Roth Family Christmas Card & Letter 2020

We sent out our Christmas cards only digitally this year to save on money, but wanted to share here too. If you're reading this, we love you and wish all the best. Here is our Christmas card and letter for 2020:

What a year this has been, right?? All around us there has been political strife, social unrest, economic hardship, and of course the global pandemic. That’s enough to make anyone’s year a challenging one.

For us personally, even with all of that aside this was one of our hardest years to date. Among other challenges, some of the harder things that we’ve been open about include a suicide attempt followed by hospitalization and another year of no successful pregnancy, including miscarriage and failed IUI cycles.

But there is good too! Josh got a new mental health diagnosis (Borderline Personality Disorder) along with new doctors, therapies, medications, and even a few workplace accommodations. As always it’s a long road, but we’ve seen a lot of good there too. And with my secondary infertility, we have decided to move on to IVF - a very big deal! Granted, it felt like a big deal to start any fertility treatments, but going from IUI to IVF there is a lot more to it. It’s not cheap and it sucks to anticipate that when we’ve been working to save for a bigger car and a house, but it’s also much more likely to result in a pregnancy so we’re hopeful. We are also so grateful to continue to have steady incomes this past year, even if there were some hits to our income. We’ve been able to provide for our needs, and we are so grateful for that.

Josh has gotten more crafty this year - he’s been making trinkets for his Dungeons and Dragons group in his spare time that involves woodworking, woodburning, using epoxy resin, and other exciting stuff. He also still streams on Twitch pretty regularly and loves unwinding by playing games with his friends and family. He is still working at Visa, and has had a mix of working from home and working at the office.

This year Ashley became a moderator for a chapter of the organization ‘Mormon Women for Ethical Government’ - a non-partisan group for Latter-day Saint women that focuses on advocacy, peacemaking, media literacy, and ethical government. Ashley has been very active in a lot of political scenes as well as loving her church calling in coordinating service and meals for others who are in need. She also still works from home as a virtual assistant, doing a bunch of computer and social media stuff.

The twins haven’t stopped growing up, despite our pleas. They have a lot of shared interests, including stickers, video games, riding their balance bikes or scooters outside, and playing pretend together.

Lauren has been conditioned since birth to like the color pink, and she has embraced that in full force. She loves everything pink, as well as all things unicorn. She loves imaginative play, is more or less content to do her own thing, loves to sing to herself, is obsessed with taking pictures, and wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s a total Daddy’s girl and reminds me of that regularly. ;)

Jacob loves anything rainbow. He has laser-sharp focus on whatever interests him, often not noticing anything else when he’s doing something he loves. He has big emotions that we are still learning how to manage, is growing more determined at trying things he’s afraid of, and prefers to play with others over doing anything alone. He is super attached to Mama, and I’m soaking it up.

We’ve felt so much love and support in our lives this year. We are especially grateful for the love and comfort we find in Christ. We love you all dearly, and wish you the best holiday available to you. ♥