenging circumstances and heartbreak for so many of our friends and family. We pray that this Christmas, no matter what 2020 brought, you were blessed by the wonder of the Child born to bear the sins of all the world. We, as a family, have so much to be thankful for. Even though Covid brought some separation and challenges for us, overall, we have remained healthy and employed, and for that we praise God. Here is a little rundown with a few details about what everyone is up to or into these days.

Datiya, 21, graduated from Texas State in December 2020 summa cum laude with a degree in Recreation Therapy. She passed her exam and is now a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS). Datiya completed her internship at a psychiatric hospital in Dallas, and she has been offered a full-time position to continue working there. Datiya is excited to get her own apartment and begin life after college.

David is 20 and thriving as the loudest, proudest member of the Texas A&M Aggies. He is a junior majoring in computer engineering. We enjoyed having David home for most of the spring and all summer. He was an intern at Intel again this summer, and worked at a desk in our home right next to Todd (like 1 foot apart) all summer, which they both enjoyed. Todd roped David into joining his workouts a couple of times per week. David just ordered his Aggie ring, which is a big deal for any Aggie. He has also secured an internship for this summer working for a bank.

Nina just turned 19, and she is a hard-working Texas Tech Red Raider! Nina is technically a sophomore, but she is on track to graduate early, majoring in Kinesiology with a minor in Spanish. Nina is still trying to decide what she wants to do in the future, but she is planning to either go to medical school, or possibly graduate school to become a PA (physician’s assistant). Nina has been very busy during her break working and shadowing a doctor and a PA in Dripping Springs. She worked really hard Fall semester to earn a 4.0 GPA.

Haddie just had her 18th birthday. She was so excited! Haddie is still making progress learning how to use her AAC device to communicate verbally. She was able to tell me what she wanted for birthday breakfast (pancakes), birthday dinner (enchiladas and corn casserole), and what gifts she wanted (a dress and pants). It is really huge for her to be able to communicate that! Haddie continues to live up to her nickname, “Happy Haddie,” as she is always smiling and laughing. She enjoys speech and occupational therapy and learning at home with mom. Haddie is great with kids, and Tovi adores her. She can often be found outside on the porch swing watching the boys play soccer or jumping on the trampoline with Tovi or Eden. Haddie loves to color and draw, and bestows her works of art upon everyone around her with great regularity.

Eden ia 17 and still our chatty girl. She loves to be in the middle of the action, and has many questions about everything that is going on around her. Eden is steadily making progress through math and still learning to read. She can read easy readers with a little help now, and is learning to read and follow recipes. She and Haddie make a great team and are both very hepful around the house, Eden always works hard in school and she loves doing her speech and occupational therapy via an online platform. Her new favorite game is Sorry, and she can often be found racing around the board with Tovi and Haddie playing ‘the game of sweet revenge” as Tovi likes to call it.

Enoch is 17 years old, and a junior in high school. He is playing soccer on a select team and doing well with that. Enoch began taking some classes at Austin Community College this fall and aced his two classes there. He is taking a combination of classes at One Day Academy, home, and through a weekly academic and discipleship group called School of Champions. Enoch will compete in Lincoln Douglas debate as well as a couple of speech categories. At this point the speech and debate tournaments will be online. Enoch works at TCBY and has gotten some experience working with our family’s mechanic.

Lillah is 15, and so ready to turn 16 in April so she can get her driver’s license. For now, she is sticking to terrorizing her parents as she learns the ropes of driving with her learner’s permit. Hopefully, we will all survive, and by April she will be an expert driver. Lillah is in 10th grade, getting perfect scores in Chemistry at One Day Academy as well as taking a combination of other classes through ODA, home, and School of Champions. She was thrilled to be assistant construction manager, architect and worker building a beautiful barn where her horses can stay in luxury and health. These days, if she isn’t reading in her chosen spot at the kitchen bar, she can be found hanging out with her horses in their snazzy new barn (check out the pictures at the end of this post).

Daniel is 13 and in the 5th grade at Sycamore Springs Elementary School. He is doing remote learning this year so far, and it has proven to be a huge blessing for us. I don’t know what it is–maybe being around more during the day, or maybe the fact that I’m more involved in his schooling and I’m involved in rewarding him directly, but the remote learning seems to have opened a new door for Daniel in bonding with us as a family, and especailly with me as his mom. He is a whiz on his new AAC device (as of last spring), and often puts words together to form interesting and unique thoughts that show us what he is thinking! Daniel is funny and loves getting laughs out of people. He is very social, and enjoys waving at all his friends on the class Zoom calls. He will now use his device to say, “Mom, I love you,” which makes me want to cry. We’ve come a long way in 4 1/2 years.

Simeon is 13th and in the 8th grade. He can usually be found playing soccer outside with his brothers (our youngest 4 boys make up what I like to call the “boy sQUAD”) or riding the ATV or new dirt bike the boys got for Christmas this year. Simeon continues to be very acrobatic, and has fine-tuned his back-flipping abilities. This guy is also an excellent student, very diligent to complete his work and do his best. He is doing some school at home and some through School of Champions, which he loves. Simeon is competing in Team Policy debate and speech this year, and we are trying to figure out the new online competition forum. Simeon also loves to pray, so he and Todd go on runs together every week during which they spend a lot of time praying for friends and family. We are encouraged to see him reading his Bible every day, and often I’ve seen him leading his younger brothers in a little Bible study before bed (all his idea). He is finally outgrowing mom as of the writing of this letter.

Jedidiah (Jed) turned 11 in September. He is our resident cat lover, so he wanted his picture to have one of our kittens in it. Jed and Simeon have gotten into hunting the last couple of years, and they both got two decent sized bucks this deer season. They will enthusiastically eat anything I make with the venison they bring home for us. Jed continues to be a witty, energetic kid, often making us laugh with his comments or stories. Jed loves playing soccer with his brothers and looks up to Simeon, aka his best buddy, a lot. Jed is in 5th grade, and I’m very glad we homeschool him so he can be kept interested with lots of hands on projects. He enjoyed learning about the 50 states and capitals and he created some interesting videos about some presidents for our presidents and elections unit. Although he was disappointed that he couldn’t play baseball as planned last spring, he knows he is very blessed to have so many brothers to play sports with at home.

Excuse me while I just…can’t with this photo of our (not-so) little Hezekiah (Hezi) who just turned 9 in November! Look at him! OK, but he’s more than just the precious blond curls and big brown eyes. Hezi is a very sweet, loving boy. He will generously give gifts to everyone on birthdays and Christmas out of his own belongings or if he has the money, he will buy something. It’s the cutest thing. He loves building with Legos, playing soccer and football with his built-in BFFs (his brothers), and learning random facts to share with everyone. Hezi got so into our unit studies on the US and presidents that he would read extra books and watch little videos on YouTube to learn more. Then when we would be talking about something, he would chime in with his amazing knowledge about it all. He recently played a role in our family’s winning of a Zoom Jeopardy game with extended family.

Toviel (Tovi) is 6, and growing up way too fast. He is bright, capable and determined. Tovi is whizzing through 1st grade, easily completing his school work every day, and reading far above grade level. He is athletic, and as the youngest member of the boy sQUAD, holds his own out there on the family soccer/football/baseball field. Tovi is competitive, and still remains very driven and determined to learn and keep up with the older members of the boy sQUAD. He very often wins Ticket to Ride (Jr), Battleship, and Sorry, and he is very good at negotiating with Eden and Haddie to get them to play games with him. Tovi is a delight to everyone in our family, constantly saying adorable, precocious things and charming us all with his winsome smile. It is so dang hard not to spoil him. It doesn’t help that he loves his mama, and will just randomly come up and give the best, sweet hugs and kisses. I am always praying that he will grow up humble, kind, and a man after God’s own heart. I pray similar things for my other boys and the girls, too, of course (women after God’s own heart :)).

Todd and I are doing well. Covid-19 brought fear and hardship for our country, and uncertainty for so many people, and it also brought our children all home for months! Abby was the only member of our family who wasn’t at home for an extended period of time through the spring and summer. Todd and I have really enjoyed the slower pace of life and the extra time with our older children home. Todd has been working from home (still at Intel), and he has used the extra time at home, not having to drive children to and from sports, etc., to tackle large projects around the house and property.

Since we had most of the older children home (aka free labor), Todd decided to pave the circle on our driveway. Pretty much everyone got in on the fun (er, work), even some helpful and useful boyfriends. After trying his hand at pouring concrete for the driveway, Todd decided to build a barn for our animals. Lillah had been dreaming of and drawing designs for a barn for literally years, and she was the architect/designer of the project. She and Todd bonded over every aspect of building the barn, and all hands were on deck from the beginning — building up the ground for the foundation–to the end–roof and painting, and everything in between. This has been a huge project, and Todd led the crew (aka, our family) in every stage from foundation to the roof. We did not hire subcontractors for any aspect of the project. The only outside people were the guys who drive the concrete trucks and poured it out. It turned out beautifully! Todd continues to be the best dad ever, and I just had to include this picture of him playing “Deal or No Deal” with the kids Christmas Eve (an annual family tradition) to come up with the wake up time for Christmas morning (he’s on the phone with the “banker”).

I (Michelle) am still a busy homeschool mom. With 4 children who have graduated from high school, but 9 left at home, I’m still pretty entrenched in the work of homeschooling and raising kind, civilized little humans. Eden and Haddie and are working on their academics at their individual levels as well as life skills. The boy sQUAD and I have been enjoying a States and Capitals unit, along with a unit on the US presidents and elections. This was a superfun year for that, wasn’t it? We have also spent the last few months reading the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series. We are three chapters away from finishing the last book, and then we will have a movie marathon and feast, which we did following our reading of the Hobbit with a weekend movie-marathon of all three movies complete with a themed feast. It was so much fun, Can’t wait for the next feast. Besides the work of school, I have taken advantage of the extra time and new online platforms to complete 3 more Les Mills trainings, so I am now certified to teach Les Mills Body Combat and CXWORX (now called Core) and I am currently working on my certification for Grit and will hopefully pass my assessment within the next month. I am not currently teaching, but I am hoping to start again soon. One highlight for me in 2020 was promoting to Black Belt in Kuk Sool Won in May. This photo is of me with the cake Datiya won for me from a local radio contest for Mother’s Day!

It’s definitely a challenge to keep a letter about all 15 of us short, so if you’ve hung in there till the end, thanks for reading it all! I’m including some more photos from 2020 below. Enjoy!

It has taken me several days to finish writing this letter and compile all of the photos. Over the course of these days, so much has happened in 2021 already. So much craziness, division, and uncertainty seems to be the new reality. We pray that despite this rocky beginning, 2021 brings many blessings to you all, and in the midst of the chaos and discord that is surrounding us in our great nation right now, we pray that we can all see past the differences in views, opinions, and convictions to the hearts of those around us. Let us find hope in the Lord this year and place our trust in Him. I know that no person nor any government will save us, only Jesus, and only the God of the universe, Who holds all things in His hands. Peace to you all in 2021!

Love,
The Erdner Family
Todd, Michelle, Abby, Datiya, David, Nina, Enoch, Lillah, Simeon, Jed, Hezi, Tovi, Eden, Daniel and Haddie

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