The Things That Last

We had a wonderful Christmas in Indiana. By wonderful, I mean each person in the family took turns with the flu. My turn fell on Christmas Day itself. I was well enough to watch the kids open their presents and then spent the rest of the day in bed except for a few times each hour when I wasn't in bed. This gave me a lot of time to ponder about things that I haven't taken time to think about in some time.

Alison and Kaitlyn had a great Christmas and received more presents than they really knew what to do with. Kaitlyn was the best example of this. She asked to go downstairs and watch TV before she had even finished opening all of her presents! I thought of the money that we spent on trying to buy things that would make them happy. I also thought about the things that money absolutely cannot buy: the sincere love of a wonderful wife or the pure love of our kids for us, their parents. For example, Kaitlyn gave me mermaid stickers for Christmas and Ali gave me a "fuzzy poster" to color in and decorate. You literally cannot buy the sentiment that those gifts to me represent. Even though they were $2.99 apiece, they are worth significantly more than that. Plus, it keeps up the family tradition of giving others the gifts that you really want for yourself.

I was a little sad that I missed out on the rest of the day (especially the homemade Cinnabon rolls), but I'm glad that I had time to think about the "big rocks" (or ornaments, depending on the version of the story) that "go in first."

Kaitlyn had a great birthday a couple of days later. We asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she replied, "Nothing! Just cake." So, we made sure she got a princess cake with real toy princess decorations that she could play with afterwards. She absolutely loved them (in fact, more than the doll she had asked Santa for). She's so sweet.


She's also quite contrary. This evening at dinner she was having a fit over some trivial thing. I said, "Kaitlyn, we are having prayer. Sit down, close your eyes, close your mouth (meaning 'please, be quiet during the prayer'), and fold your arms." Surprisingly, she did all of those but she sat there at the table during the prayer with her eyes closed and her quiet mouth as wide open as she could get it.

Ali loved getting a few board games for Christmas and has gone undefeated at the Game of Life in the two times we've played in the last week. It's been good practice for her to do math by adding and subtracting hundred thousands rather than just tens, and has also helped her to better understand that you get money by going to college to get a career. I don't think she's quite gotten the hang of insurance yet though--and we haven't pushed it.

Max's smile is to die for. My favorite pastime of late has been to rub his enormous belly really fast just to watch his face light up with pure enjoyment. And, it's contagious.

He's also managed to escape numerous run-ins with his older sisters unscathed, such as this time when we walked into his room at nap-time only to find both girls in the crib with him:



In conclusion, we've had a wonderful (seriously) Christmas, and I've enjoyed partaking of the little, priceless things in life that money cannot buy but can only provide the illusion of.

Mischief and Merryment

This past week, as I wrapped up my 6th quarter at school, I had occasion to reflect on the past year and half. I looked up in my closest at my pile of cases: double-sided 8x11's in 10 to 12-point font reaching almost 3-feet high, and I've read every page in it. I thought the picture nearly perfectly encapsulated the tremendous challenge that business school has been, and the amount of work I've had to put into it.

But, since this past week was also exam week, it meant that I actually had time to spend with the kids. Rather than prepare 2 or 3 cases per day, I had a week to complete only 2 exams and 1 paper at my leisure. As a result, we really had a great time together as a family this week. On Monday night we had pizza with the Vance's (since it was exam week for the first year MBA students as well). On Thursday night we all went and saw the movie "Enchanted." On Friday night, I left Megan to host a Stampin' Up calendar party and took the kids to Ali's school for to hear the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes perform songs that they wrote--like "Maybe My Phone is Broken, Not My Heart." Saturday afternoon, I took the kids out to lunch at the playland.

Being home also meant that I had more time to help around the house. I got to work on the house, and Ali really wanted to help. So, I told her that she could vacuum. To my surprise, she enthusiastically agreed and volunteered to do the computer room. I wanted to be sure to document it, since I don't expect her enthusiasm to continue as she gets older.

This wasn't just an isolated episode. This week Ali has been as polite and kind, saying "please" and "thank you," as she has ever been in her whole life. The motivation that Santa inspires by only taking presents to the good kids is really remarkable.

Unfortunately, I did have to go to school to work on things a couple of times during the week. During one such time, I received a phone call from Megan to inform me that our "sweet Kaitlyn" had taken advantage of Megan's showering time to open EVERY present under the Christmas tree. Megan came downstairs expecting to find Kaitlyn watching Disney Channel, but found this instead:

Fortunately, Megan was to collect everything and pack it away quickly, although we now have significantly more wrapping to do in the next few days. Kaitlyn had also taken as many of the Santa keepsake ornaments off of the tree that she could reach and lined them up on the ground to make a train (despite repeated prior warnings from us to leave the ornaments alone, and that the Christmas tree was just something to look out to decorate our house and to remind us of the season).

This morning, just as we were getting ready to leave for church, Kaitlyn came running in to me with my iPod which she had found and proclaimed, "Dad! I'm going jogging." (She's seen Megan take the iPod with her whenever Megan goes jogging. In fact, Megan doesn't really like to even go jogging without it.)

Finally. I thought I ought to pass along that we have formally accepted the offer to join Accenture Strategy. I think the fact that I had a job in the bag, may also have contributed to my comparatively peaceful exam season. We are really excited about the opportunity.

Now, we haven't received the signing bonus check in the mail just yet, but since it's coming, I figured it was in everyone's best interest to go ahead and pick the up natural mahogany finish Gibson Les Paul Studio.

So I did.

Max's Big Day

Today was Max's blessing day. Both Megan's parents and my parents came to Virginia for the express purpose of participating in the blessing this morning. (Ok, so seeing Ali and Kaitlyn too may have had something to do with it as well.) Max was so good during the blessing--he didn't cry at all.

That really isn't much of a surprise. Max has been such a good-natured boy so far. He's not bothered by the usual loud noises such as the vacuum or Kaitlyn's screams, and he doesn't even cry after Ali's occasional accidental full-body squishes ("Sorry...I didn't see Max there"). Max is definitely a male through-and-through; he only cares about being fed and being comfortable. (Soon enough he'll also care about playing the drums, but first things first.)

Since it was Max's big day today, we offer the following collection of photos:

Not To Be Outdone

My favorite Ali story of the week occurred right after our Friday night married institute dinner-and-discussion class. I'll skip the boring specific details about how I accidentally pulled the fire alarm and had to deal with a group of firefighters who showed up in quick time in a fire engine, and cut right to Ali.

She had just finished her third half-donut and was jumping around wildly--flailing her arms and legs in every direction and yelling incoherent babblery. I asked her what she was doing. She responded (as exactly as I can recollect), "Sugar! Sugar! I've had too much sugar today! Aah! Sugar!" Classic Ali. Too clever for her own good.

Over at my school they held a family Christmas party earlier in the week. Alison took that opportunity to tell Santa (who happened to be there) that all she wanted for Christmas was "a book." She's used to being poor. Maybe that's why she also took the opportunity to try her hand at a desk job. She sat behind the receptionist desk at the front of the building and said, "Can I help you? Do you have any questions?"




Kaitlyn has certainly had a great time with her grandparents here. Megan's parents had to leave immediately after the blessing to drive back to Indiana; they couldn't stay for the end of church. As we drove out of the church parking lot, with my parents following in the car behind us, Kaitlyn asked, "Where's the other Grandma and Grandpa?" She knows that "there's two grandmas and two grandpas" (her words) but I guess she's still figuring out how the naming thing works. Before my parents arrived on Friday night, Kaitlyn announced her exitement to see "Grandma Mary Lee and Grandpa Mary Lee."

This afternoon Kaitlyn climbed up on Grandpa's lap only to swipe the glasses off of his face and take off running. I tried desperately to capture a picture of her running around with them on, but this was the best I could do:

Trips, Trains and Tumbling

Megan and I spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Chicago at Accenture's "sell" weekend, where they did their best to convince us that accepting their offer was the best choice we could make. To be honest, we were leaning that way to begin with, so it probably wasn't that hard of a sell. We used it more as a "confirmation" weekend, to meet more people at the firm and to meet some of the people that I might be working with.

We took Max with us, but Ali and Kaitlyn spent time with the Hughes, McLaughlins and Sorensens who were incredibily gracious and kind for taking them for a couple of days (and for suffering through various meltdowns from each child).

Megan and I had a good time as well--when we weren't worrying about the girls. I think our highlight was eating at the Signature Room on the 95th and 96th floors of the John Hancock building. The views were incredible. Megan's parents were also very kind as they volunteered to drive up to Chicago from Indiana to watch Max so we could attend the dinner in the John Hancock building, although we ended up hiring a local service and everything worked out great. This picture is from our hotel at night, and doesn't really do justice at all to the kind of clear and amazing view we had.



Through it all, Megan decided she's not much of a big city girl. She didn't enjoy taking taxis everywhere or waiting in traffic. On the other hand, I decided that I'm not a huge fan of bitter cold made worse by blowing wind and airport delays due to impending blizzard conditions. That said, it looks like we're taking the job and will be adding Indianapolis to our list of places we've lived.

Max keeps getting bigger and bigger. Today he weighed in at 15 pounds. To put that in perspective, at 20 pounds (and 1 year), by law you can change the carseat from rear-facing to forward-facing. I'm guessing he'll hit the 20 pounds well before he hits the year mark.

Prior to our Thanksgiving and Chicago trips Max was sleeping about 6 hours straight at night, making both Megan and me (but especially Megan) very happy, and less tired. But, since our trips he's gotten out of the rhythm and has taken a few days to get back into the swing of things. I've been getting less and less sleep with an increasing workload at school (given that I didn't do anything during our trip to Chicago).

Kaitlyn is getting more and more creative. The other day she laid out all of the blocks in a long procession and declared it a train. I like how she grouped like-colors.

Kaitlyn is also getting smarter. We had stake conference yesterday. After following the directions to "get on Route 33 and drive over the mountain" we made it just in time to sit in the cafeteria of the high school where the meeting was held and which was being used as overflow. There were 2 closed circuit TV's which were set up so that we could watch the proceedings going on inside the auditorium. The girls didn't pay much attention, so on the way home we thought we'd see if they retained anything.

We asked Kaitlyn, "What did you learn at church today?" Kaitlyn's response, "The earth." Apparently, we missed that because they talked about Christmas and attitudes to have, and about the newly reorganized stake presidency. I followed up, "Anything else?" Her reply, "Monson." I guess church on TV (regardless of the location) means general conference, and I guess we've quizzed them all a little too much on who the general authorities are.

Alison is enjoying various and sundry adventures. The other day before bed, I walked in to find that she had set up the grocery shopping toy as a hurdle between her bed and Kaitlyn's bed and was leaping over it by springing from one bed to the other. I thought it was pretty funny and ran downstairs to get the camera. (What a bloggable moment!) However, perhaps I shouldn't have been so encouraging. A couple of jumps after taking this picture, she didn't clear the hurdle and ended up with quite a bruise on her little behind (which is still there).

I guess I should have shown her better technique. Use pillows.

Post by Ali and Kaitlyn

In our family, we have a lot of fun play-fighting and wrestling and playing "chase." Today, I said to Ali, "Ali, would you like to come over here for some spankings?"

She replied (and this she is going to type by herself), "Do I get a prize after?!"

Not bad typing. That only took about 7 minutes--that's a speedy 51 words per hour.

Kaitlyn will now type something. Let's try to get her to do her name: kaitlyn

Nice job. 3 minutes per word.

Max will now mash the keyboard: opl

Well...enough stalling. Type to get these kids into bed!

"My Eyeball Is Missing"

Kaitlyn is really becoming her own little person. Her silly little personality is starting to peek out like a toddler up past her bedtime sticking her head around the corner. Today during lunch after church, I looked up only to see Kaitlyn (immediately followed by Ali) saying, "My eyeball is missing!" while holding a grape up to her face.

It's so amazing how food finds it way everywhere except in their mouths!

Kaitlyn also loves to play with the digital camera. It's not so bad, because we can always delete the multitude of pictures that she takes, and our camera is rugged enough to handle an occasional drop. However, I personally can stand her taking pictures of random things for only so long before my patience wears thin and I take the camera away from her. Last week, however, she took off running with the camera before I had the chance to yoink it out of her hand. It took about one full lap around the house until I was in a good position to grab it. Just before I kindly repossessed the camera from Kaitlyn she managed to capture this incriminating photo:

On Friday, I had a field trip to Maryland to interview with another consulting company. Ali, on the other hand, had a field trip to Ash Lawn, home of James Monroe, U.S. President in 1816 and 1820. Here is a transcript of my conversation with Alison about it, 5 minutes ago:

Ali: "We went to 'Ash Lawn' for our field trip."

Me: "What is Ash Lawn?"

Ali: "It's an old place."

Me: "Why did you go to an old place?"

Ali: "...so we could learn about long ago, and today. They wore different clothes...[we learned] that girls wear long dresses and boys wear, like, suits. And...uh...today they wear...um...today girls can wear pants or jeans and shirts...Long ago they made candles by getting bee's honey and they put, like, um, a like piece of string in and they keeped [sic] doing that until it looks like a candle...and I made one...I made two! Really, I did make two. You're writing down everything I say?"

Our conversation got less productive when she was more concerned about reading my transcript than trying to answer my questions.

Moving on.

It's been about 5 or 6 weeks since Max was born, and Megan is really doing well. She's started running and exercising and several non-me people have commented on how skinny she looks, especially in her LBCD (little black church dress). Max, on the other hand, is packing it on, as you can see below.



Megan also volunteered at Ali's school this week and helped the kids trace their hands and then create "turkeys" with them. I sense that Ali feels a great sense of pride that her mom loves and cares about her enough to go help out at her school. I think Megan feels a great sense of successfully spying on her first daughter.