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Dear Olivia,
I’m so sorry you couldn’t make it to the wedding, but thank you so much for the wonderful picnic hamper. We have used it three times already, because we’re having such nice weather at the moment!
The wedding went wonderfully, all ran smoothly! It was held in a beautiful country hotel by a lake in the Adirondacks, with about 40 guests in total – we didn’t want a huge wedding. There was a slight panic when the flower girl, my niece Isabella (aged 7), slipped in the grounds of the hotel and badly cut her wrist, but we bandaged it up and everything went fine. Chris wore a black suit and tie, nothing very interesting there (it never is with men!) and I wore a simple white floor-length white dress, empire line and very elegant! I am enclosing a few photos from the day so you can see what we looked like!
The honeymoon was sublime – Venice is such a wonderful city, as you know well! We are now back in our apartment in Manhattan. We’re so incredibly lucky to have it – Chris’s uncle left it to him and it has spectacular views of Central Park. We moved about nine months before the wedding, before that we lived in a small house in White Plains for a year. You have to come and see us sometime, whenever you can next make it over here to the States!
I hope everything is going great and that Robert and Julie are doing well – they must be so grown up by now!
All my love,
Natalia x

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Dear Olivia,
Thank you so much for the beautiful card and flowers you sent. They were much appreciated! Chris and I are the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl, named Felicity Anne. She weighed 7lbs at birth and is extremely healthy, thankfully! She has quite a bit of hair now (she’s three weeks old) which is light brown and very curly. She has also inherited her father’s blue eyes and button nose! We decorated the smaller spare room next to ours for her and Chris’s sister Kayleigh painted a wonderful light purple floral motif on the walls
The pregnancy was not too bad, thank goodness, the labour was… well, you’ve been there! Felicity is actually pretty good at sleeping at night compared to other babies, i.e. me! Chris is helping me out and I have my mother staying with us, which is also a great help!
I have temporarily quit my job at the casting directors’ to take care of Felicity, and Chris is going back to work next week. I hope I won’t go completely out of my mind staying at home all day, but until Felicity’s a bit older I’ll have stay with her. I don’t particularly want to hire a nanny for her when she’s this young and they’re so expensive as well.
Let me know what’s going on with you. And please give Julie a big birthday hug from me – 6 is a very important age!
All my love,
Natalia x

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Dear Olivia,
Sorry I’ve been so out of touch recently, but WOW, a lot has been going on! Life has never been so hectic, and it is looking like it will stay that way! First of all we have a new addition to the family – we have adopted Aikaterine, a two-year-old little girl from Greece. Chris has been spending a lot of time in northern Greece for his company and while he was there about a year ago he came across a very run-down little orphanage, overflowing with children. They have very bad living conditions and desperately need taking care of, so after discussing it with me and going through all of the necessary procedures, we were able to adopt Aikaterine (Kat for short), who is adorable and adjusting very well to life in Manhattan! Felicity loves playing with her and they are the best of friends.
But that’s not all the news! As we were waiting for the final adoption papers to come through allowing us to go and fetch Kat for the orphanage, we discovered that quite out of the blue, I’m pregnant again! We were very happy about this, although it was a bit much to take on at once, but we figured we would then have three kids, what I’d always wanted. Then, a few weeks after we brought Kat home, I went for a scan and was told I was having TRIPLETS! I was in a state of total shock. Five kids???
Anyway, after a rather chaotic pregnancy I gave birth (three weeks early) to three beautiful babies – two boys and a girl. They are called Seth Michael, Dominic William and Hallie Rose and are all doing well. Dominic is the eldest and Seth is the youngest. Seth has had to undergo a rather worrying operation on his lungs, as they were not properly developed when he was born, but now he is fine. They are just over a month old now, Kat is two and a half, and Felicity is nearly four.
Now, with five children, our three-bedroom apartment is really too small, so we are moving to a house in the suburbs outside the city. We are in the process of looking right now.
I’ll call you when I get the chance. Five kids doesn’t leave you with a whole lot of spare time!
All my love,
Natalia X

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Dear Olivia,

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If I thought life would calm down as the kids get older, I was wrong! Here’s the news:
Chris got promoted in his job and relocated to California, so here we are! We own a house in the town of Napa, which is a lovely place. We can also now afford childcare for the kids and people to help around the house, which makes my life a lot easier. We even now have a kitten, which Felicity has been begging for for about a year. His name is Rusty (because of his fur colour), and he is very cute, I have to admit.
Tragically, Chris’s brother Andrew and his wife Catherine were killed in a car accident a few months after we moved to California. Chris and I were given guardianship of their son, Toby, who is seven. Toby came to live with us and he is coping very well, although of course the whole experience has been extremely traumatising for him.
Must go, the triplets have woken up. Speak to you soon,
All my love,
Natalia x

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Dear Olivia,
You’ll never believe it but we’ve adopted again! My friend Lauren works at a children’s home and I went along one day and fell in love with a gorgeous three-year-old girl called Daveigh (pronounced ‘Davey’), who was abandoned by her teen mother two years ago. So now we have seven children, if you can believe that! Toby is 8, Felicity is 6, Kat is 4, and the triplets are 2, and now we have a three-year-old! Things are crazy, I can tell you!
With all these children we needed more space, so we have moved (again!) to a larger house outside of Napa, with large grounds, a pool, etc. It is much more convenient for all the kids as they now have a lot of space to run about and play. The triplets share a room, as do Kat and Daveigh, and Felicity and Toby have their own rooms.
If you want a bit of chaos, feel free to come and stay with us! You won’t be bored, I can tell you!
All my love,
Natalia X

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Dear Olivia,
Thank you so much for your letter. It’s been so long since we last contacted each other! It was great to hear all your news. Congratulations on becoming a grandmother – Jordan sounds adorable, and I’m sure Roberta and Cleo are thrilled! Here’s what’s going on in my extensive family!

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Toby is now 27 and married to a wonderful woman called Abigail. She is pregnant with their first child, due in August. They live in Chicago, and Toby works in an art gallery.

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Felicity is 25 and living in Manhattan, where she was born! She is an assistant stage manager on Broadway shows, which we love since it means her parents get free tickets! She is living with her long-term boyfriend Stephen.

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Kat is 23 and graduated last year from the University of Virginia, majoring in World History. She is now spending several months in Brazil, where she is teaching English in a tribal village.

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Daveigh is 22 and in her last year of college at Berkeley. She is doing American Literature and hopes to get a job in a publishing house when she graduates.

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The triplets are now 21. Seth is at Oxford University in Britain doing journalism, Hallie is at Yale doing Drama, and Dominic is in Los Angeles, working for Fortissimo Films. He eventually wants to be an editor, and he’s making his way up to the top.

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As for Chris and I, we’re still both working part-time, and keeping up with everything that;s going on with the kids when we’re not working! The house is much more peaceful now, but I sort of miss the craziness of having seven kids around. I’ll just have to wait for all the grandchildren!

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All my love,
Natalia x