Dear
family and friends,
Season’s
Greetings! It’s been a busy year (just
like every other), and I am scrambling trying to figure out a few things to
share with everyone in the form of the infamous Christmas newsletter and put
them through a test: Does it qualify as
interesting (my kids’ uncanny ability to hide sippy cups so they won’t be found
for a week…)? Is it bragging too much
(I’ve taught my kids to kill their own spiders on occasion)? Emma (now in 2nd grade) has been in various states of toothless-ness throughout the year. She started piano lessons this year, so she’s been entertaining us with the
Elizabeth
started all day kindergarten this year.
It took her about a week and a half at the beginning of the school year
to overcome her extreme fear of her school’s self-flushing toilets. That was a fun time. She has begun to attend 4-H with her big
sister, doing cooking and craft classes.
Elizabeth is the self-appointed Official Taste Tester whenever her mom
cooks, and is not shy about making “suggestions” on what her mom should cook. (Cookies for dinner, anyone?)
Annie
and Maddie are obsessed with trains and babies.
They love The Polar Express movie and Dinosaur Train show on PBS. They are also developing their talent for the
destruction of an entire room in under 5 seconds. Annie and Maddie are practicing for their
careers as strippers (I assume, since they never leave their clothes on). Either that or shoe connoisseurs/thieves,
since they often have on a pair of their mom, dad or older sisters’ shoes. They are embracing their Terrible Twos stage,
and can throw quite a loud tantrum (Annie especially- she’s good at smacking
her head on the floor to make herself cry even louder). Ryan has traded-in his classroom for a backpack and a laptop, and become an itinerant teacher. Not by choice, but as his classroom isn’t inhabitable at the moment, he’s making due by teaching in other’s classrooms- a different one each period. He’s been told his new classroom will be ready at the beginning of the next school year, but he’s not holding his breath, since the remodel of the high school has already hit a major snag. Ryan is teaching the 16-18 year olds class of Sunday School at church these days, so the lucky guy is always surrounded by teenagers. In his spare time, Ryan mows the lawn.
Danae is the disaster-control unit for the twins by day and family historian (aka blogger) by night. Ok, more like early evening, since I’m a wee bit exhausted by the end of the day to be up very late. I like to pretend I have free time and escape into the pages of a book. (At least we know where Emma gets it.) And I teach the 4-5 year-olds class in Primary on Sundays.
Ryan and I got to escape for a week (third year in a row, thanks to Grandpa Camp! Big, big thank you to the in-laws!) to Florida courtesy of our friends, James and Tiffany, who let us tag along to their time-share in Orlando. Ryan and I visited Epcot and Magic Kingdom at Disney World for the first time. We also played in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and thoroughly burnt our Pacific Northwest skin. Apparently spf 50 isn’t enough for the likes of us.
We piled all the kids and as much stuff as our minivan could hold, and took the family on a road trip to California this summer to visit some of Ryan’s relatives. We went to the Monterey Aquarium, played at the beach, visited the old San Juan Bautista Mission and got to be the circus at Ryan’s grandma’s 80th birthday party.
So, that’s us and our year in a nutshell. Our blog is updated fairly frequently, so feel free to drop by: {old blog address}. We hope that this missive finds everyone well. Have a very Merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year!
Inexplicably, the computer seems to have eaten the 2011 version of our newsletter. Which is why the rest are going on-line to be saved.
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