Holiday Letter 2008

Alright, this might be kind of long... but I thought since I Didn't manage to get our family Holiday letter out this year I would post it on my blog.... Sorry for the length, posting it here kind of makes it long and narrow.

Dearest Family and Friends,

It seems so hard to believe that a year has already flown by, yet here we are with the Holidays upon us and me scratching my head wondering what has happened over the last twelve months. People often laugh when I tell them that I always find writing Christmas letters hard; you’d think with the newsletters I send via email and my regularly updated blog I would be able to just whip one of these out. I think my problem tends to lie in the desire to keep it fairly short (since we are all reading at least 500 of these a Christmas) and not bogged down with little things. So, that being said; with not further ado: The 2008 Mighty C’s Family Christmas Letter.

To get things started we dive in with Frog Prince. I can hardly believe that I am the mother of a five year old already and yet the boy has quickly grown from a preschooler to a full on, ‘boy.’ Since his birthday falls after the cut off for entering Kindergarten, The great FP got to attend one more year of Preschool this year. He LOVES it. His best friend in the world also falls into the same boat of late birthdays, so instead of being a year ahead of this boy in school, the two will end up in the same grade. He is steadily moving along with learning all of his pre-reading skills and has even mastered sounding out some basic words (as well as the unbelievably hard, ‘cried’). If I had to name the three great loves of Frog Prince’s life they would be, in order: frogs, Disney’s Cars, and Peter Pan. While FP is naturally a rather timid and reserved boy when it comes to adventure, at any given point during the day I can find him zoom around the house with Sheepie pretending he is Lightening McQueen (the hero of the Cars movie) or battling to the death as Peter Pan. One of Frog Prince’s great adventures of this last year was getting to ride on an airplane. He’d been once as a very very young baby, but this time it was without mommy or daddy. In March he got to fly out with his Nana to visit his cousins in Chicago for two weeks. It was quite a step in independence for him, and he and his little stuff froggie took it in stride. On December 4^th FP officially left the world of preschoolerhood and turned five. He got to have all of his friends, from school and church, go out to eat with him and have a big birthday party. He now reminds us everyday about how great it is to be a ‘big five year old.’ With his birthday, he got to begin piano lessons and has shown great attention and dedication to learning how to play. He has also taken a great interest lately in competitive running and sledding in the several feet of snow we’ve received this winter.

If there was ever a child that marches to his own drum beat it would be Sheepie. I am not sure if we set ourselves up when we named our child ---and then handed him a stuffed tiger named, ‘Hobbes,’ but in all regards our sweet boy is living up to his namesake. Sheepie’s biggest accomplishment this last year was becoming fully potty trained. It’s funny to think that this only happened about a year ago, since he has done so well with it, but about this time last year we began the process and by the time the second term of preschool started (before he was even three) he was completely potty trained and ready. Over the summer Sheepie celebrated his third birthday with his, ‘first big boy party,’ (which means he finally got to invite friends to his birthday). The theme was –as it seems to be in his life in general—Finding Nemo. Sheepie LOVES Disney’s Finding Nemo, and it has been fun to watch his life; including things like daily head to toe dressing, dolls, and even the way his room is decorated revolve around this particular movie. He has also developed a strong love for WALL*E, as well (which is another Disney movie). He, too, is thriving in preschool, and I can hardly get in and out of the building without a handful of his teachers telling me how much they love Sheepie and that he is the cutest kid ever. He is steadily learning all of his pre reading skills as well and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is reading well before entering Kindergarten. Beyond his affection for Disney movies, some of Sheepie’s current favourites this year are: Hobbes (his best friend/ stuffed tiger), his blue blankie, Star wars and lightsabers, and riding the monorail ( a lingering bit from our trip to Disneyland this spring). Finally, Sheepie has recently declared that when he grows up he wants to be a Fireman.

In March, we were very excited—albeit a bit surprised—to welcome Boy into our family. Boy wasn’t due until the end of April, however he decided that he knew better than the rest of us, and arriving five weeks early, was born on March 22^nd, 2008. He was a healthy 6 lbs. 6 oz. and 20 inches long, and besides mildly underdeveloped lungs and digestive systems completely healthy—not bad for being a preemie! The truly fun part of his early arrival is that he was born on his father’s 28^th birthday; and since we’d already picked out the name (he has the same name as his Dad) it was an even more fitting arrival. From the time he was born to when I now write this nine months have already passed and the time seems like it’s flown. I can hardly believe that the round little butterball I see crawling around my house is the same tiny baby that was hooked up to all the monitors in the NICU. His is up and crawling and standing when holding on to things, and has already learned how to say ‘Daddy’ and ‘Hi’ and use them correctly. He also has an amazing ability to parrot people’s worlds; although he doesn’t know what he is saying and can’t use them again later, he often will repeat words that people have just said and do so extremely clearly. It’s quite amazing and I’ve never seen another baby do it. All and all he is a gem and I find myself being able to cuddle and snuggle him more than I ever imagined I would for my third child. I think that since he got off to a kind of bumpy start, he’s been making up for it by being extra cute and cuddly.

As for Hubby and me, we’ve had a few adventures this year as well. After years and years of lobbying, I finally got my wish and we bought a motorcycle—the irony was at the time I was pregnant, so I had to just sit and watch while Hubby zoomed around. With the rising gas prices and his longer commute Hubby decided that the 70 mpg the motorcycle would get sounded pretty good. Now I think he can’t imagine not having a bike (and I am pretty happy too!). Our family also took our first really big family vacation this year: Disneyland! About a month after Boy was born, we all headed down to Southern California with the kids and our quasi-Nanny/babysitter extraordinaire Kaitlyn. Along the way we stopped in Sacramento and toured the capitol and the train museum, the Hollywood district, and then stopped briefly in San Francisco to spend a bit of the afternoon with a friend of mine, riding the cable cars to the wharf and such. It was a lovely vacation and went very smoothly since we had an extra set of hands to help out and allow Hubby and me to go out in the evenings and enjoy the more grown up places like Downtown Disney. The major adventure of the year for us was Hubby’s eight weeks business trip to India toward the end of the summer. He had to go and work with a team from his company that is located in two parts of India and so I got to play the role of single parent for a few months and learn just how much I love having him around! He had a great time and was even able to have his dad come out and sight see with him for the last week of his trip. He also brought back amazing presents!!!

As we come to a close on this year, we find our family happy and healthy and glad to have one another. We hope that you are all doing well and that you might find joy in the season. May the Lord bless you all and keep you safe and happy in the coming year.

Love,
The Mighty C’s