As you know, kids say hilarious things. Hilarious. Things.
Here are some of the funny ones from the kids that I've written down recently (in no particular order):
VACATION IDEAS
Megan: Let's talk about what fun trip we could take next year! What do you guys think about another trip to Washington, D.C.?
Kaitlyn: D.C. is kind of boring. How about Turks and Caicos?
CANDLE IDEAS
Megan (just got back from running outside, sitting in scrapbook room): Does it smell bad in here Kaitlyn?
Kaitlyn: It just kind of circulates.
Megan: Does it smell bad?
Kaitlyn: Well...I wouldn't make it into a candle.
CONSULTANT'S DAUGHTER
Ava (yelling from her room after being tucked into bed approximately 5 times already): Dad! I can't sleep, for 3 reasons...
DINNER
Megan: All I've had to eat today has been donuts...well, that and the cheesecake Kate made me eat.
WHO'S IN CHARGE
Olivia (at bedtime, trying to explain why she needs to be awake still): Dad, you're not the boss. Giants are in charge because they're huge! And there's no giants here, so there's no bosses...
DIETARY RESTRICTIONS
Kaitlyn: Do we have any animal crackers that are just elephants?
WISDOM
Alison (talking to siblings that are bickering over something inconsequential in the car): Dudes, be awesome.
FASHION ADVICE
Kaitlyn (one morning during basketball season): Dad, you have girls. You know just the right things to say about outfits. You don't say "Bro, that shirt is like, amaze-balls."
THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY
Dad (to the kids in the car on the way to school): Grandpa had to sit on a phone book to see over the steering wheel when he first started driving.
Max: Were phone books really thick or something?
WHAT'S THAT CALLED AGAIN?
Dad (at soccer game with a chilly wind): Olivia, put on your jacket.
Olivia: I can't! My whole thing is freezing.
(I guess she couldn't think of the word for "body" and just went with the universally applicable, "thing".)
WHAT YOU GET OUT OF CHURCH
Speaker at church: And my dad couldn't sit still. He literally spent every moment of the day doing something productive.
Max (whispering in my ear): That is the complete opposite of me.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Missing Christmas Letters
So...as you can see I'm missing some Christmas Letters. Specifically: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2014.
Maybe they're on another computer somewhere. Or perhaps one of our back-up drives somewhere. If you have one of these letters in your files (I'm sure you've kept them all and filed them in a place where you can easily reference them), please feel free to type them up in a cut-and-paste ready Word document and send along so we can fill in the missing gaps. (What? Me? Lazy?)
I hear Megan turning on some sort of dance-related reality TV show in the other room, so I'm going to wrap this up for the night, and put a stop to that. I think we may need to drown our BYU Football-related sorrows from last night by beginning Season 4 of "24".
But, before I do, let's re-cap. I started the evening down 23 blog posts vs. YTD plan. I've now closed that gap by almost 40% bringing the current gap to a well-within-reach 14 posts easily addressable with the remaining past Christmas Letters as well as copies of my random "Friday Thoughts" that I used to send my team at work.
Drop the mic. I'm out.
Maybe they're on another computer somewhere. Or perhaps one of our back-up drives somewhere. If you have one of these letters in your files (I'm sure you've kept them all and filed them in a place where you can easily reference them), please feel free to type them up in a cut-and-paste ready Word document and send along so we can fill in the missing gaps. (What? Me? Lazy?)
I hear Megan turning on some sort of dance-related reality TV show in the other room, so I'm going to wrap this up for the night, and put a stop to that. I think we may need to drown our BYU Football-related sorrows from last night by beginning Season 4 of "24".
But, before I do, let's re-cap. I started the evening down 23 blog posts vs. YTD plan. I've now closed that gap by almost 40% bringing the current gap to a well-within-reach 14 posts easily addressable with the remaining past Christmas Letters as well as copies of my random "Friday Thoughts" that I used to send my team at work.
Drop the mic. I'm out.
Merry Christmas 2015
December 2015
Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—
My wife told me I can’t make jokes about my lack of Facebook activity, the continual downward trend in my number of blog posts, or how they have the internet on computer now. Thus ends a three-year tradition. I have noticed, however, that as our 5 kids get older that I’m having a harder time keeping everyone straight, calling them by their correct names, and keeping up with what they’re doing in general. (Again, that’s because they are getting older, not me.) So, this year, I thought I’d let you know how I feel.
Our kids are: Alison, Kaitlyn, Maxwell, Avery and Olivia. Here’s some stuff these people did this year. See if you can figure out who did what. (If you do, please contact me. I need the help!)
Our 5th child turned older this year and speaks her own, incredibly cute, version of English wherein every letter “c” is replaced with a “t” and every “g” is replaced with a “d”. So, she might say, “I want a tup of water and then I want to tuddle with drampa.” On top of that, she loves setting up her bright pink plastic serving ware to play “tea party.” How am I supposed to tell her to stop coming into our room to sleep on my face in the middle of the night when she’s that cute? She also started pre-school this year and, as a result, feels incredibly grown up. (And also, as a result, I think Megan has gotten a taste of what it’s like to actually have a few productive hours in the morning a couple of times a week).
Our next youngest child turned older this year. She just barely missed the government-mandated cutoff (based on birthday not competence) for elementary school so it’s been one more year of pre-school for her. Her new skills include reading (where she frequently asks “does this word follow the rules?” when trying to sound it out), riding her non-training wheel princess bike (which she learned to ride with the help of Child #2), pilfering Megan’s phone to call me at work in the middle of the day just to chat, and epic, dramatic poutiness each night about the injustice of asking someone else in the family to have a turn saying family prayer or be the first to read a verse from the scriptures.
It was a very special year for Child #3. He turned older and was thus able to be baptized into the church. He also started Cub Scouts and has been enjoying that—especially the cool uniform and special belt that he wants to wear with every pair of pants, shorts or swimsuit he owns. In addition to excelling at finding anything electronics-related from boxes in the garage and hoarding knick-knacks of all kinds in general, he’s also been working on his piano skills as well as his gymnastics maneuvers. He is doing well at school and is known for helping his fellow classmates when they need a hand.
Our second oldest turns eleven in a few weeks and is surging in academics. She finished the last school year with the highest grades in her entire grade (and possibly the world, probably), and is now in “AIG” math and reading. (What does “AIG” stand for? I don’t know. I think the “G” is either for “gifted” or “grandmotherly”.) She has also been developing her non-school talents. In gymnastics, she has been working on her back hand spring, and plays the piano all the time, including recently accompanying our neighbors on the violin at the school talent show and in the church children’s Primary Program. She also said to mention that she has blue eyes.
Our oldest child turned older this year. After years of hard work and obsessing about the sport of basketball, she finally made the middle school girls basketball team this year and is enjoying all of its associated apparel-related benefits. She is primarily playing forward, which has been a bit of an adjustment since she’s a guard at heart. At school she is in “Math 2” which is two grade levels ahead—high school sophomore-level math—so soon I will be asking her to help me with my homework. This summer she ran a “Kids Camp” babysitting event and found out that moms with kids out of school for the summer are like Black Friday door-busting shoppers climbing over each other to give her money to entertain their little ones for a few hours a day over two weeks.
Megan remains as busy as ever driving kids #2 and #3 to school, then driving kids #4 and #5 to pre-school, then picking up kids #4 and #5 from pre-school, then driving kids #2 and #3 to gymnastics while calling me and reminding me that I should have left work already to pick up kid #1 from basketball practice on time. Somehow she still finds time to serve in her church responsibilities in the women’s Relief Society organization, and uses her Stampin’ Up products to papercraft anything in the house that can have a glue dot or adhesive attached to it to be made Pinterest-y.
In addition to trying to call my children by their correct names, I’ve been busy with other things too: I just took a new role at Bank of America which was bittersweet as I enjoyed the people I was working with in my old role, but was ready for the challenge of something new. I’m continuing to serve as the organist at church and am also serving in the stake where I’m getting lots of practice giving talks each month in the various LDS congregations around South Charlotte. When I have a spare moment I think about what I can do to play guitar and record music more often.
We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the things we did this year as well as the things that really matter most to us—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2016.
Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—
My wife told me I can’t make jokes about my lack of Facebook activity, the continual downward trend in my number of blog posts, or how they have the internet on computer now. Thus ends a three-year tradition. I have noticed, however, that as our 5 kids get older that I’m having a harder time keeping everyone straight, calling them by their correct names, and keeping up with what they’re doing in general. (Again, that’s because they are getting older, not me.) So, this year, I thought I’d let you know how I feel.
Our kids are: Alison, Kaitlyn, Maxwell, Avery and Olivia. Here’s some stuff these people did this year. See if you can figure out who did what. (If you do, please contact me. I need the help!)
Our 5th child turned older this year and speaks her own, incredibly cute, version of English wherein every letter “c” is replaced with a “t” and every “g” is replaced with a “d”. So, she might say, “I want a tup of water and then I want to tuddle with drampa.” On top of that, she loves setting up her bright pink plastic serving ware to play “tea party.” How am I supposed to tell her to stop coming into our room to sleep on my face in the middle of the night when she’s that cute? She also started pre-school this year and, as a result, feels incredibly grown up. (And also, as a result, I think Megan has gotten a taste of what it’s like to actually have a few productive hours in the morning a couple of times a week).
Our next youngest child turned older this year. She just barely missed the government-mandated cutoff (based on birthday not competence) for elementary school so it’s been one more year of pre-school for her. Her new skills include reading (where she frequently asks “does this word follow the rules?” when trying to sound it out), riding her non-training wheel princess bike (which she learned to ride with the help of Child #2), pilfering Megan’s phone to call me at work in the middle of the day just to chat, and epic, dramatic poutiness each night about the injustice of asking someone else in the family to have a turn saying family prayer or be the first to read a verse from the scriptures.
It was a very special year for Child #3. He turned older and was thus able to be baptized into the church. He also started Cub Scouts and has been enjoying that—especially the cool uniform and special belt that he wants to wear with every pair of pants, shorts or swimsuit he owns. In addition to excelling at finding anything electronics-related from boxes in the garage and hoarding knick-knacks of all kinds in general, he’s also been working on his piano skills as well as his gymnastics maneuvers. He is doing well at school and is known for helping his fellow classmates when they need a hand.
Our second oldest turns eleven in a few weeks and is surging in academics. She finished the last school year with the highest grades in her entire grade (and possibly the world, probably), and is now in “AIG” math and reading. (What does “AIG” stand for? I don’t know. I think the “G” is either for “gifted” or “grandmotherly”.) She has also been developing her non-school talents. In gymnastics, she has been working on her back hand spring, and plays the piano all the time, including recently accompanying our neighbors on the violin at the school talent show and in the church children’s Primary Program. She also said to mention that she has blue eyes.
Our oldest child turned older this year. After years of hard work and obsessing about the sport of basketball, she finally made the middle school girls basketball team this year and is enjoying all of its associated apparel-related benefits. She is primarily playing forward, which has been a bit of an adjustment since she’s a guard at heart. At school she is in “Math 2” which is two grade levels ahead—high school sophomore-level math—so soon I will be asking her to help me with my homework. This summer she ran a “Kids Camp” babysitting event and found out that moms with kids out of school for the summer are like Black Friday door-busting shoppers climbing over each other to give her money to entertain their little ones for a few hours a day over two weeks.
Megan remains as busy as ever driving kids #2 and #3 to school, then driving kids #4 and #5 to pre-school, then picking up kids #4 and #5 from pre-school, then driving kids #2 and #3 to gymnastics while calling me and reminding me that I should have left work already to pick up kid #1 from basketball practice on time. Somehow she still finds time to serve in her church responsibilities in the women’s Relief Society organization, and uses her Stampin’ Up products to papercraft anything in the house that can have a glue dot or adhesive attached to it to be made Pinterest-y.
In addition to trying to call my children by their correct names, I’ve been busy with other things too: I just took a new role at Bank of America which was bittersweet as I enjoyed the people I was working with in my old role, but was ready for the challenge of something new. I’m continuing to serve as the organist at church and am also serving in the stake where I’m getting lots of practice giving talks each month in the various LDS congregations around South Charlotte. When I have a spare moment I think about what I can do to play guitar and record music more often.
We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the things we did this year as well as the things that really matter most to us—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2016.
Merry Christmas 2013
December 2013
Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—
We debated whether or not we should even include a letter this year—after all, isn’t the point of Facebook to provide real-time updates on the events of the family to everyone close to us? So, I went ahead and checked my Facebook account, and it looks like my most recent entry was dated 11/10/12 and said: “San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl sounds pretty prestigious.” So, dead end there. You’ll remember from past years’ letters that we have our family blog at www.nathanandmegan.blogspot.com, so I turned there next. Unfortunately, my blog posts ran out in April. Another dead end. So, we concluded that you most likely have no idea what we’ve been up to this year, and a quick little letter would, thus, be warranted. Here’s our update:
Olivia turned older and has learned how to walk—which resembles the walk of a man who recently rode a horse for 4 hours. She’s learned some important words like “D-a-a-a-d-y” and “M-a-a-a-a” (which either means “mom” or “milk” or “more food now”). Though she’d become an excellent sleeper at night, she’s re-learning how to do that all over again now that she’s begun sharing a room with Ava.
Speaking of Ava, she turned older this year and is quite the little talker—especially at bedtime when Olivia (and everyone else in the house) is trying to sleep. She has also become obsessed with the iPhone or iPad. She texts me sweet little phrases several times a day such as “DjO jU” (which I received this past Thursday at 6:34 p.m., for example). She also Facetime’s her grandparents almost every morning as soon as she wakes up. We pre-apologize for her yelling in the background if you try to call us, as she insists on saying “hello” to everyone that calls. Her iObsession notwithstanding, she is so sweet to her little sister and said “I am so happy” when they started sharing a room. She loves playing at the YMCA, and even took a little ballet dance class there this year. She had her first recital last week and may become quite the performer!
Max turned older this year and started kindergarten. After confessing “I’m so scared” on his first day of school, he quickly came to thoroughly enjoy it and is reading, writing and drawing like a champ. He loves walking to class in the morning with his big sister, Kaitlyn, and riding the bus home. He feels so big. He’s also discovered a love of Lego’s and has become an expert at building various “ships” (spaceships), piggybanks, and weapony-looking things of all kinds. He is still missing his front tooth and with that and his glasses, he is definitely in the running for most adorable little boy ever (according to us at least).
Kaitlyn (turning older in a few weeks) is now the oldest sibling at the elementary school and has stepped into that role well. Additionally, she has enjoyed taking gymnastics classes over the course of the year, and is now physically incapable of going from point A to point B without doing a cartwheel, or back walkover, or walking on all fours upside down while in the bridge position. She continues to work on her piano skills, and has also discovered that she has a very witty sense of humor. (For example, during a Target visit, she found a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower, held it up to me and said, “I kind of expected the Eiffel Tower to be a little bit…bigger.”)
Alison (turned older this year) is literally counting down the days until she turns older and can enter the Young Women’s program at church. As a middle schooler, she is becoming uncomfortably independent (am I really old enough to have a child in middle school?) and enjoys being able to stay after school to watch the 7th / 8th grade girls basketball team play home games (a team that she aspires to join next year). She loves watching Studio C, a sketch comedy program on BYUTV, and getting together with her friends. Fortunately, we’ve been able to nurture her unhealthy obsession with BYU, so she fits right in with her parents on game day.
Megan remains as busy as ever with 2 kids at home and 3 kids at school who need lunches during the day and guidance on homework at night. Somehow she still finds time to serve in her church responsibilities in the children’s Primary organization, workout at the YMCA frequently, and use her Stampin’ Up products to papercraft anything in the house that can have a glue dot or adhesive attached to it.
I’m enjoying my job at Bank of America, serving as the organist and youth Sunday School teacher at church, and trying to find time to play guitar and record music whenever I can (which, with the aforementioned 5 kids in the house, ends up being at around midnight for 10 minutes at a time, every other month).
We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the things we did this year as well as the things that really matter most—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2014.
Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—
We debated whether or not we should even include a letter this year—after all, isn’t the point of Facebook to provide real-time updates on the events of the family to everyone close to us? So, I went ahead and checked my Facebook account, and it looks like my most recent entry was dated 11/10/12 and said: “San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl sounds pretty prestigious.” So, dead end there. You’ll remember from past years’ letters that we have our family blog at www.nathanandmegan.blogspot.com, so I turned there next. Unfortunately, my blog posts ran out in April. Another dead end. So, we concluded that you most likely have no idea what we’ve been up to this year, and a quick little letter would, thus, be warranted. Here’s our update:
Olivia turned older and has learned how to walk—which resembles the walk of a man who recently rode a horse for 4 hours. She’s learned some important words like “D-a-a-a-d-y” and “M-a-a-a-a” (which either means “mom” or “milk” or “more food now”). Though she’d become an excellent sleeper at night, she’s re-learning how to do that all over again now that she’s begun sharing a room with Ava.
Speaking of Ava, she turned older this year and is quite the little talker—especially at bedtime when Olivia (and everyone else in the house) is trying to sleep. She has also become obsessed with the iPhone or iPad. She texts me sweet little phrases several times a day such as “DjO jU” (which I received this past Thursday at 6:34 p.m., for example). She also Facetime’s her grandparents almost every morning as soon as she wakes up. We pre-apologize for her yelling in the background if you try to call us, as she insists on saying “hello” to everyone that calls. Her iObsession notwithstanding, she is so sweet to her little sister and said “I am so happy” when they started sharing a room. She loves playing at the YMCA, and even took a little ballet dance class there this year. She had her first recital last week and may become quite the performer!
Max turned older this year and started kindergarten. After confessing “I’m so scared” on his first day of school, he quickly came to thoroughly enjoy it and is reading, writing and drawing like a champ. He loves walking to class in the morning with his big sister, Kaitlyn, and riding the bus home. He feels so big. He’s also discovered a love of Lego’s and has become an expert at building various “ships” (spaceships), piggybanks, and weapony-looking things of all kinds. He is still missing his front tooth and with that and his glasses, he is definitely in the running for most adorable little boy ever (according to us at least).
Kaitlyn (turning older in a few weeks) is now the oldest sibling at the elementary school and has stepped into that role well. Additionally, she has enjoyed taking gymnastics classes over the course of the year, and is now physically incapable of going from point A to point B without doing a cartwheel, or back walkover, or walking on all fours upside down while in the bridge position. She continues to work on her piano skills, and has also discovered that she has a very witty sense of humor. (For example, during a Target visit, she found a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower, held it up to me and said, “I kind of expected the Eiffel Tower to be a little bit…bigger.”)
Alison (turned older this year) is literally counting down the days until she turns older and can enter the Young Women’s program at church. As a middle schooler, she is becoming uncomfortably independent (am I really old enough to have a child in middle school?) and enjoys being able to stay after school to watch the 7th / 8th grade girls basketball team play home games (a team that she aspires to join next year). She loves watching Studio C, a sketch comedy program on BYUTV, and getting together with her friends. Fortunately, we’ve been able to nurture her unhealthy obsession with BYU, so she fits right in with her parents on game day.
Megan remains as busy as ever with 2 kids at home and 3 kids at school who need lunches during the day and guidance on homework at night. Somehow she still finds time to serve in her church responsibilities in the children’s Primary organization, workout at the YMCA frequently, and use her Stampin’ Up products to papercraft anything in the house that can have a glue dot or adhesive attached to it.
I’m enjoying my job at Bank of America, serving as the organist and youth Sunday School teacher at church, and trying to find time to play guitar and record music whenever I can (which, with the aforementioned 5 kids in the house, ends up being at around midnight for 10 minutes at a time, every other month).
We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the things we did this year as well as the things that really matter most—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2014.
Merry Christmas 2012
December 2012
Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—
Looking back on our 2012, I couldn’t remember all of the noteworthy events that took place during the course of the year, so I turned to our trusty family blog at www.nathanandmegan.blogspot.com for ideas. Unfortunately, 2012 turned out to be worse than last year in terms of blog post production (only 3 posts vs. 15 last year and 51 posts in the peak year). Next I tried my Facebook account but that had even fewer updates. I may have to survey the family to find out what we did this year…
Ok, the survey responses are in and it turns out we had quite an eventful year! For starters, we bought a house here in Charlotte and were able to close just 10 days before we would have been forced to move from our old one—as our landlords did us the favor of selling it while we still lived there.
Olivia thought an important event during 2012 was her birth—debuting at 7:15 a.m. on her birthday and weighing in at 7 lbs. 11 oz., measuring 18.5 inches and sporting huge dimples. She has been a wonderful addition to the family and loves being held by her 3 oldest siblings as well as having a pacifier shoved forcefully into her mouth by Ava while she’s sleeping.
Speaking of Ava, she turned 2 this year, and is becoming a master of language; she’s figured out a way to reduce the number of words she actually has to learn by assigning multiple meanings to the same phonetic sound. For example, “be-dees” can mean any of the following: my two security blankets, breakfast, babies, pizza, scriptures, and a bunch of other things (if also accompanied with pointing). I wonder what other efficiencies she’ll figure out as she gets older. She loves her nursery class at church and playing at the YMCA while Megan works out.
Max (turned older this year) thought, probably, that the significant events of 2012 included his continued participation in pre-school, his developing reading skills, his playing YMCA flag football, his having a dead tooth extracted and his ability to “clean” his room by shoving everything under the bed so he can go outside and ride his scooter. He is also an expert “hugger” and is friends with everyone. Everyone.
Kaitlyn (turns older in a few weeks) reminded me that our moving into a new house meant attending her 3rd different elementary school in 3 years. It’s a good thing that she’s incredibly social and has other girls in her class dressing like her within days. She’s also been involved in dance, gymnastics and piano—including a love of figuring out the melody lines of songs by ear. And, she’s very excited to be getting baptized in a few weeks.
Alison (turned older this year, but is going on even older next year) is also making great strides in piano and has continued to be heavily involved in sports. She took up soccer for the first time this year and fit in great, despite being the only girl on the co-ed team. However, she’s excited to return to her roots and started basketball again this week. She also continues to excel in school (and work on Excel at home with money-making sales ideas of all kinds).
Megan reluctantly pointed out that she turned older this year, but I would point out that that didn’t stop her from being a member of the Stake Champion Weddington Ward Women’s Basketball team, serving in the children’s Primary leadership at church, delivering Olivia, or continuing to turn ordinary things like water bottles into cute and crafty projects with Stampin’ Up products of all kinds.
I’m enjoying my job at Bank of America and try to find time to play guitar whenever I can (which with 5 kids in the house ends up being at around midnight for 10 minutes at a time, every other month).
We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the things it turns out we did this year as well as the things that really matter most—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2013.
Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—
Looking back on our 2012, I couldn’t remember all of the noteworthy events that took place during the course of the year, so I turned to our trusty family blog at www.nathanandmegan.blogspot.com for ideas. Unfortunately, 2012 turned out to be worse than last year in terms of blog post production (only 3 posts vs. 15 last year and 51 posts in the peak year). Next I tried my Facebook account but that had even fewer updates. I may have to survey the family to find out what we did this year…
Ok, the survey responses are in and it turns out we had quite an eventful year! For starters, we bought a house here in Charlotte and were able to close just 10 days before we would have been forced to move from our old one—as our landlords did us the favor of selling it while we still lived there.
Olivia thought an important event during 2012 was her birth—debuting at 7:15 a.m. on her birthday and weighing in at 7 lbs. 11 oz., measuring 18.5 inches and sporting huge dimples. She has been a wonderful addition to the family and loves being held by her 3 oldest siblings as well as having a pacifier shoved forcefully into her mouth by Ava while she’s sleeping.
Speaking of Ava, she turned 2 this year, and is becoming a master of language; she’s figured out a way to reduce the number of words she actually has to learn by assigning multiple meanings to the same phonetic sound. For example, “be-dees” can mean any of the following: my two security blankets, breakfast, babies, pizza, scriptures, and a bunch of other things (if also accompanied with pointing). I wonder what other efficiencies she’ll figure out as she gets older. She loves her nursery class at church and playing at the YMCA while Megan works out.
Max (turned older this year) thought, probably, that the significant events of 2012 included his continued participation in pre-school, his developing reading skills, his playing YMCA flag football, his having a dead tooth extracted and his ability to “clean” his room by shoving everything under the bed so he can go outside and ride his scooter. He is also an expert “hugger” and is friends with everyone. Everyone.
Kaitlyn (turns older in a few weeks) reminded me that our moving into a new house meant attending her 3rd different elementary school in 3 years. It’s a good thing that she’s incredibly social and has other girls in her class dressing like her within days. She’s also been involved in dance, gymnastics and piano—including a love of figuring out the melody lines of songs by ear. And, she’s very excited to be getting baptized in a few weeks.
Alison (turned older this year, but is going on even older next year) is also making great strides in piano and has continued to be heavily involved in sports. She took up soccer for the first time this year and fit in great, despite being the only girl on the co-ed team. However, she’s excited to return to her roots and started basketball again this week. She also continues to excel in school (and work on Excel at home with money-making sales ideas of all kinds).
Megan reluctantly pointed out that she turned older this year, but I would point out that that didn’t stop her from being a member of the Stake Champion Weddington Ward Women’s Basketball team, serving in the children’s Primary leadership at church, delivering Olivia, or continuing to turn ordinary things like water bottles into cute and crafty projects with Stampin’ Up products of all kinds.
I’m enjoying my job at Bank of America and try to find time to play guitar whenever I can (which with 5 kids in the house ends up being at around midnight for 10 minutes at a time, every other month).
We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the things it turns out we did this year as well as the things that really matter most—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2013.
Merry Christmas 2011
December 2011
Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—
Looking back on our 2011, I couldn’t remember all of the noteworthy events that took place during the course of the year, so I turned to our trusty family blog at www.nathanandmegan.blogspot.com for ideas. Unfortunately, 2011 turned out to be the year with the lowest actual blog post production (only 15 vs. 23 posts last year), so clearly I’m going to have to find another source of ideas for this year’s recap since it’s apparent that the slow economy has reached even the blogosphere.
First off, we’ve officially moved to North Carolina. It only took 11 months and 37 showings, but we were finally able to sell our house in Indiana at a loss and relocate to Charlotte to be able to work onsite at Bank of America headquarters for the job I accepted last year.
Shortly after unpacking our things, Megan and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary by using up all of the frequent flier miles and hotel points that I acquired from my consulting days and spent a week in Hawaii—which was the first time either of us had been. Megan’s parents were gracious enough to watch the kids, and they were fortunate that we decided to come back. However, while we were gone, Avery took advantage of the chance to make us feel bad by promptly learning to walk. We saw her first steps via video email only (but luckily those steps are now immortalized…until our hard drive crashes).
[2016 Update: Those first steps actually are lost forever as Max one day decided to pour water on our iPad to see if it would explode.]
Speaking of Ava, she turned older this year and is not only advanced with her walking skills, but she is also advanced with her teeth-growing skills. She had a full 8 teeth by the time she was 7 months old, and so she’s been eating “big kid” food at the table for quite some time now. Despite all this, she remains our petite little baby and loves being spoiled (and run-over) by her older siblings.
Max (turned older this year), does most of the running over. He started pre-school in the fall and absolutely loves it. He’s working on his reading skills. Although he hasn’t quite finished War and Peace yet, he does know most of his alphabet letters as well as some sight words like “the,” “and,” ,”of” and a few others that he’s been able to pick up during our nightly family scripture study. He looks quite scholarly in the glasses that he now wears after we discovered that his going cross-eyed was due to his inability to see rather than his sense of humor. In addition to all of his studies, Max is all boy and loves to run, wrestle, chase and break things.
Kaitlyn (turns older in a few weeks) has continued to work on her fashion skills. I think she got some good ideas when she went to her first concert (to see Taylor Swift) with Megan this year. Now that she is in first grade, she decided to try to get ahead and has been developing her PowerPoint skills in her spare time. So far she has created presentations on donuts, Halloween, Hawaii, her Uncle Michael and his new wife Heather’s wedding, grandparents, friends, and music. She has also been taking gymnastics and can no longer go from the family room to the kitchen without attempting cartwheels and round-offs.
Alison (turned older this year) is working on mastering her basketball skills. For her 9th birthday she invited 6 boys and 0 girls to play basketball at the neighborhood court and then returned to our home for basketball-themed treats and party favors. She joined a new basketball league in North Carolina and is practicing once with her team during the week, and once with another team during the week. She also just ran her very first 5K as a part of the Girls on the Run program. Ali also loves to read—even if it is an hour or two past her bedtime! She recently read 1,452 pages in a week in addition to her regular schoolwork.
Megan has finely perfected her scrapbooking and papercrafting skills, although being a mother of 4 rambunctious children and 1 determined husband doesn’t leave her with as much time to pursue her craft as she might like. Although she certainly misses her family, friends and Sunday School class in Indiana, she’s adjusted well and has quickly made new friends here.
I continue to be fine…except for that knee surgery in December that I needed after tearing my meniscus while playing church basketball in May.
We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the fun things we’ve done this year as well as the things that really matter most—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2012.
Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—
Looking back on our 2011, I couldn’t remember all of the noteworthy events that took place during the course of the year, so I turned to our trusty family blog at www.nathanandmegan.blogspot.com for ideas. Unfortunately, 2011 turned out to be the year with the lowest actual blog post production (only 15 vs. 23 posts last year), so clearly I’m going to have to find another source of ideas for this year’s recap since it’s apparent that the slow economy has reached even the blogosphere.
First off, we’ve officially moved to North Carolina. It only took 11 months and 37 showings, but we were finally able to sell our house in Indiana at a loss and relocate to Charlotte to be able to work onsite at Bank of America headquarters for the job I accepted last year.
Shortly after unpacking our things, Megan and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary by using up all of the frequent flier miles and hotel points that I acquired from my consulting days and spent a week in Hawaii—which was the first time either of us had been. Megan’s parents were gracious enough to watch the kids, and they were fortunate that we decided to come back. However, while we were gone, Avery took advantage of the chance to make us feel bad by promptly learning to walk. We saw her first steps via video email only (but luckily those steps are now immortalized…until our hard drive crashes).
[2016 Update: Those first steps actually are lost forever as Max one day decided to pour water on our iPad to see if it would explode.]
Speaking of Ava, she turned older this year and is not only advanced with her walking skills, but she is also advanced with her teeth-growing skills. She had a full 8 teeth by the time she was 7 months old, and so she’s been eating “big kid” food at the table for quite some time now. Despite all this, she remains our petite little baby and loves being spoiled (and run-over) by her older siblings.
Max (turned older this year), does most of the running over. He started pre-school in the fall and absolutely loves it. He’s working on his reading skills. Although he hasn’t quite finished War and Peace yet, he does know most of his alphabet letters as well as some sight words like “the,” “and,” ,”of” and a few others that he’s been able to pick up during our nightly family scripture study. He looks quite scholarly in the glasses that he now wears after we discovered that his going cross-eyed was due to his inability to see rather than his sense of humor. In addition to all of his studies, Max is all boy and loves to run, wrestle, chase and break things.
Kaitlyn (turns older in a few weeks) has continued to work on her fashion skills. I think she got some good ideas when she went to her first concert (to see Taylor Swift) with Megan this year. Now that she is in first grade, she decided to try to get ahead and has been developing her PowerPoint skills in her spare time. So far she has created presentations on donuts, Halloween, Hawaii, her Uncle Michael and his new wife Heather’s wedding, grandparents, friends, and music. She has also been taking gymnastics and can no longer go from the family room to the kitchen without attempting cartwheels and round-offs.
Alison (turned older this year) is working on mastering her basketball skills. For her 9th birthday she invited 6 boys and 0 girls to play basketball at the neighborhood court and then returned to our home for basketball-themed treats and party favors. She joined a new basketball league in North Carolina and is practicing once with her team during the week, and once with another team during the week. She also just ran her very first 5K as a part of the Girls on the Run program. Ali also loves to read—even if it is an hour or two past her bedtime! She recently read 1,452 pages in a week in addition to her regular schoolwork.
Megan has finely perfected her scrapbooking and papercrafting skills, although being a mother of 4 rambunctious children and 1 determined husband doesn’t leave her with as much time to pursue her craft as she might like. Although she certainly misses her family, friends and Sunday School class in Indiana, she’s adjusted well and has quickly made new friends here.
I continue to be fine…except for that knee surgery in December that I needed after tearing my meniscus while playing church basketball in May.
We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the fun things we’ve done this year as well as the things that really matter most—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2012.
Merry Christmas 2010
December 2010
Dear Family, Friends, Neighbors, Acquaintances, Colleagues, and Casual Observers who picked up this letter—
We are always grateful for the spirit of this season when people tend to turn their attention to the things that matter most—family, faith and friends. Since you are now officially on our holiday mailing list and there doesn’t appear to be any way to opt out or remove yourself from this list, you now have the (mis)fortune of receiving one of these letters each year for approximately the next 67 years. (I’m planning on writing until I’m 100, but then reserve the right to take a year or two off). In an effort to streamline this process and make it easier for all involved, next year I’m just going to create the perfect fill-in-the-blank letter and then each year a simple “find and replace” in Microsoft Word will solve all of my problems.
After several years as a road warrior with the management consulting firm, Accenture, working on growth strategy and innovation projects, this year I accepted a new position in Market and Competitive Intelligence in Charlotte with Bank of America. We’re excited about the new opportunity even though it entails a move from Indiana to North Carolina. I think the kids are most excited though about the fact that I’ll now be home for bedtime and ball games (instead of just dialing in or trying to connect via webcam). Megan also noted the lifestyle change when she remarked, “We have to increase our food budget since now you actually eat here.”
Speaking of Megan, she spent nine months of the year with a ‘serious’ medical condition called being-pregnant-with-the-fourth-while-still-trying-to-raise-the-other-three. While this condition was happily resolved when we welcomed our beautiful Avery into the family, doctors observed that it has spawned a new condition: lack-of-time-to-spend-papercrafting-with-Stampin’ Up-itis. Fortunately, she’s doing all she can with card parties and crafting get-togethers to address this second issue.
Alison has evolved into a full-blown basketball aficionado. She cleverly repurposed book fair money we sent with her to school to acquire Kobe Bryant and LeBron James posters “so that my room explains me.” She has already attended a couple of Pacers games this year and is playing in the 3rd/4th grade girls basketball league. She has also acquired close to 1,000 basketball cards and is now familiar with basketball legends dating back to Wilt Chamberlain and has become quite proficient at trading them. She also enjoys taking on the third grade boys in her class at basketball during recess.
Kaitlyn, our self-described “fashionista,” is loving kindergarten and riding the bus to school with her older sister. Almost daily she informs me that, “I’m a great person and I have a great personality” or that she’s wearing a certain outfit so that she can be a “diva.” My iPhone is now bogged down with half a dozen Barbie dress-up apps which she tries to play daily. When she’s exhausted her phone time for the day, she loves dancing around the house performing Taylor Swift songs for an imaginary audience of thousands. Not only does Kaitlyn have a “great personality”, but she is also an outstanding reader. All she wants for Christmas is for Taylor Swift to come visit her personally. (Anyone have any connections?)
Max has taught us how boys are innately different than girls—he cries much less and punches, tackles, and wrestles significantly more. One of his new favorite pastimes is studying different types of trucks. He is able to successfully identify excavators, backhoes, cranes, mixers, loaders, and tractors. Additionally, he is developing quite an extensive Matchbox car collection thanks to his older sisters’ lack of knowledge on what else boys like. He is a great big brother to his new little sister and tries to “save” her all the time (even though we’re still not quite sure what that exactly means).
As mentioned above, Avery (but we call her Ava for short), was born and is doing wonderfully. She’s been a joy for all of us and has an infectious and enthusiastic smile which she is just starting to show off. We feel privileged and blessed to have such wonderful friends and family as you. We wish you a very Happy Holidays and a wonderful 2011.
Dear Family, Friends, Neighbors, Acquaintances, Colleagues, and Casual Observers who picked up this letter—
We are always grateful for the spirit of this season when people tend to turn their attention to the things that matter most—family, faith and friends. Since you are now officially on our holiday mailing list and there doesn’t appear to be any way to opt out or remove yourself from this list, you now have the (mis)fortune of receiving one of these letters each year for approximately the next 67 years. (I’m planning on writing until I’m 100, but then reserve the right to take a year or two off). In an effort to streamline this process and make it easier for all involved, next year I’m just going to create the perfect fill-in-the-blank letter and then each year a simple “find and replace” in Microsoft Word will solve all of my problems.
After several years as a road warrior with the management consulting firm, Accenture, working on growth strategy and innovation projects, this year I accepted a new position in Market and Competitive Intelligence in Charlotte with Bank of America. We’re excited about the new opportunity even though it entails a move from Indiana to North Carolina. I think the kids are most excited though about the fact that I’ll now be home for bedtime and ball games (instead of just dialing in or trying to connect via webcam). Megan also noted the lifestyle change when she remarked, “We have to increase our food budget since now you actually eat here.”
Speaking of Megan, she spent nine months of the year with a ‘serious’ medical condition called being-pregnant-with-the-fourth-while-still-trying-to-raise-the-other-three. While this condition was happily resolved when we welcomed our beautiful Avery into the family, doctors observed that it has spawned a new condition: lack-of-time-to-spend-papercrafting-with-Stampin’ Up-itis. Fortunately, she’s doing all she can with card parties and crafting get-togethers to address this second issue.
Alison has evolved into a full-blown basketball aficionado. She cleverly repurposed book fair money we sent with her to school to acquire Kobe Bryant and LeBron James posters “so that my room explains me.” She has already attended a couple of Pacers games this year and is playing in the 3rd/4th grade girls basketball league. She has also acquired close to 1,000 basketball cards and is now familiar with basketball legends dating back to Wilt Chamberlain and has become quite proficient at trading them. She also enjoys taking on the third grade boys in her class at basketball during recess.
Kaitlyn, our self-described “fashionista,” is loving kindergarten and riding the bus to school with her older sister. Almost daily she informs me that, “I’m a great person and I have a great personality” or that she’s wearing a certain outfit so that she can be a “diva.” My iPhone is now bogged down with half a dozen Barbie dress-up apps which she tries to play daily. When she’s exhausted her phone time for the day, she loves dancing around the house performing Taylor Swift songs for an imaginary audience of thousands. Not only does Kaitlyn have a “great personality”, but she is also an outstanding reader. All she wants for Christmas is for Taylor Swift to come visit her personally. (Anyone have any connections?)
Max has taught us how boys are innately different than girls—he cries much less and punches, tackles, and wrestles significantly more. One of his new favorite pastimes is studying different types of trucks. He is able to successfully identify excavators, backhoes, cranes, mixers, loaders, and tractors. Additionally, he is developing quite an extensive Matchbox car collection thanks to his older sisters’ lack of knowledge on what else boys like. He is a great big brother to his new little sister and tries to “save” her all the time (even though we’re still not quite sure what that exactly means).
As mentioned above, Avery (but we call her Ava for short), was born and is doing wonderfully. She’s been a joy for all of us and has an infectious and enthusiastic smile which she is just starting to show off. We feel privileged and blessed to have such wonderful friends and family as you. We wish you a very Happy Holidays and a wonderful 2011.
Merry Christmas 2009
December 2009
Dear Family and Friends—
We are always grateful for the spirit of this season when people tend to turn their attention to the things that matter most—family, faith and friends. We also appreciate the opportunity to reflect back on our year, and wanted to catch you up on what we’ve been up to.
Since I’m getting old and can’t really remember what happened this year, I turned to our blog at nathanandmegan.blogspot.com to refresh my memory:
It looks like I’ve been a management consultant with Accenture for a year and half. In other words, I’ve accumulated 64 nights at Starwood Hotels, 58 nights at Marriott properties and Gold status on Star Alliance flights this year. I’ve spent most of this year doing growth strategy and innovation projects for health plans, health associations, pharmaceutical companies and management consulting companies in the Midwest and on the East coast.
It turns out that Megan took up gardening this year, with two bed-sized plots installed in our backyard producing delicious homegrown vegetables in just 2 – 3 short months. Her other pastime was showing me the rooms she painted while I was gone on business trips. She continues to enjoy living near her family, as well as by a good group of her Stampin’ Up friends and customers. We also celebrated our 8th anniversary by going on a cruise to Mexico (without the children!).
It seems that Alison is greatly enjoying life as a second-grader. She takes great pride in getting her spelling and math homework right and is always anxious to teach us the things she’s learning about. As our little sports enthusiast, Ali learned how to ride her bike on two wheels, joined a softball league during the summer, and played “knock out” with her aunts and uncles at Thanksgiving during our trip to Tucson. She continues to take piano lessons and enjoys practicing first thing in the morning so that we all wake up to her melodies.
It’s apparent that Kaitlyn (our “girly-girl”) is an aspiring fashion designer who is able to turn shirts into skirts, pants into jackets, and shorts back into shorts. Her second year of pre-school (upgraded to the three days-a-week plan) has really been great for her and for Megan. She’s reading like a little champ and sounding out long words with confidence. She loved visiting Utah for my sister’s wedding, and especially enjoyed the pretty “princess” gown.
There never seems to be a dull moment when Max is around. He’s just a happy-go-lucky kid who loves to explore (read: “get into things”) and experiment (read: “I wonder what will happen when I turn this opened package of rice upside down on the kitchen floor?”). He’s speaking in little sentences even understood by people outside of the family! And, he just enjoys staying home, playing and wrestling with his family.
At the end of 2009, one thing is clear: we feel privileged and blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2010.
Dear Family and Friends—
We are always grateful for the spirit of this season when people tend to turn their attention to the things that matter most—family, faith and friends. We also appreciate the opportunity to reflect back on our year, and wanted to catch you up on what we’ve been up to.
Since I’m getting old and can’t really remember what happened this year, I turned to our blog at nathanandmegan.blogspot.com to refresh my memory:
It looks like I’ve been a management consultant with Accenture for a year and half. In other words, I’ve accumulated 64 nights at Starwood Hotels, 58 nights at Marriott properties and Gold status on Star Alliance flights this year. I’ve spent most of this year doing growth strategy and innovation projects for health plans, health associations, pharmaceutical companies and management consulting companies in the Midwest and on the East coast.
It turns out that Megan took up gardening this year, with two bed-sized plots installed in our backyard producing delicious homegrown vegetables in just 2 – 3 short months. Her other pastime was showing me the rooms she painted while I was gone on business trips. She continues to enjoy living near her family, as well as by a good group of her Stampin’ Up friends and customers. We also celebrated our 8th anniversary by going on a cruise to Mexico (without the children!).
It seems that Alison is greatly enjoying life as a second-grader. She takes great pride in getting her spelling and math homework right and is always anxious to teach us the things she’s learning about. As our little sports enthusiast, Ali learned how to ride her bike on two wheels, joined a softball league during the summer, and played “knock out” with her aunts and uncles at Thanksgiving during our trip to Tucson. She continues to take piano lessons and enjoys practicing first thing in the morning so that we all wake up to her melodies.
It’s apparent that Kaitlyn (our “girly-girl”) is an aspiring fashion designer who is able to turn shirts into skirts, pants into jackets, and shorts back into shorts. Her second year of pre-school (upgraded to the three days-a-week plan) has really been great for her and for Megan. She’s reading like a little champ and sounding out long words with confidence. She loved visiting Utah for my sister’s wedding, and especially enjoyed the pretty “princess” gown.
There never seems to be a dull moment when Max is around. He’s just a happy-go-lucky kid who loves to explore (read: “get into things”) and experiment (read: “I wonder what will happen when I turn this opened package of rice upside down on the kitchen floor?”). He’s speaking in little sentences even understood by people outside of the family! And, he just enjoys staying home, playing and wrestling with his family.
At the end of 2009, one thing is clear: we feel privileged and blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2010.
Merry Christmas 2007
18 December 2007
Dear Family and Friends—
We are always grateful for this season of the year. Not only does it provide a time to reflect on the birth, life, mission and resurrection of the Savior, but it also gives us a chance to reflect back on the year and the things that we’ve been able to accomplish.
Megan spent the majority of 2007 in preparations for the arrival of our newest addition to the family—Maxwell—who was born on his birthday. Max has been such a joy to have in our home, and is a very relaxed boy who is not bothered in the least by loud sounds. I think all those months of hearing his vocal older sisters from the womb got him used to the idea of noise.
Kaitlyn will be getting old later this month, and has enjoyed starting “school.” Each Wednesday morning, Megan and three other moms in our area rotate teaching a little joy school class for two hours, which Kaitlyn absolutely loves. She is our “girly girl” who changes outfits at least three times per day, loves to wear skirts and dresses, and has developed a deep infatuation with Polly Pockets toys.
Alison began full-day kindergarten in the fall and rides the bus both to and from school each day. She has matured tremendously and has developed an independence and self-awareness which is quite remarkable. She is also becoming a proficient and motivated reader. Each day she brings home a new book from the school library to read at night and then returns it first thing the next morning; the librarian says Ali could run the place.
Besides giving birth to Max, Megan’s highlight of the year was our summer stint in Charlotte, North Carolina where I had an internship with Bank of America. She enjoyed taking the girls to the pool nearly every day, meeting other young working families, actually having time in the evening to spend with her husband, and of course, scrapbooking and stamping.
I am enjoying the additional scheduling flexibility that comes with being a second year business school student at Darden, and am relieved that we have now landed a full-time strategy job starting next year after graduation. In my spare time I still love playing guitar.
In order to keep others informed of the happenings in our lives we have started a blog at nathanandmegan.blogspot.com, which you can check if you want a family update before next December.
We feel privileged and lucky to have friends and family like you and wish you a very Merry Christmas and wonderful 2008.
Dear Family and Friends—
We are always grateful for this season of the year. Not only does it provide a time to reflect on the birth, life, mission and resurrection of the Savior, but it also gives us a chance to reflect back on the year and the things that we’ve been able to accomplish.
Megan spent the majority of 2007 in preparations for the arrival of our newest addition to the family—Maxwell—who was born on his birthday. Max has been such a joy to have in our home, and is a very relaxed boy who is not bothered in the least by loud sounds. I think all those months of hearing his vocal older sisters from the womb got him used to the idea of noise.
Kaitlyn will be getting old later this month, and has enjoyed starting “school.” Each Wednesday morning, Megan and three other moms in our area rotate teaching a little joy school class for two hours, which Kaitlyn absolutely loves. She is our “girly girl” who changes outfits at least three times per day, loves to wear skirts and dresses, and has developed a deep infatuation with Polly Pockets toys.
Alison began full-day kindergarten in the fall and rides the bus both to and from school each day. She has matured tremendously and has developed an independence and self-awareness which is quite remarkable. She is also becoming a proficient and motivated reader. Each day she brings home a new book from the school library to read at night and then returns it first thing the next morning; the librarian says Ali could run the place.
Besides giving birth to Max, Megan’s highlight of the year was our summer stint in Charlotte, North Carolina where I had an internship with Bank of America. She enjoyed taking the girls to the pool nearly every day, meeting other young working families, actually having time in the evening to spend with her husband, and of course, scrapbooking and stamping.
I am enjoying the additional scheduling flexibility that comes with being a second year business school student at Darden, and am relieved that we have now landed a full-time strategy job starting next year after graduation. In my spare time I still love playing guitar.
In order to keep others informed of the happenings in our lives we have started a blog at nathanandmegan.blogspot.com, which you can check if you want a family update before next December.
We feel privileged and lucky to have friends and family like you and wish you a very Merry Christmas and wonderful 2008.
Merry Christmas 2003
If I were on track--posting 1 blog entry per week towards my goal of 52 for the year--then as of this week I would have 36 entries. I have 13. So, I'm woefully behind and desperate for content. Desperate. Content.
I thought, it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane and re-visit our family Christmas letters (at least the ones I could find), since those should be posted for our posterity and your entertainment.
So, without further ado, here's the earliest one I could find: 2003.
**************************************
Dear Family and Friends:
2003 has been a wonderful year. It has now been 1 full year that we have lived in Provo. We feel so at home in our new house, neighborhood, and ward.
Speaking of the ward, Nathan is currently serving as Scoutmaster and 2nd Counselor in the Young Men’s Presidency. He has also enjoyed working remotely for IBM—especially the “commute.” It’s nice for him to be able to have lunch with Megan, and take 5-minute breaks to play with Alison in order to remember why he works so hard.
Speaking of working hard, Megan is learning how to juggle family, school, and church responsibilities simultaneously. The exciting thing is that she has only 1 year left before graduating from BYU in Marriage, Family, and Human Development. Megan is also doing her fair share in scouting working with the Cub Scouts, as the 2nd Counselor in the Primary Presidency.
Speaking of Primary, Ali isn’t in it. However, we are sure glad she attends Nursery. It’s amazing how much of a difference 1 year makes: at this time last year Alison couldn’t walk, say words, or eat normal food. Now Ali runs around, has a vocabulary that grows daily, and drags us to the pantry to pick out her favorite snacks. Also, she has somehow gotten cuter over the past year—if that’s even possible! During this Christmas season she has loved learning more about baby Jesus.
Speaking of Christmas, it’s nice to celebrate this season and remember what matters most. We are thankful for the life, perfect example and Resurrection of Him whose birth we celebrate. Merry Christmas!
I thought, it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane and re-visit our family Christmas letters (at least the ones I could find), since those should be posted for our posterity and your entertainment.
So, without further ado, here's the earliest one I could find: 2003.
**************************************
Dear Family and Friends:
2003 has been a wonderful year. It has now been 1 full year that we have lived in Provo. We feel so at home in our new house, neighborhood, and ward.
Speaking of the ward, Nathan is currently serving as Scoutmaster and 2nd Counselor in the Young Men’s Presidency. He has also enjoyed working remotely for IBM—especially the “commute.” It’s nice for him to be able to have lunch with Megan, and take 5-minute breaks to play with Alison in order to remember why he works so hard.
Speaking of working hard, Megan is learning how to juggle family, school, and church responsibilities simultaneously. The exciting thing is that she has only 1 year left before graduating from BYU in Marriage, Family, and Human Development. Megan is also doing her fair share in scouting working with the Cub Scouts, as the 2nd Counselor in the Primary Presidency.
Speaking of Primary, Ali isn’t in it. However, we are sure glad she attends Nursery. It’s amazing how much of a difference 1 year makes: at this time last year Alison couldn’t walk, say words, or eat normal food. Now Ali runs around, has a vocabulary that grows daily, and drags us to the pantry to pick out her favorite snacks. Also, she has somehow gotten cuter over the past year—if that’s even possible! During this Christmas season she has loved learning more about baby Jesus.
Speaking of Christmas, it’s nice to celebrate this season and remember what matters most. We are thankful for the life, perfect example and Resurrection of Him whose birth we celebrate. Merry Christmas!
Sunday, July 17, 2016
It's The Climb
So, looking through the pictures on my phone to try to find something else to blog about so that I can narrow the gap between the number of posts I'm supposed to have at this point in the year, and the number of posts that I actually have--I discovered that Megan's sister's family came to town for some reason at the end of March.
I don't know. I had to work, so I'm guessing it had to do with Spring Break or something. Or perhaps it was that, being good, law-abiding citizens, they were simply leaving their native Indiana to follow the law stating that "baths may not be taken between the months of October and March."
Seriously though, we had a great time. One of the activities that I was able to participate in was the visit to Inner Peaks.
Here Grant and Kaitlyn were able to climb to the top of the bouldering wall by using these protruding rock dealeos.
I don't know. I had to work, so I'm guessing it had to do with Spring Break or something. Or perhaps it was that, being good, law-abiding citizens, they were simply leaving their native Indiana to follow the law stating that "baths may not be taken between the months of October and March."
Seriously though, we had a great time. One of the activities that I was able to participate in was the visit to Inner Peaks.
Here Grant and Kaitlyn were able to climb to the top of the bouldering wall by using these protruding rock dealeos.
Max was successfully able to climb up to this point and then refuse all bribes, cajoling, and peer pressure to climb higher and touch the top of the wall.
Here Kaitlyn, Max, Grant and Garrison were able to show how they were not stuck. Ali, Gabby, Jessica, and I were also around here somewhere doing something that probably saved someone's life and kept them from plummeting to their certain death. Probably.
All in all, it was a great time and we were so happy that they came to visit! Megan's parents were able to make the trip as well, so we had a great time being together.
(I think they did other things while they were here, but again...that pesky job.)
Signs, More Funny Signs
As you remember from 2011, I like funny signs. I'm always on the look out for funny, hilarious, comical, humorous, witty, jocular, hysterical, riotous, uproarious, and/or wacky or zany signs. (But, those types only.)
My beloved family knows this. For my birthday this year (only 2 months past--so I'm not that far behind), as they went to go acquire a delectable treat for us to consume in my honor, they saw the cookie cake below out on display for sale.
It didn't have any "sale" sign or "clearance" notification of any kind, so apparently they thought this was a perfectly legitimate, defect-free product. It reads:
"Happy Birthday Day!"
Now, I'm no expert, but isn't that second "day" pretty much redundant, or superfluous? Just sayin'.
Actually, I do need to go later to the ATM machine to enter my PIN number, and see if the LCD display will allow me to download in PDF format.
I bet what happened was that the baker had just come down with RAS syndrome and it hadn't passed yet.
Then, just 3 weeks ago, we went with the youth in our stake to visit the historical church sites in Palmyra (NY not Syria). While we were visiting the location where the first editions of the Book of Mormon were published, we came across this little ditty on a first floor exit:
This sign was very effective. In fact, probably one of the most I've ever seen as no one in any of the groups (over 220 kids!) tried to use that door, and further, there were no reports of lion attacks.
This sign also illustrates the importance of reading the footnotes--which is a good, secondary lesson.
This sign also illustrates the importance of reading the footnotes--which is a good, secondary lesson.
(2016 Blog Post #12? Check.)
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Holding Down the Fort
So, last weekend Megan was out of town for her grandmother's funeral, and Ali and Kate were visiting my parents in Tucson. That left me, alone, to take care of Max, Ava and Olivia. (I was informed that it's not called "babysitting" if you're taking care of your own children.)
We weren't quite sure how we would survive without them for the weekend (and, in fact, some of us cried that night that we missed them!). However, we did our best to be courageous and forge on. If Ali and Kate were strong enough to fly across the country by themselves, surely we were strong enough to sleep in our own beds, in our own house, in our own state at night by ourselves.
With Dad in charge, that meant pizza, re-heated pizza, or cold day-old, leftover pizza for every meal until that was gone. Then, we busted out the Mac and Cheese...er...vegetable platter with organically grown healthy, non-mutiny inciting comestibles.
Food choices aside, we had a great time together. Everyone piled on top of me and we watched a family movie together (Disney's "Brave"). We went to the park to play, played Just Dance, and did other such good-fathering things like helping write and gave a talk in Primary (before sacrament meeting even!), and pretend light saber fighting. We even went to the pool together!
(Almost equally as impressive, in my opinion, is that the kids were still bathed for church on Sunday and we didn't count the pool time as bathing!)
Here's some proof that the kids survived and were happy while we were together.
Of course, we all rejoiced when mom got home and helped us get things back on track.
I learned that being the "mom" is about as a tough of a job as there is out there--and I only had 60% of the crew!
Don't ever leave again!
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Memories of Ruth
My extended family is having a reunion this summer that we won't be able to make as literally every week of summer is already called for. However, as a part of that, the family reunion organizers asked for notes and stories about my grandma who passed away.
We had a great memory that we shared, so I thought I'd post it here too:
Living on the East Coast has made our trips back to Utah less frequent (and more difficult). In 2012, there were several family reunions and events that brought us to Utah, but we weren't sure we were going to be able to make it up to Idaho to see Grandma (and Grandpa) Call with the available time we had. Further, given the additional time in the car that that meant imposing on our young children in a too-small sedan, and the additional expense of taking a rental car another several hundred miles out of the way, we told ourselves, "we'll just make it a priority to get up there next time we're out this way."
But, shortly we realized that we didn't know when we'd be out west again and that there was no better time to drive up to Idaho Falls than at that time!
So, starting from where we were, we took some circuitous route through Wyoming and 5 hours later arrived at John Adams Parkway. The toll from a long drive must have been evident because almost as soon as we came in, Grandma took the great-grandkids out to the backyard to play some games. In her 80's, she had apparently been called to serve in the Stake Primary, and had a whole host of games they had just used at a stake activity. According to the memories of our kids, she got out a tea party, a ring toss, a bean bag toss, a lacrosse-type catch game and some game involving a bucket and wet sponge. She showed them how to do it and we played for a little bit, before the over-12 crowd became exhausted and left the under-12's to stay outside and keep playing.
Max commented "She had lots of enthusiasm!"
When it was time for lunch outside on the patio, she gave the children containers and they went out again to the backyard where she showed them how to walk through the rows of plants in the garden and pick the ripe raspberries, green beans, and other vegetables. (Ali remembers that an apple tree had recently fallen in the backyard.) Ali thinks she literally had raspberries for lunch. Max picked an ate a whole onion, which Grandma was surprised at, but reassured him that although his pick was unconventional, that there were probably some great health benefits! Kaitlyn remembers having an almost unlimited supply of popsicles that Grandma gave them after lunch.
When the kids were done eating and had retired to the basement to play with toys and attempt to climb the metal support pole, we enjoyed talking for hours about life and politics and the gospel--all of which Grandma knew more about than all of us together. That evening (at 1AM, according to Alison), we taught the kids how to play "Mormon Bridge" as we sat around the dining room table. The other children had already passed out on the couches downstairs with individual boxes of cereal that Grandma had given them to eat while they watched cartoons.
Although we had to leave first thing the next morning, we had a "sweet breakfast!" according to the children, (which was surely more than we needed), and we were sent on our way with food for the road and hugs and words encouragement as we left.
We all remember taking that trip and we're so glad we did.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Max Said This
If I were on track, I would have, by my estimate, 16 blog posts by this point in the year if I had posted every week. This is post #9. So...I'm behind, but not so far behind that reaching my goal of 52 is totally out of reach. Let's do this.
So, one of the things I occasionally do--some may even say it's something I like to do, though that's probably up for debate--is make crazy and purposefully lame raps to try to get the kids to laugh or smile or acknowledge my presence. It's usually free style, which means that it's pretty terrible.
One of the kids' favorites from past attempts is:
Pajamas, pajimmas, I like to go swimming.
(Yes, you can see why I'm the guitarist in the band, not the singer or lyricist.)
Well, today I was at it again when Max stopped me and said, "Dad, you shouldn't rap. Rappers use cuss words, and that's not good."
I then tried to explain to him that not all rappers used cuss words and attempted to demonstrate:
Sit down and press play on the recorder
Your room has lots of stuff in it because you are a hoarder
(Don't judge me. They are purposefully bad. Seriously. Purposefully.)
Max then proceeded to explain, and I quote, "Dad, that is still offensive to me. You called me a hoarder."
I'm glad that the boy has high standards. But, I guess it's time for me to hang up the giant clock around my neck for good and stick with what I actually do well musically: listen to the radio at deafening volumes.
So, one of the things I occasionally do--some may even say it's something I like to do, though that's probably up for debate--is make crazy and purposefully lame raps to try to get the kids to laugh or smile or acknowledge my presence. It's usually free style, which means that it's pretty terrible.
One of the kids' favorites from past attempts is:
Pajamas, pajimmas, I like to go swimming.
(Yes, you can see why I'm the guitarist in the band, not the singer or lyricist.)
Well, today I was at it again when Max stopped me and said, "Dad, you shouldn't rap. Rappers use cuss words, and that's not good."
I then tried to explain to him that not all rappers used cuss words and attempted to demonstrate:
Sit down and press play on the recorder
Your room has lots of stuff in it because you are a hoarder
(Don't judge me. They are purposefully bad. Seriously. Purposefully.)
Max then proceeded to explain, and I quote, "Dad, that is still offensive to me. You called me a hoarder."
I'm glad that the boy has high standards. But, I guess it's time for me to hang up the giant clock around my neck for good and stick with what I actually do well musically: listen to the radio at deafening volumes.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Olivia's Obstacle Course
So, I'm downstairs working on putting the living room back together after we brought desks, crayons, rolling chairs, floormats, "conference packets," , games, baby dolls, notebooks, pens, bowls of treats and dress up clothes downstairs to be able to watch General Conference and make sure we had all of the tools necessary to get as much out of it as possible.
From upstairs, Kaitlyn calls out, "Umm...Dad. Can you up here for a minute?" in that tone of voice--the half-puzzled, half Houston-we-have-a-problem one. I paused my vacuuming and sauntered upstairs to investigate what the problem, or potential problem, might be.
When I got there, Kaitlyn said, "Look what Olivia did--all by herself" and pointed to the most unique indoor obstacle course anyone in the family has ever assembled:
She had lined up the indoor slide at the top of the 2 stairs that step down into Alison and Kailyn's room to land on the indoor, mini trampoline. From there, it stepped back up onto Kaitlyn's gymnastics pad which was folded in thirds.
Next to that, she had dumped out one of the bins of toys from the play room and turned it upside down to serve as a giant step stool onto the kids play table which she had also brought in from the play room.
She then proceeded to show me how it worked (click to view):
Of course, once the older kids (who weren't too big to break the thing) saw how it was done, they wanted in on the action.
My first instinct was to bust them, but, then I thought, let's party!
Fortunately, they were able to cry hysterically when I asked them to take it down so that Ali and Kaitlyn could actually get in and out of their bedroom and go to bed.
From upstairs, Kaitlyn calls out, "Umm...Dad. Can you up here for a minute?" in that tone of voice--the half-puzzled, half Houston-we-have-a-problem one. I paused my vacuuming and sauntered upstairs to investigate what the problem, or potential problem, might be.
When I got there, Kaitlyn said, "Look what Olivia did--all by herself" and pointed to the most unique indoor obstacle course anyone in the family has ever assembled:
She had lined up the indoor slide at the top of the 2 stairs that step down into Alison and Kailyn's room to land on the indoor, mini trampoline. From there, it stepped back up onto Kaitlyn's gymnastics pad which was folded in thirds.
Next to that, she had dumped out one of the bins of toys from the play room and turned it upside down to serve as a giant step stool onto the kids play table which she had also brought in from the play room.
She then proceeded to show me how it worked (click to view):
My first instinct was to bust them, but, then I thought, let's party!
Fortunately, they were able to cry hysterically when I asked them to take it down so that Ali and Kaitlyn could actually get in and out of their bedroom and go to bed.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Daddy Daughter Dance
So, our stake held a Daddy-Daughter dance yesterday for Activity Girls-aged girls and their Dads or Grandpas or Home Teachers, etc. Since Kaitlyn met the necessary age requirements, and I met the necessary dad requirement, we were ready to rock!
As in every good dance, Kaitlyn told me what I needed to wear so that we appropriately matched, as much as possible. The Activity Girls made cute little matching, teal-colored hair roses, so we found my most teal-like shirt, took a mandatory pre-dance photo, and then hopped in the car for our pre-dance Daddy-Daughter dinner at Panera with some of the others dads and daughters from the stake that we knew were going to be there.
As in every good dance, Kaitlyn told me what I needed to wear so that we appropriately matched, as much as possible. The Activity Girls made cute little matching, teal-colored hair roses, so we found my most teal-like shirt, took a mandatory pre-dance photo, and then hopped in the car for our pre-dance Daddy-Daughter dinner at Panera with some of the others dads and daughters from the stake that we knew were going to be there.
At Panera, we split a "You Pick 2" that Kaitlyn had selected and that I finished while chatting about CCAR scenarios, the positives and negatives of using excess cash for stock buy backs in public companies, and the level of preparation for Sacrament Meeting speaking engagements. And, that was just what the girls wanted to talk about! (Well...maybe it was the dads having that conversation. I'm not sure.)
Once we got there, we did our very best to dance to the "stomp left two times" song, some song about a "party in the USA" requiring "nodding your head like 'yeah'", and shaking some stuff off (I assume snow).
Then, they busted out the limbo stick. Which I tried. And, I'm sure the back ache that I'm feeling today is completed unrelated. They didn't make us sign any waivers before attempting it, so I'm out of luck there.
Kaitlyn managed to start some very important trends while we were there: the conga line, the circle where people take turns dancing from one side to the other, and the DWTS spinning/twirling thingy from one side to the other (see photo below).
In all, we had a great time and it was inspiring to see the dads do anything (including dance like idiots--at least that's how it was in my case) to make sure their daughters were happy.
Dads. Daughters. Dancing. Who knew?
Sunday, March 13, 2016
A Saturday With The Little Girls
While Ali went to a Weddington Middle School baseball game, and Megan took Kaitlyn and Max shoe and shorts shopping, I got to go with the "littles" to the elementary school playground.
(I think the gimbal came through again on this footage.)
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Post #5.
Here. I posted something else! Does this count as a post? Does it actually have to have meaningful content or an actual update about the family? Does it have to completely (and accurately) reflect some sort of family history or event that we want documented forever and always? What is the minimum acceptable hurdle for a post to count? Could it be word count (because I'm starting to ramble pretty good here and this could really turn into something).
Seriously, here are some things you can (probably) look forward to this year on the blog:
Seriously, here are some things you can (probably) look forward to this year on the blog:
- Since we went to Disney in January, I'm sure I have at least 3 or 5 good posts about those days (including photos). So, look for that sometime this year.
- Ali was on the middle school basketball team and wrapped up her season in 2016 (although it started in 2015). So, that's something right there.
- Kaitlyn and Maxwell are doing gymnastics, and Kate is doing Activity Girls while Max does Cub Scouts. So, I think there might be some good stuff there too.
- Ava is learning to play the violin, so could there be some sort of Lindsey Sterling (not to be confused with Scott Sterling) music video lip-sync thingy in the works? Could be.
- Olivia is the cutest little speaker (and singer) at her age. I think there could be some good material there too.
So, go ahead and comment and let me know your thoughts. Videos, good? Still with photos better? Long, rambling posts just taking up space trying to get credit for a post to try to close the gap to the number of blog posts planned by this point in the year, good?
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Ali's Music Video
Admittedly, I'm not off to the perfect start to the blogging, as I had originally intended. Still, something is better than nothing--unless that "something" is being awakened at 5:00AM this morning by Olivia who couldn't find her white blanket (pronounced "blain-tee") which was actually just under her other blanket--in which case "nothing" is definitely better than "something." But, I digress.
After discovering (with Kaitlyn) that I could make the kids test subjects in practice music videos of all kinds, and discovering that they actually liked it too (I can't tell you how many people Kaitlyn has wanted to show her video to), I thought it would be worthwhile to give Alison a chance to shine, after observing her reaction to Kaitlyn's video production.
(For all of about 7 minutes of shooting and 30 minutes of editing, that wasn't too shabby, I don't think.)
What's that tremendous improvement in camera stability in this video vs. Kate's, you ask? That's the latest toy I'm rather excited about--my Lanparte HHG-01 gimbal. My new secret weapon in video-making.
(4 down. 48 to go.)
After discovering (with Kaitlyn) that I could make the kids test subjects in practice music videos of all kinds, and discovering that they actually liked it too (I can't tell you how many people Kaitlyn has wanted to show her video to), I thought it would be worthwhile to give Alison a chance to shine, after observing her reaction to Kaitlyn's video production.
Our kids are becoming wonderful multi-instrumentalists, this gave Ali a good chance to show off some of her skills (although as I type this I realize that we didn't get any good ukulele shots here).
Any who, here's Ali doing her best Taylor Swift impression. She rocks!
What's that tremendous improvement in camera stability in this video vs. Kate's, you ask? That's the latest toy I'm rather excited about--my Lanparte HHG-01 gimbal. My new secret weapon in video-making.
(4 down. 48 to go.)
Sunday, February 7, 2016
Kaitlyn's Fight Song
Yesterday, we had the goal of spending some quality time with each of the kids doing something that they wanted. Olivia and I put together some puzzles (pronounced "puzz-o"). Ava and I did something, probably. Max and I had some epic light saber battles and played Killer Bunnies. We went and watched Alison play some assist-heavy John Stockton-like church ball.
And, then Kaitlyn and I played a game where we say a song and see how many notes in a row of the melody we can play on piano by ear. She's pretty good. She wins more than I expect her to.
Yesterday, that game morphed a little into "figure out the chords to the song" and we chose "Fight Song" to figure out. After a few minutes we had the main chord progression down and were having some fun jamming on it. Then, I had to step away to for a moment address something with one of the other children. When I came back, I found that Kaitlyn had started recording herself playing and singing it on my phone.
I asked her if she wanted to try to make a real music video for a few minutes. This is what we came up with:
(Take that 3rd blog post of 52!)
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Happy Birthday to Kaitlyn!
Kaitlyn had a birthday, shout hurray. We wanted to sing to her today. She's one year older and wiser too. Happy Birthday. To. You. (To get the melody to the above stuck in your head, click here.)
Since we celebrate her birthday in December, we checked the weather to make sure we were planning appropriate activities for North Carolina:
Since we celebrate her birthday in December, we checked the weather to make sure we were planning appropriate activities for North Carolina:
Well, so much for the snowball fights, snowmen, snow chase and snow sculpting! We opted for just opening some windows so we didn't have to turn on the air conditioning (which we did end up doing a couple of times in December anyway!).
Take 1: December 22nd.
Kaitlyn invited a bunch of friends over for some (mostly) unstructured play. It wasn't long before Megan observed that the party seemed like it was just going "OK". In order to up the energy level, she suddenly brought out the huge surprise gift--a gymnastics mat--so that the girls could practice contorting themselves into every shape known to humankind. But, unfortunately, that didn't seem to work. Kaitlyn wasn't as excited as we had hoped. Then, she threw up.
Party postponed!
Take 2: December 26th.
With Christmas (and the flu) under her belt, Kaitlyn was ready to give it another shot. She invited her same group of friends over and this time the energy was much better!
Kaitlyn (and Megan) had thoroughly prepared for the second attempt by going all over town to find the necessary accouterments for the goodie bags: nail polish, lip gloss, Bath and Body Works hand sanitizer, and, of course, candy.
When all of the girls arrived they made the most of their time together by watching the seasonally- and age-appropriate "Santa Clause" movie together and hanging out doing girly things and asking dad-type people to stay away.
Fortunately, I was able to attend the present opening and birthday cookie candle-blowing out portion of the activities. Kaitlyn was incredibly sweet with each gift received and made sure she personally thanked each and every giver with a "Thanks!" and a side-hug.
She then had the lung capacity and saliva-control to blow out the candles and share the cake with everyone.
Since we were leaving for Indiana after her birthday, her requested birthday meal had to wait until we returned (and which, she noted, helped extend her birthday celebration to about 2 weeks from the first party attempt to the final birthday dinner).
The homemade macaroni and cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, corn and asparagus were a fantastic choice!
Happy Birthday Kaitlyn! I can't believe you're only a year away from being in Young Women's!
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