Like my mom always taught me, choose to do something solely on the basis of "well, everybody else is doing it". And so it goes with this blog. Because I must be the last of my friends and relations to start a family blog. Sure, I already have my own personal blog, where I write (or don't write, according to Kirsten) about things that pertain to me, as in these are my latest children-related horror stories I expect you all to chuckle over, but this is different. THIS is to be the scrapbook I never started, the journal that President Kimball begged me to keep when I was but a Merry Miss and didn't, and ditto for the family history I haven't done either. So here's to repentance and good intentions! Well, let's see if this takes....
Here is the latest decent picture we have of all of us. It was taken last November at Disneyland (specifically California Adventure) and I think it sums up for each of us individually what we think of having our picture taken. This pic should be familiar to most of you, as it was featured in our latest Christmas Letter which detailed our Lewis and Clark-type trek across the plains of Colorado, Utah and Nevada in our quest to see Mickey and make the interior of our car even filthier than our previous testing had indicated was possible. For those of you who haven't yet received your Christmas Letter from us, know that it is through no fault of your own (sorry Aunt Barbara!) but strictly due to our own slacker issues. I think I'll include the letter below, not only to free up space in the "I feel guilty " bin in my brain but because it might actually belong here on this page. What luck!
So here it is. For those of you who have already read our Christmas Letter, you can stop right here. Congratulations! You're done!
CAUTION: Before beginning to read any Christmas letter this extensive and involved, please consider your patience level and overall tolerance for long-winded retellings of past events/conversations/thoughts and feelings, etc.
In a breathtaking lack of judgment by Pie, I was able to fool him into taking a week-long road trip to Disneyland after Thanksgiving. During our week abroad we ate nothing but fast food for 3 meals a day--the last few days of which the children were barely able to feign delight at any more paper-wrapped feasts of cheeseburgers, nuggets and fries. But our trials were well worth it as the park was pleasantly uncrowded and the wildfires took the week off. Since matching shirts at Disneyland are de rigueur, we were naturally the Seven Dwarfs (see photo). However, by that last 12 hour day in the car on the way home Happy, Doc, Bashful, Sleepy, Grumpy, Sneezy and Dopey had unfortunately morphed into Irritable, Crabby, Belligerent, Whiney, Smudgy, Snotty, and Stinky. We are slowly regaining our sanity, but our car may never fully recover.
In other news:
Pie/Happy (For obvious reasons, Pie wore the Happy shirt.) Proud recipient of the Adult Softball Men’s D-Rec, Fall 2007 1st Place plaque. This is the realization of a long held dream of his to dominate in the Highlands Ranch Tuesday Night League. Please do not make the uneducated mistake, like me, of pointing out that most of the other teams seem all liquored up to begin with and furthermore they appear to be well into their third trimester. Because that is not a Happy conversation. Instead just smack him on the behiney the next time you see him and say “Good job, winner!” When he is not out dominating at softball, or fouling others on the basketball court, or on a ride with his mountain biking buddies, or at the gym, or golfing with “potential clients”, he can be found putting in many long hours for his real estate career—a job he repeatedly assures me is his favorite job ever.
Julie/Doc (Doc is the bossy one, right?) I still can’t believe it was my idea to load up the car with the family and schlep all the way to Disneyland (those types of shenanigans are usually suggested by Pie, rejected by me) for a quick week of fun, way-too-short visits with friends and family and an expensive churro habit at the park. We had such a good time that occasionally I thought my head might explode as I lovingly asked the kids to stop having quite such a good time. When I am not planning crazy family getaways or forcing us all to wear matching penguin costumes for Halloween, I am most likely thinking about blogging my adventures as a mom on my very own blog (http://www.juliekonchar.blogspot.com/). It is probably my most productive hobby (considering other hobbies of mine include beginning but never quite finishing many complicated sewing projects and dodging the nightly chore of cooking dinner) and hey, it beats expensive therapy sessions. Check it out—some of you are mentioned in it!
Sid/Bashful (When Sid saw his Bashful shirt he remarked, “I’m really more embarrassed than bashful.”) Nearly 12 and in the 6th grade, Sid has begun middle school this year (middle school, a phrase that causes me to shudder involuntarily even as I type it) and is having a great time taking such exotic classes as Chinese (Mandarin) and Forensic Science, amidst the more pedestrian courses of P.E and Language Arts and the decidedly frumpy Pre Algebra. He is probably most excited about the broadening of his lunch choice horizon that this new stage in his life has brought and is delighted to eat egg rolls every day. (He very soberly told me that the reason he chose to take Chinese as his elective this year was because “Well, I have always loved Panda Express”)
Calvin/Sleepy (There was really never a question of who would be Sleepy) Calvin is so laid back that he would sit around all day and alternately read a book and nap if I let him. He is in 3rd grade and has perfected the art of “forgetting” to do his homework. Calvin has resolutely avoided learning to ride a bike and really couldn’t care less that the twins can leave him in their dust. Quiet and sweet and endearingly lazy, he is nice to have around to balance the more bold flavors of the other children, such as…
Josie/Grumpy (Petulant, Willful, Ill-Humored--while not Dwarfs--were also choices we considered.) At Disneyland she looked up at me and sweetly declared, “Mom, I just hate these parades”. No fan of anything “girlie”, when informed that her friend would be an Ice Fairy Princess for Halloween, Josie graciously responded with “HUH!” only to look at me later and say with utter disgust “An Ice Fairy Princess? I mean, come on!” She sees nothing odd in starting up a Boys Club with her school chum Liam and when asked if there were any girls allowed in she responded “Of course not! It’s a Boys Club!” (Josie does a lot of talking in italics) She does, at times, feel the loss of female companionship and recently tearfully confided, “I just need to learn how to be more loving to girls.” Although she and Jon turned six in August, we were informed that she would remain 5. “Growing up is a racket”, she said “you just have to do more stuff the older you get”. (Note: You can find directions for making Josie’s homemade golf balls along with a few of her other artistic endeavors, all of which are unpleasantly resistant to clean-up efforts, on my blog.)
Jon/Sneezy (Well, Jon is not any more inclined to sneeze than the rest of us, but somebody had to be Sneezy.) As Josie’s long-suffering twin, Jonny is often called upon to patiently witness his sister’s superhero antics. (He laments, “Josie, it’s not fair. You can do stuff even boys can’t do!”) He is thrilled to be a first-grader and each night before bed works on perfecting his penmanship by making many detailed notes of the day’s grievances. Jon surprised us all at Disneyland by going on all the roller coasters. His favorites were The Matterhorn and Thunder Mountain. He didn’t care much for Space Mountain, mainly because of the down parts. (As he explains it, “When the ride goes down, I go up”-- which I think we can all agree is unsettling in the least.) He still loves to dance and sing and make funny faces, and now proudly adds high-intensity whistling to his list of accomplishments (much to the detriment of my good humor). His jokes, which are ubiquitous and tend to ramble, would welcome the addition of punch lines.
Tommy/Dopey (Dopey because he no talk-y.) This child used to be the sweetest most wonderful thing. Happy, content, easily convinced to do my bidding…but now that he is two, he is definitely broken. With limited language abilities (we are forever encouraging him to learn to speak English) he is often frustrated and frequently flies into rages that make Helen Keller’s early childhood look positively serene. His vocabulary tops out at about 50 words, even counting all three versions of nana (which means Santa, banana, and coincidentally, Nana.) His favorite command for me is “LET GO!” which is a catch-all phrase used whenever he doesn’t like what I am doing, such as sorting the laundry, or say, cutting up his waffles (oh, the indignity!) His brothers and sister still delight in everything he does, especially the naughty things, and he is obediently following in all of Josie’s monkey ways. All in all, it is fortunate that babies are cute and we are just hoping that age three will bring back the good ol’ days.
Here is the latest decent picture we have of all of us. It was taken last November at Disneyland (specifically California Adventure) and I think it sums up for each of us individually what we think of having our picture taken. This pic should be familiar to most of you, as it was featured in our latest Christmas Letter which detailed our Lewis and Clark-type trek across the plains of Colorado, Utah and Nevada in our quest to see Mickey and make the interior of our car even filthier than our previous testing had indicated was possible. For those of you who haven't yet received your Christmas Letter from us, know that it is through no fault of your own (sorry Aunt Barbara!) but strictly due to our own slacker issues. I think I'll include the letter below, not only to free up space in the "I feel guilty " bin in my brain but because it might actually belong here on this page. What luck!
So here it is. For those of you who have already read our Christmas Letter, you can stop right here. Congratulations! You're done!
CAUTION: Before beginning to read any Christmas letter this extensive and involved, please consider your patience level and overall tolerance for long-winded retellings of past events/conversations/thoughts and feelings, etc.
In a breathtaking lack of judgment by Pie, I was able to fool him into taking a week-long road trip to Disneyland after Thanksgiving. During our week abroad we ate nothing but fast food for 3 meals a day--the last few days of which the children were barely able to feign delight at any more paper-wrapped feasts of cheeseburgers, nuggets and fries. But our trials were well worth it as the park was pleasantly uncrowded and the wildfires took the week off. Since matching shirts at Disneyland are de rigueur, we were naturally the Seven Dwarfs (see photo). However, by that last 12 hour day in the car on the way home Happy, Doc, Bashful, Sleepy, Grumpy, Sneezy and Dopey had unfortunately morphed into Irritable, Crabby, Belligerent, Whiney, Smudgy, Snotty, and Stinky. We are slowly regaining our sanity, but our car may never fully recover.
In other news:
Pie/Happy (For obvious reasons, Pie wore the Happy shirt.) Proud recipient of the Adult Softball Men’s D-Rec, Fall 2007 1st Place plaque. This is the realization of a long held dream of his to dominate in the Highlands Ranch Tuesday Night League. Please do not make the uneducated mistake, like me, of pointing out that most of the other teams seem all liquored up to begin with and furthermore they appear to be well into their third trimester. Because that is not a Happy conversation. Instead just smack him on the behiney the next time you see him and say “Good job, winner!” When he is not out dominating at softball, or fouling others on the basketball court, or on a ride with his mountain biking buddies, or at the gym, or golfing with “potential clients”, he can be found putting in many long hours for his real estate career—a job he repeatedly assures me is his favorite job ever.
Julie/Doc (Doc is the bossy one, right?) I still can’t believe it was my idea to load up the car with the family and schlep all the way to Disneyland (those types of shenanigans are usually suggested by Pie, rejected by me) for a quick week of fun, way-too-short visits with friends and family and an expensive churro habit at the park. We had such a good time that occasionally I thought my head might explode as I lovingly asked the kids to stop having quite such a good time. When I am not planning crazy family getaways or forcing us all to wear matching penguin costumes for Halloween, I am most likely thinking about blogging my adventures as a mom on my very own blog (http://www.juliekonchar.blogspot.com/). It is probably my most productive hobby (considering other hobbies of mine include beginning but never quite finishing many complicated sewing projects and dodging the nightly chore of cooking dinner) and hey, it beats expensive therapy sessions. Check it out—some of you are mentioned in it!
Sid/Bashful (When Sid saw his Bashful shirt he remarked, “I’m really more embarrassed than bashful.”) Nearly 12 and in the 6th grade, Sid has begun middle school this year (middle school, a phrase that causes me to shudder involuntarily even as I type it) and is having a great time taking such exotic classes as Chinese (Mandarin) and Forensic Science, amidst the more pedestrian courses of P.E and Language Arts and the decidedly frumpy Pre Algebra. He is probably most excited about the broadening of his lunch choice horizon that this new stage in his life has brought and is delighted to eat egg rolls every day. (He very soberly told me that the reason he chose to take Chinese as his elective this year was because “Well, I have always loved Panda Express”)
Calvin/Sleepy (There was really never a question of who would be Sleepy) Calvin is so laid back that he would sit around all day and alternately read a book and nap if I let him. He is in 3rd grade and has perfected the art of “forgetting” to do his homework. Calvin has resolutely avoided learning to ride a bike and really couldn’t care less that the twins can leave him in their dust. Quiet and sweet and endearingly lazy, he is nice to have around to balance the more bold flavors of the other children, such as…
Josie/Grumpy (Petulant, Willful, Ill-Humored--while not Dwarfs--were also choices we considered.) At Disneyland she looked up at me and sweetly declared, “Mom, I just hate these parades”. No fan of anything “girlie”, when informed that her friend would be an Ice Fairy Princess for Halloween, Josie graciously responded with “HUH!” only to look at me later and say with utter disgust “An Ice Fairy Princess? I mean, come on!” She sees nothing odd in starting up a Boys Club with her school chum Liam and when asked if there were any girls allowed in she responded “Of course not! It’s a Boys Club!” (Josie does a lot of talking in italics) She does, at times, feel the loss of female companionship and recently tearfully confided, “I just need to learn how to be more loving to girls.” Although she and Jon turned six in August, we were informed that she would remain 5. “Growing up is a racket”, she said “you just have to do more stuff the older you get”. (Note: You can find directions for making Josie’s homemade golf balls along with a few of her other artistic endeavors, all of which are unpleasantly resistant to clean-up efforts, on my blog.)
Jon/Sneezy (Well, Jon is not any more inclined to sneeze than the rest of us, but somebody had to be Sneezy.) As Josie’s long-suffering twin, Jonny is often called upon to patiently witness his sister’s superhero antics. (He laments, “Josie, it’s not fair. You can do stuff even boys can’t do!”) He is thrilled to be a first-grader and each night before bed works on perfecting his penmanship by making many detailed notes of the day’s grievances. Jon surprised us all at Disneyland by going on all the roller coasters. His favorites were The Matterhorn and Thunder Mountain. He didn’t care much for Space Mountain, mainly because of the down parts. (As he explains it, “When the ride goes down, I go up”-- which I think we can all agree is unsettling in the least.) He still loves to dance and sing and make funny faces, and now proudly adds high-intensity whistling to his list of accomplishments (much to the detriment of my good humor). His jokes, which are ubiquitous and tend to ramble, would welcome the addition of punch lines.
Tommy/Dopey (Dopey because he no talk-y.) This child used to be the sweetest most wonderful thing. Happy, content, easily convinced to do my bidding…but now that he is two, he is definitely broken. With limited language abilities (we are forever encouraging him to learn to speak English) he is often frustrated and frequently flies into rages that make Helen Keller’s early childhood look positively serene. His vocabulary tops out at about 50 words, even counting all three versions of nana (which means Santa, banana, and coincidentally, Nana.) His favorite command for me is “LET GO!” which is a catch-all phrase used whenever he doesn’t like what I am doing, such as sorting the laundry, or say, cutting up his waffles (oh, the indignity!) His brothers and sister still delight in everything he does, especially the naughty things, and he is obediently following in all of Josie’s monkey ways. All in all, it is fortunate that babies are cute and we are just hoping that age three will bring back the good ol’ days.
2 comments:
Oh, it is delightful. I even reread the Christmas letter. It is though, like you said, rather ugly. cheers.
So when I got your text I said to wife "Hey wife go the internet and type in koncharmanyblessings.blogspot.com" She typed in koncharMINIblessings. It of course didn't work, but we got to thinking how cool it would be if your site had a Muppett Babies kind of vibe.
Just a thought. And a brief one at that.
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